Category: music

In London, “organizing using the Web, cell phones and instant messaging, upstart guitar bands are staging secret, spontaneous concerts at unconventional venues in the latest online music craze, dubbed ‘guerrilla gigging’.”

Last month brought reports that a man had “bought an old suitcase at an Australian flea market for $36 (U.S.) and found it filled with memorabilia and hours of unreleased Beatles songs. Speculation is rampant that the suitcase contains the secret stash of late Beatles associate Mal Evans, which has been missing for years. Except, of course, it’s not true. The stuff in the suitcase dated from 1995, 20 years after his death.”

What role do critics play in the musical infrastructure? Justin Davidson: “Few critics discover new talents. We do not, by and large, conduct the equivalent of artists’ studio visits. Mostly we rely on presenters and performers to sift through the mountains of novelty and put their own reputations at the service of an unknown composer’s. Often those people do a very good job. By the time a composer’s work is being performed at Carnegie Hall or at Disney Hall, that person has likely put in some time in lofts and basements.”

Tim Page writes that a new autobiography, due out shortly, will be “one of the most talked-about musical books of the fall season; it will certainly be one of the nastiest. Herbert Breslin, who has served as publicity agent or manager to a cast of clients that includes all four of the aforementioned artists, as well as Marilyn Horne, Itzhak Perlman, Leonard Slatkin and the late Georg Solti, has written his autobiography, in collaboration with New York Times music critic Anne Midgette.”

eBay opens a new music download store, but the first songs listed for sale weren’t owned by those posting them. Hmnnn. “Count eBay as a definite ‘maybe’ in the rush to digital music sales, placing the auction giant alongside Net retail powerhouse Amazon.com as one of the slowest in the race to forge new digital download businesses.”

Dentists in Canada are required to pay license fees if they play music from their iPods through their offices (and Big Music is enforcing it). When dentists heard about it, they wondered, “Is this for real? Some were bemused, some were, I guess you could say, upset. We were just caught off guard.’ Those offices that pipe music through speakers are now paying about $100 to $200 per year, depending on the square footage of the office. Dentists do not need to pay a fee if they play AM or FM radio in separate rooms for individual use.”

Pianist Alfred Brendel is allowing his Proms concert this summer to be broadcast. “This will be the last time that a Brendel performance will be heard in a simultaneous relay. ‘I stopped live broadcasting two years ago but it was not trumpeted out. Microphones make me nervous. I have had microphones on stage at the Festival Hall for many years during my recitals, but the concerts were recorded, not broadcast live. There are quite a few of my colleagues who never do these things, even younger ones, so it’s a matter of feeling that I have now reached a certain age and I can do without the radio’.”

“Some people are able to draw neat arguments around the consolidation of the music industry and its threat to music. I wish I could. I understand it in a practical sense. But then I succumb to the music and let it colour the whole argument, and I wonder if there isn’t another picture some might be missing. I see the music industry as one thing, and then I see Trenchtown rude boys, or Monterey hippies, or late-eighties ravers — pick your movement. These were people so committed to their music, they couldn’t have cared less what the industry happened to be dictating at the moment. Going against dictates was the whole idea.”

In an attempt to “sex up” the classical Grammophone Awards, a celebrity endorsement ad campaign will be mounted – translation: celeb endorsement ads for classical albums. “The celebrities, who have not been named, are being drawn from theatre, TV, film and the arts. All are said to be “passionate” about classical music. They are expected to appear in TV slots on BBC Four, as well as on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 3, in advance of the prize being presented on 1 October.”

As the Philadelphia Orchestra’s contract negotiations spiral into an embarassingly public spat between managers and musicians, the orchestra’s embattled president, Joseph Kluger, has been forced to admit that some of the statements the management made on a website intended to turn public sentiment against the musicians were inaccurate. Kluger and board chairman Richard Smoot had claimed that rental costs on office space for the orchestra were unanticipated and impossible to predict; they had also claimed that the orchestra’s second harpist performs only three concerts per year. In fact, the rental costs were always known, and the harpist in question plays “16 of 30 subscription weeks, 19 single concerts, and has played or will play nine of 28 summer concerts.”