Category: music

Summer concert tickets aren’t selling in the US. “People aren’t buying tickets. For whatever reason, ticket sales dried up around the middle of April. According to a Pollstar analysis of the top 50 shows through June, gross revenue was up 11 percent to $753.5 million, but ticket sales were down 2 percent to 12.8 million, with prices up 13 percent. The average price of a ticket shot up from $26.05 in 1995 to $50.35 om 2003, according to Pollstar. Ticket prices have gone crazy — very, very, very high, and nobody knows how to change that tide.”

Conductor Mark Elder re-ups as music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. “Elder, music director since 2000, is now acknowledged as the conductor who has probably established the closest rapport with the Hallé since Sir John Barbirolli led it to glory in the postwar years. He has won critical acclaim for his concerts in the Bridgewater Hall and for his recordings on the Hallé’s own label.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s negotiations over a new musicians’ contract is contentious. Management wants to cut costs: “Among the options on the table is slashing the minimum salary for musicians by 10 percent, to about $95,000. Another is reducing the orchestra’s size by 10 percent.” The orcehstra also wants to do away with practices such as “paying players 701/2 and older both their $100,000-plus salaries and their $50,000-plus pensions. Management says there are 13 players in that category.”

Conductor James Conlon is giving up being chief conductor of the Paris Opera for a life of guest conducting. “A stocky and energetic 54-year-old, he says that he feels wistful about leaving Paris, but that he is happy to trade administrative duties for the freedom of wandering America (and occasionally Europe) as a guest conductor.”

“What is going on at the English National Opera? Is this much-loved company, having been wracked by disasters – the troubling resignation of an admired general director two years ago; a deficit of £1.3m for 2001-2; an emergency rescue package from Arts Council England; a chorus on strike – getting back on track? Or are stormy times just around the corner? The answer depends on who you ask.”

AJ Blogger Drew McManus says that the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new web page offering a supposedly impartial “informational update” on contract negotiations with the orchestra’s musicians is full of hypocrisy and hyperbole. “It’s almost as though [board chairman Richard] Smoot wants to force the musicians to go on strike. And when that happens, no one wins. Yes, changes need to occur, but this is the absolutely worst possible way to draw them out. This is a clear sign that the Philadelphia community and the classical music community at large should call for the resignation of Richard Smoot as Chairman of the Board and Joe Kluger as President.”

Terry Teachout comes away impressed with Costello’s skill with an orchestra. “It’s not cut-rate Prokofiev or Bernstein, but a lively, ingratiating piece of mainstream modernism, with decorous snippets of symphonic rock and jazz thrown in from time to time to spice things up.”

Alex Ross concedes that Costello’s score shows evidence of technical skill. But he was deeply bored: “After half an hour, I did something I’ve never done in twelve years of reviewing concerts in New York: I got out a book and started to read. There was nothing for my brain to grasp on to — I felt like I was clawing the air and falling.”

The on-stage acoustic of Frank Gehry’s new Jay Pritzker Pavilion in downtown Chicago is a vast improvement over anything the Grant Park Orchestra has known before. Musicians can hear each other, and the overall quality of sound on the stage is something previously thought to be impossible on an outdoor stage. But for the audience, the acoustic “remains a work in progress. Indeed, the quality, depth and presence of sound still varies dramatically from place to place; ironically, the sonics are best at the back of the seating area and on the first half of the lawn.”

The Liverpool Philharmonic has decided not to renew music director Gerard Schwarz’s co ntract. “The Philharmonic board’s decision to terminate the existing contract two years before Liverpool becoming Capital of Culture has been condemned by politicians and funders.” A few months ago the orchestra’s musicians voted not to renew the contract.