Category: music

The Philadelphia Orchestra announces an extension to music director Christophe Eschenbach’s contract through Aug. 31, 2008. “Players of the orchestra responded yesterday with a letter to orchestra chairman Richard L. Smoot stating that they were ‘deeply disappointed and disturbed to receive your announcement… that you had unilaterally determined to bypass the full Board of Directors and had failed to solicit the expertise of Orchestra members in making a decision that will impact the artistic integrity of the Philadelphia Orchestra for years to come’.”

That the chorus members of the Scottish Opera are about to lose their jobs has been common knowledge for weeks, ever since details of the Scottish Executive’s plan to “save” the company hit the press. But the chorus hadn’t had their fears officially confirmed until last night, when their chorus master informed them, 24 minutes before a performance, that they were all officially being laid off. The chorus has offered singing protests outside the company’s hall before and after concerts lately, and the petition they are circulating in an effort to reverse the Executive’s decision sports the signature of Scottish Opera’s own chief executive.

If a merger of music giants Sony and BMG goes ahead, the combined company will lead the music industry in market share. “Sony BMG would control 25.1% of the global record market – based on 2003 sales data – if they merged their record labels. That would put the joint venture in front of Universal Music, which saw its global share slip from 25.4% to 23.5%, according to figures from trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.”

Herbert Axelrod, the disgraced New Jersey philanthropist who sold the New Jersey Symphony a raft of rare Stradivarius violins and then “fled the country ahead of a federal tax fraud indictment two months ago, has been arrested in Germany on a U.S. fugitive warrant, authorities said yesterday.”

Public nsupport for Scottish Opera is rolling in. “Regular opera-goers will not be surprised by the support Scottish Opera has received from the public, because regular opera-goers have always been aware of the widespread appeal of opera. It is only those who don’t care for the art form, or have failed to grasp the affection in which a proud national institution is held, who may be a little stunned.”

“In a significant change in artistic authority, Philadelphia’s cutting-edge Relâche Ensemble will now be guided by two of its longtime musicians, easing out artistic and executive director Thaddeus Squire. In an announcement yesterday, flutist Michele Kelly and oboist/English hornist Lloyd Shorter were named co-artistic directors.” Squire, who has been credited with rescuing the eminent contemporary ensemble from near-collapse four years ago, had recently proposed expanding his authority, a change with which the musicians weren’t comfortable. Still, the split appears to have been an amicable one.

An unprecedented series of 250 concerts will be held by orchestras across the UK this fall, with the aim of promoting the orchestra as a still-relevant cultural force, as well as to promote certain instruments within the orchestra which have fallen out of favor with young British musicians. Among the much-maligned-or-ignored instruments to be highlighted are the tuba, the bassoon, the double bass, and of course, the butt of all orchestra jokes, the viola.

In a stunning development in the ongoing melodrama enveloping Scottish Opera, a secret document obtained by a newspaper shows that the Scottish Arts Council had a plan in place to eliminate the company completely “and replace it with a new organisation run by a skeleton staff.” Under the terms of the plan, which was concocted last summer, even as the company was preparing to stage its wildly successful Ring Cycle, the entire orchestra and chorus of Scottish Opera would have been dismissed, and a new group of administrators would have commissioned future productions on an ad hoc basis. The public release of the plan may well cost some Scottish government overseers their jobs, and the fallout is already beginning in Glasgow.

It is now clear that the Scottish Opera mess was created not by simple indifference, but by a deadly combination of bureaucratic bungling, shortsighted cost-cutting, and a stubborn unwillingness from individuals on all sides even to look for a compromise. “The impression now emerging is that powerful figures in the arts council were more than willing to let the Opera die – and that the Executive, confronted by sweeping redundancies, opted for a political fudge.”

“Scotland’s arts world suffered another setback yesterday when Craig Armstrong, one of the country’s leading composers, resigned from the country’s flagship arts body just days after its membership was announced… In what will be regarded as a serious problem for James Boyle, the head of the commission, the composer resigned after discovering he was the only working artist on the board. He also condemned the Scottish Executive’s treatment of Scottish Opera, and called for artists to get together to save the company from the extensive job losses announced last week.”