Category: music

The New York Philharmonic has extended the contract of music director Lorin Maazel through the 2008-09 season, but also hired three prominent conductors to lead the orchestra regularly over the next three seasons, presumably placing them at the front of the race to be the next music director. The guest conductors are Riccardo Muti, David Robertson, and Alan Gilbert. Maazel has been a frequent target of critics since his appointment, but the musicians of the orchestra have publicly supported him, going so far as to issue an open request to the Phil’s board for the extension.

To Anthony Tommassini, the New York Phil’s two-pronged music director strategy “looks like a public relations move dressed up as an artistic policy… Is the Philharmonic feeling defensive as several major orchestras reap credit for having shaken up their institutions by appointing risk-taking artists as their music directors?”

The much-heralded launch of the European incarnation of Apple’s iTunes music download service was marred a bit yesterday when consumers signed up for the service, only to find that the company’s song selection is missing some key artists. The omissions, which include The Beatles, The White Stripes, and Franz Ferdinand, are due to Apple’s ongoing dispute with more than 800 independent record labels.

Michael Tilson Thomas could accurately be said to be the populist heir to Leonard Bernstein, a conductor of a major American orchestra who is as determined to make music accessible to the general public as he is to please the usual concertgoing crowd. His latest project with the San Francisco Symphony is a multi-part PBS documentary exploring how music is created, what it means, and who exactly those tuxedo-clad individuals frowning from the stage really are. An extensive web site and a companion radio documentary produced by Minnesota Public Radio will make Keeping Score the largest music/media project ever undertaken by a symphony orchestra.

Husband-and-wife musicians David Finckel, cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, and Wu Han, the pianist who used to run the La Jolla Festival, have been named the new artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Finckel and Han are also the co-directors of the new California summer festival Music@Menlo. The pair replace clarinetist David Shifrin at the helm of CSM.

The online song market is officially getting crowded in Europe, with the continental launch of Apple’s iTunes, which has sold 70 million songs in its first year of operation in the U.S. The cost of a single download from the European site will be 79p (€1.19), and a full album will cost £7.99 (€12). Meanwhile, media company OD2 announced plans to launch an online “penny jukebox” where listeners can hear songs for 1p apiece, although they cannot download the songs.

The US Congress is questioning a Smithsonian deal that brought the museum four Stradivarius violins for $50 million. “The high-profile gift, one of the museum’s largest ever, allowed its donor, Herbert R. Axelrod, a New Jersey businessman, to claim what his lawyer confirmed was a tax break of around $32 million. Mr. Axelrod fled to Cuba in March after being indicted on unrelated charges of tax evasion.”

“Australia’s Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and a local software designer have created ‘In The Chair,’ a cross between a karaoke machine and flight simulator, which allows you to play your favorite symphony via a computer, with a conductor on screen and tuition while you play… The orchestra sees ‘In The Chair’ as a tool to teach young musicians, build appreciation for orchestral music and help pay its bills. It hopes the product will eventually provide it with a steady $345,000 a year.”

An arson fire appears to have been set at the unfinished Strathmore Music Hall in suburban Washington, D.C., causing $500,000 of damage to a building which has already been beset by delays and cost overruns. When completed, the hall will be the second home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

The chorus members of Scottish Opera, who may lose their jobs as part of the proposed restructuring of the troubled organization, are publicly attacking music director Sir Richard Armstrong for his “inappropriate and elitist programming,” “prima donna tantrums,” and “systematic exclusion” of the chorus from programs. Staffers at the company are also voicing complaints about Armstrong’s extravagant spending on such seemingly unnecessary elements of staging as £270 Versace shoes, £700 mannequins, and top-of-the-line plasma screen monitors.