Category: music

“Even though the operagoing public today seems more open to new works than it has in decades, the repertory in most houses remains overwhelmingly traditional. Major commissions are rare. So even composers with no prior experience are under pressure to come up with an effective work right off the bat.” That’s why New York City Opera’s annual showcase for new operas “provides composers and librettists with an invaluable chance to assess how a work might come across.”

Should Scottish Opera downsize and restructure? To decide, the Scottish government brought in consultants. “Figures from the Scottish Arts Council reveal that earlier this year the body handed a grant for £195,830 to the company’s board to pay for lawyers, management experts and accountants, brought in to advise on a restructuring plan.”

“Jie Chen, an 18-year-old pianist from China who moved to the United States with her mother five years ago, won first prize in the second biennial International Piano-e-Competition in Minneapolis. She received $25,000 and a Yamaha Disklavier (an electronic keyboard) valued at $75,000, along with a recital at Alice Tully Hall in New York and a CD on the Ten Thousands Lakes label. Pianists from 12 countries, from 15 to 31 years old, competed.”

A concert-goer takes a spin with a hand-held electronic Concert Companion at a New York Philharmonic concert. “It was amazing, in fact: to my untrained eye and ear, the text invariably arrived at exactly the right moment. And there was something exciting, or at least satisfying, about reading that the concertmaster traditionally plays the solo and glancing up to see said concertmaster sawing away.” And yet, there were some problems…

“The future of Scottish Opera was hanging in the balance last night after members of the board failed to agree to an Executive-sponsored rescue package. The board meeting had been expected to reach a decision on cost-cutting moves including possible job losses.”

Hundreds of hopeful singers lined up Thursday to audition for a chance to sing with the Boston Pops. “In its own version of “American Idol,” the orchestra is holding open auditions Thursday and Friday to find a vocalist who will sing in front of 500,000 people expected at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River. The only requirements are that applicants be over 18 and not have agents or recording contracts.”

How to preserve old vinyl and wax cylinder recordings? “Researchers using optical-scanning equipment have made exquisitely detailed maps of the grooves of such recordings. By simulating how a stylus moves along those contours, the team has reproduced the encoded sounds with high fidelity.”

The 2nd International Piano e-Competition is underway in the Twin Cities, with the final six contestants set to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra later this week. The competition was started by a professor at the University of Minnesota who was disgusted by the nepotism inherent in many international competitions, and in addition to the unusual move of barring the students of competition judges from competing, he found a timely hook to get the press and public interested in his event: all the contestants play on a high-tech piano which can store the memory of their performances for online streaming and even remote judging. In fact, every round of the competition can be viewed live online.

The Scottish government, known as the Executive, should bear the blame for the current crisis at Scottish Opera, according to one UK paper. “The way the executive has treated Scottish Opera, denying it the funding necessary to be a company of worldwide renown while, instead, reviewing it to potential death in a wrong-headed switch of priorities, is symptomatic of its approach to the arts sector generally.”

The Florida Orchestra, which has spent the last couple of seasons in dire financial straits, announced this week that it has received two donations totalling a half million dollars, which will be placed in a community trust. The orchestra is also losing one of its top executives: operations manager and artistic administrator Jeff Bram has announced that he will leave Tampa Bay to become artistic administrator of the Utah Symphony.