Category: music

Lucian Pavarotti on tenors singing pop music: “Some say the word ‘pop’ is derogatory and means ‘not important’ – I do not accept that. If the word ‘classical’ is the word to mean ‘boring’, I do not accept that either. There is good and bad music. With one Three Tenors concert, we sang to one-and-a-half billion people. I don’t think Caruso sang to more than 100,000 people in his entire career.”

The English National Opera will produce La Boheme this summer in the middle of Trafalgar Square. The production is expected to draw an audience of 8,000. Tens of thousands more are likely to spill over on to surrounding pavements, the steps of the National Gallery and any space near enough to catch the amplified sound. La Bohème is the first opera to be put on in the square, an event that will trump the impresario Raymond Gubbay’s recent success in staging the same work in the Albert Hall.”

“Welsh bass baritone Bryn Terfel won the prizes for best album and male artist at this year’s Classical Brit awards. Italian opera star Cecilia Bartoli was named best female artist at the event, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall. British conductor Sir Simon Rattle won orchestral album of the year for his recording of Beethoven’s Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.”

How is it that classical “crossover” has come to dominate the classical music business? Indeed, most of the artists and recordings that dominate the classical list these days are crossover…

Another conductor controversy has broken out in a small North American city. This time the showdown is in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where the board of the La Crosse Symphony has voted narrowly to dismiss conductor Amy Mills, after musicians in the orchestra complained bitterly about her musicianship. But some board members are furious at the way the vote was conducted, saying that two uncounted proxy votes in favor of Mills were not counted because they would have swung the vote in favor of retaining her past 2005.

“The power of music to convey a certain emotion can now be predicted by a mathematical model, an Australian psychologist has found.”

Sales of music in the US are up 9 percent this year, and some recording execs are predicting a recovery in the global music business: “If this is the result of a combined formula of anti-piracy lawsuits knocking people off file-sharing sites and the massive adoption of legal services and a spike in CD sales then it could be good news for everyone.”

The Phoenix Symphony makes all sorts of new fans and sells a record number of tickts as it presents a “Lord of the Rings” symphony, taken from Howard Shore’s movie soundtrack.

The Kansas City Symphony has narrowed its search for a music director to three candidates, and it’s clear that standing in front of musicians isn’t the only thing the orchestra is looking for…

James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra finish up their Carnegie season on a down note. Why? “It’s futile to speculate on whether any of this reflects the effects of recent public discussion of long-standing concerns about unexplained tremors in Mr. Levine’s left arm and leg and whether tension was created in the orchestra by its members’ willingness to voice their doubts in The New York Times in an article on May 1. The only effect one can state with certainty is the huge outpouring of love and support from the audience every time Mr. Levine conducts. The only reason to raise the issue is that one wants to find a reason for the poor quality beyond simple fatigue at the end of a long season.”