Category: music

“The sound of 90 pounds of finely tuned cucumbers, leeks, potatoes, radishes, peppers and other vegetables entertained a German audience at a weekend concert by the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra. The nine-piece orchestra plays a range of original compositions on instruments constructed from vegetables — including a flute made from a carrot, a saxophone carved out of a cucumber and a pumpkin converted into a double bass.”

Last week a Scottish government official leaked word to the press about a funding deal for Scottish Opera. “The deal would see the cash-strapped company given a final £5m bailout on condition that it overhauls its working practices, making chorus members part-time and relinquishing the running of its base in Glasgow, the Theatre Royal. The leak angered Scottish Opera officials and the proposal dismayed the arts community. The first minister was accused of having a hand in the story.” And now the leak itself has turned into a story…

Is London the capital of the classical music world? That’s the claim by the city’s musicians who point to the city’s busy concert scenes and its five symphony orchetras.

“Few pop idols survive changing fashions unscathed, but Glen Miller and Fats Waller seem to have done just that. One might have expected the renown of Glenn Miller, a hard-nosed martinet who devised the big-band sound most associated with reveries of the nineteen-forties, to fade with memories of the war in which he lost his life. Instead, critics who once denigrated him as a humorless purveyor of diluted swing, banal novelties, and saccharine vocals are reassessing a sound that clings relentlessly to the collective memory. The ongoing preëminence of Thomas (Fats) Waller is perhaps less of a surprise, given the dazzle of his pianism, the thumping pleasures of his small band, and the frequent hilarity of his satire.”

“Is folk music getting its political hackles up? It has often been the soundtrack of American protest, from the labor movement of the early 20th century through the civil rights and antiwar movements of the ’50s and ’60s. Now, in the midst of our longest and most controversial war since Vietnam, is history repeating itself? There are definite signs that this summer’s folk-festival crowds may hear more political songs than they have in many years.”

America is a tough place to be a music director, and even some of the world’s greatest conductors eventually decide that the constant strain is just more work than it’s worth. Case in point: Mariss Jansons, who this weekend conducted his final performances at the helm of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. “Many things didn’t work out the way he would have liked or else Jansons wouldn’t be leaving so soon — after only seven years. But he is a class act, a committed servant of the music and above all a good person.” Jansons leaves the PSO an ensemble transformed, but with an uncertain artistic future.

Acoustical engineering is an especially tricky business. Just ask anyone who has been in charge of designing the sound of a major concert hall over the last half-century. “Over the last 50 years, more computing power has been applied to acoustic data than ever before, but most big halls have turned out to be dry and pale frames for music.” In fact, as acoustic science has advanced, concert halls have arguably regressed, sounding more like glorified loudspeakers or hi-fi sets than chambers of orchestral sound. Perhaps the problem is the desire to build a hall that can be all things to all people, or the corruption of our ears and minds by recorded sound. But whatever the problem, one thing seems clear: they just don’t build ’em like they used to.

One year ago, the musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra agreed to a new contract which would fundamentally change the way the ensemble operates. The position of music director will soon be eliminated in favor of a network of “artistic partners” who the SPCO hopes will bring star power and musical expertise to the organization. “Perhaps even more significantly, decision-making, formerly the responsibility of top management and the music director, would now be the work of two committees, each composed of three musicians and two management personnel, a ratio that puts musicians in the driver’s seat.” The rest of the American orchestra industry is watching St. Paul closely, if skeptically.

The Australian government is undertaking a national study of the country’s orchestras and opera companies, to determine whether the current funding formula is capable of supporting struggling arts scenes in cities and states across the continent. Of particular concern is the Melbourne music scene, where Opera Australia has steadily reduced the number of annual productions from 11 to 6 in the last decade. The last time such a review was conducted, the review team recommended that Melbourne’s two orchestras be merged, and only an outcry from the local arts community prevented the merger.

Classical music organizations are finding ways to use Internet2, the next generation of internet, “with enough broadband capacity to transmit huge quantities of data, including CD-quality sound and DVD-quality images, at as much as 250 megabytes per second (more than 4,000 times the rate of a standard dial-up modem; more than 800 times that of a cable modem). The New World Symphony is using it a lot, setting up coaching sessions, lessons and other interactions with top-flight professionals around the country.”