Category: music

Sony and McDonald’s are discussing a music deal. “The two companies have been hammering out the details of a pact in which McDonald’s would provide fast-food diners with free songs from Sony’s online music store, Sony Connect.”

This year’s SXSW fest in Austin Texas was a raucously independent event. “While few of the 1,261 acts booked to perform during the conference’s four nights of showcases would object to selling a million albums, the festival’s tone was one of modesty and realism as participants shared advice on how to sustain a career with CD sales in the thousands, not the millions, and with a full calendar of performances rather then video shoots. Most bands were more concerned with having gas money to get to the next show than they were with the major labels’ bugaboo, Internet downloading.”

The Colorado Symphony has narrowed its list of candidates to replace Marin Alsop as music director to four…

Itzhak Perlman makes his debut as conductor with the New York Philharmonic. “There are a few things to be said for Mr. Perlman as a conductor. Whatever the flaws in his conducting technique, his inherent musicality goes a long way in communicating what he wants. Clearly he is not doing this half-heartedly, as some soloists have.”

Conventional wisdom has it that music downloading has damaged the recording business. But some independent record stores are “finding that file sharing can help create a buzz online that can lead to more sales, according to a panel of independent music store owners who spoke at the South by Southwest Music Conference & Festival here Friday.”

Last year, when Luciano Pavarotti canceled two performances at the Metropolitan Opera, it looked like his career at the Met was done. Met impressario Joseph Volpe intimated as such. But there the tenor was on the Met stage two weeks ago singing his farewells. So how did it happen?

The Sydney Opera House is getting bomb blast barriers for its entryways. “Police and security agencies fear a truck or car bomb could be driven into one of Sydney’s most recognisable landmarks. The building has been identified by ASIO as one of Australia’s top terrorist targets along with the rail network and government buildings in Sydney.”

The end of the music business? Not hardly, says Mark Cuban. “If you’re a music consumer, this is the glory days. It’s a golden age if you’re not trying to protect your arcane business practices. Instead of listening to music lovers who want to take the path of least resistance to hear their tunes, the labels are trying to get you to do it their way. There are a lot of untapped opportunities that are not being utilized.”

“This is going to be the most important year for the British music industry in nearly a decade. Many of its challenges have already been documented: from expensive Pop Idol flops to the effect on CD sales of illegal internet downloads. But the real problem is that the UK business is in danger of becoming nothing more than a regional office for the rest of the world. Where we used to amaze and confuse the competition with our maverick, sulky, ingenious pop star exports, the past year has seen the UK left in charge of the stationery cupboard.”

When the Pacifica Quartet came to perform at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit this week, they were specifically asked not to perform the Elliott Carter quartet they had planned. Why? Fear of “alienating” subscribers. “Never mind that Carter’s Fifth (1995) is a brilliant work in the composer’s late style, muscular but communicative, full of spry dialogue and texture. Never mind that the Pacifica’s reputation is based partly on its passionate advocacy of Carter. Never mind that removing Carter to placate a few reactionary patrons drives a stake through the heart of the society’s artistic integrity and tightens the noose more securely around the future of classical music. If you do not play the music of today, to paraphrase composer Gunther Schuller, there will be no masterpieces for tomorrow.”