Category: music

There are hundreds of thousands of choruses and choirs in North America. “For all the developments in symphonic and operatic music in recent decades, choral singing remains the most pervasive musical activity in the country, whether in churches, schools or concert halls.” So what is the allure of opening your mouth to make noise?

“The wary romance between Frank Zappa and the classical world was never fully consummated. It also never really ended. A decade after his death, Zappa is still a surprise guest at concerts by classical musicians, who can rent his published works almost as easily as they can music by Richard Strauss or John Williams. Some treat Zappa as a naughty kindred spirit, while others seem to deploy his works as props for the construction of a hip image.”

Sam Bergman and the Minnesota Orchestra perform in Leeds’ Town Hall, and it’s a terrifying experience. “It’s a Big Loud Room, is what I’m saying here, and Big Loud Rooms (hereafter referred to as BLRs) are probably the hardest places for an orchestra to play, since we depend on our ability to hear each other to stay together. The overall sound of an orchestra playing in a BLR can actually be quite effective from the audience’s point of view, since the acoustic can obscure some minor mishaps which might stick out in a drier space, but from the perspective of a single musician, it can be just terrifying.”

As rap music became more commercial, it sounded more produced. So in the spirit of “keepin’ it real”, many of today’s performers are eschewing the “fixing” of things like pitch and tone. And guess what? There’s a lot of offkey singing…

Recently a Florida judge sentenced a man who was playing his music too loud to listen to opera. Andrew Mueller believes this is enlightened thinking: “It is time, surely, to update the legal code in this country, to enable judges to sentence the noisy to a punishment that fits their crime. Few things are as distressing to the spirit as music we don’t wish to hear.”

Conductor Daniel Barenboim paid close attention to the music as Chicago Symphony music director. But he was unwilling to be the orchestra’s ambassador to the community. “In shirking the role of community ombudsman and de facto fundraiser that the CSO board had envisioned for Barenboim when large deficits are an almost yearly occurrence, he created an untenable position for the institution, in the view of the trustees. Rather than face compromise or divert himself from his main concern — making music — the controversial, 61-year-old musician chose a graceful exit.” So what kind of director does the famed orchestra need?

Sam Bergman on tour in Europe with the Minnesota Orchestra: “It rarely occurs to musicians that conductors must feel the same pressures that we do, and in considerably greater measure. But if the expectations were high for this orchestra on this tour, they were stratospheric for Osmo, who is being asked to prove his reputation on a global stage with an American orchestra, in the very first year of his tenure with us. Now, Osmo is not the type of conductor who buckles in the face of pressure, and he’s been more or less rock solid on the podium throughout the trip. But where his demeanor in the early rehearsals was fairly stern and even a bit domineering, we now see him cracking jokes and trading quips with the musicians during the evening touch-ups.”

For decades, the pop music album has been considered a work of art in its own right, at its best mixing songs into a coherent and interesting whole. But more and more critics are suggesting that the album as an artform is dead. “To say the least, the idea of what constitutes a proper album is unravelling, and the artists, as always, are causing a lot of that change themselves.”

Conductor Daniel Barenboim has told Chicago Symphony officials he’ll leave the orchestra after 17 years as music director. “Barenboim, 61, cited the toll of travel between Chicago and his home base in Berlin and the increasing “non-artistic” demands being made on music directors of U.S. orchestras to expand audiences as key factors in his decision.”

Why is Barenboim leaving the Chicago Symphony? One official suggested that “there have been ongoing conflicts with the administration and trustees regarding the ‘non-artistic’ side of his directorship, including questions about his taking a firmer hand in fundraising, community outreach and maintaining a more regular community presence.”