Category: music

“It is easy, when meeting Seán Doran, to grasp why English National Opera sees him as its potential saviour. He only has to open his mouth and you feel he has the gift of the blarney. When you listen to him expounding, in a lilting Irish accent, his visions for the future of opera, the least you can do is nod and agree…”

Apparently some British church organists are having fun with their church service performances, spicing them up with tunes from decidedly secular fare – from Monty Python to pop tunes. “The tunes – reported to range from the EastEnders theme to Dambusters at a Remembrance Day service – are usually disguised and intended to amuse only those in the know.”

Simon Rattle and the Philadelphia Orchestra dedicated Saturday night’s performance of Barber’s Adagio for Strings to Robert Harth, Carnegie Hall’s director who died Friday. The orchestra was in the middle of the performance when a man in the audience stood up, having a heart attack. After the man was taken out, the music started again, and another audience member came up sick…

After recently giving the Philadelphia Orchestra $50 million for its endowment, Leonore Annenberg comes through with another $15 million for an endowment for the Academy of Music concert hall, owned by the orchestra. “The gift from the Annenberg Foundation is for the Academy’s endowment, to be placed there in perpetuity, generating income each year for capital improvements to the 147-year-old landmark.”

Conventional wisdom says that orchestras must find energetic young conductors to revitalize the art form. But as a series of recent performances in New York demonstrate, some of the best, most assured performances come from the most well-established conductors…

Debates have raged for years about whether it’s okay for performers to lip-synch while performing live. “But now, after decades of derision and outrage, audiences are warming up to the fakery.” Indeed, some fan “not only don’t mind a little gimmickry — they prefer it. They may have no choice: live pop performances rely on an ever-more-intricate mix of live music, prerecorded sound and high-tech tricks, including new programs that produce the same flawless sound as a lip-synched performance, even if the person singing is jumping around, hanging upside-down or just plain out of tune.”

Observers of the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center have been watching to see the repercussions of the Philharmonic’s aborted move to Carnegie Hall. “Lincoln Center had been widely expected to make the orchestra pay a price for its flirtation with Carnegie Hall. Instead the center appears to be the one trying to make amends, and the Philharmonic, rather than being weakened and chastened, continues to show a strong hand.”

The Sydney Opera House may be an architectural icon, but its acoustics have needed upgrading. How to accomplish it? One plan would be to lower the floor. “It is understood the project would cost more than $300 million but would vastly improve the theatre. A lowered floor would mean more cubic metres of volume, which in turn would make a huge difference to the acoustics of the Opera Theatre.”

The scandal that enveloped the Boys’ Choir of Harlem this year is a serious problem not just for the choir and its school, but for the surrounding community. Since its founding, the school has been one of a handful of institutions which has refused to give up on Harlem’s underprivileged youth, and has consistently turned out students who go on to academic and professional success elsewhere. But on top of that, the organization has created a respected musical ensemble where many thought one could never emerge.

“It is easy, when meeting Seán Doran, to grasp why English National Opera sees him as its potential saviour. He only has to open his mouth and you feel he has the gift of the blarney. When you listen to him expounding, in a lilting Irish accent, his visions for the future of opera, the least you can do is nod and agree. That’s exactly what the embattled ENO board did last year when it appointed Doran as artistic director and chief executive. The question now is whether he can turn vision into reality.” Lately, the ENO has been forced to accept one delay after another in the reopening of its home at the London Coliseum, but Doran remains upbeat about the future.