Category: music

The BBC has broadcast John Cage’s 4’33” – his famous work that includes no instrumental notes. “Despite having no notes to play, the musicians tuned up and then turned pages of the score after each of the three “movements” specified by the composer. The silence was broken at times by coughing and rustling sounds from the audience, who marked the end of the performance with enthusiastic applause.”

A concert at the Vatican featuring the Pittsburgh Symphony and an international cast of performers was performed for the Pope with the purpose of fostering understanding between the world’s major religious faiths. “The inter-faith theme of the concert was echoed among the performers – a mixed choir consisting of singers from the London Philharmonic, from Turkey, from the Pope’s own home town of Krakow in Poland and from Pittsburgh in the United States. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was under the baton of Gilbert Levine, an American who used to direct the Krakow Symphony Orchestra and who is a personal friend of the Pope.”

The Experience Music Project in Seattle lays off 129 employees, among rumors of further downsizing. “It is the third time that the museum at the foot of the Space Needle has eliminated employees in January – 46 people were cut last year and 124 were laid off in 2002.” The $240 million museum devloted to music, designed by Frank Gehry, has only been open since 2000.

Jerry Springer the Opera has been nominated for eight Olivier Awards in London. The nominations include an unusual commendation: “The 20 actors in the line-up of the sell-out show at the Royal National Theatre were jointly shortlisted for ‘best performance in a supporting role in a musical’ in the final stage of the contest to be concluded on February 22.”

European Union noise regulations for workers might mean that symphony orchestras will have to quiet down. “The intriguing issue, though, is whether the directive will impose changes in the repertoire itself. The London Symphony Orchestra says that this is a real possibility. Loud works like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler may have to be scheduled more rarely and surrounded by quieter pieces. Look up the European commission’s website and you will find a section mocking the idea that Beethoven’s Ninth symphony – the EU’s anthem – might even fall foul of the noise at work directive. But the idea is not so far-fetched.”

Sales of Country Music declined in the US last year by a whopping 10 percent. That compares to an overall decline in music sales of one percent. “Country album sales fell from 76.9 million to 69.3 million units – a 9.8 percent drop, according to figures released Monday by Nielsen SoundScan, a group that monitors music sales.” Music executives blame the lack of new blockbuster releases in 2003.

James Levine is taking over the Boston Symphony next season. And he’s taking the orchestra in a direction it hasn’t been. “What is new in Levine’s programming for the orchestra is an emphasis on the whole of the 20th century, not just the first third. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartok appear, as they have for decades — but so do midcentury figures as diverse as Gershwin and Messiaen, and such late-century masters as Ligeti, Lutoslawski, and Elliott Carter. The 21st century is represented on Levine’s programs by new works from Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, and Boston’s John Harbison.”

For the first time in the UK an orchestra will be performing John Cage’s silent work 4’33” on the radio. “Cage’s seminal work, 4’33”, which consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, will be the highlight of a concert on Radio 3 at 7.25pm. In readiness for the performance, Radio 3 bosses will have to switch off their emergency back-up system – designed to cut in when there is an unexpected silence on air.”

As a major festival of the music of John Cage begins, musical luminaries talk about Cage’s influence on music. “I do believe the future, let’s say 25 to 50 years from now, will place Cage as the most important composer of the 20th century. This is not sticking my neck out.”

Experts predict that within three years CD singles will no longer be made. “With broadband becoming far more common, it is easier to simply download a track than go out and buy it, the industry argues.”