Category: music

David Blunkett is a sportswriter who has had to endure more singing of England’s national anthem than anyone ought to have to, he writes. What a sad little tune, without much redeeming value. “God Save The Queen offers neither entertainment nor cultural commentary… it stubbornly refuses to transcend the 18th-century stolidity of its four-square rhythms and trite melody.” Maybe it’s time for a competition for a new national song?

With the Detroit Symphony having just announced a nearly $2 million deficit, the orchestra’s president and its new chairman seem to be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the city’s philanthropic community, as well as at the feet of their own musicians. President Emil Kang suggests that the current model for American orchestras may simply no longer be viable, and that solutions will not come easily. To the musicians of the DSO, who have already been asked to reopen their contract early, these may be fighting words. To the city’s corporate leaders, it will either be seen as a call to action or a desperate attempt to shame them into giving to an organization in trouble.

Tim Page was looking forward to the Washington debut of the Iraqi National Symphony. He’s still looking forward to it. According to Page, last night’s performance, which was callously manipulated by politicians and press alike, and in which the INS was mixed in with members of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra, wasn’t a concert so much as a cynical photo-op for the Bush administration. “The State Department flew 60 musicians the 6,200 miles from Baghdad to Washington to play for less than an hour in tandem with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many traveled so far to do so little.”

Tim Smith admits that there was “a certain air of propaganda” about the Iraqi National Symphony’s Washington debut, but he says that the music-making won out in the end. “The considerable variance in technical ability among the Iraqi players, who range in age from 23 to 72, was unmistakable, but so was the commitment and energy behind the notes… As the music gently unfolded, it was impossible not to think of all those, Iraqi and American, who have died – and will continue to die – in this conflict. But the evening was most about the future, the promise of what a reinvigorated cultural life could bring to a country that has seen so much pain.”

During the various orchestral crises of the last few years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a shining example of fiscal and artistic balance, having planned for an economic downturn which few others saw coming, and having posted surpluses as other orchestras ran deficits in the millions. But even the SFS isn’t immune to a 4-year economic slump, and this week, it announced a small deficit of $135,945 on a budget of more than $50 million. Most American orchestras would be overjoyed to run so slightly in the red (or to have a budget that even approaches $50 million,) and San Francisco executives say they aren’t overly concerned about it.

David Robertson, a 45-year-old American who has been among the rising stars of the conducting world in recent years, has been appointed the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, beginning in fall 2005. The SLSO has been without a chief conductor since last April, when Hans Vonk was forced to step down because of severe health problems. The appointment is something of a public relations coup for the orchestra: the SLSO came close to bankruptcy last year before making a good recovery, and Robertson had been on the reported shortlist of nearly every major orchestra searching for a music director over the last few years.

When Loren Maazel was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the press groaned openly that the 70-year-old conductor was too boring, didn’t fit the Phil’s sound well, and would surely be only a stopgap director, given his advanced age. But at a board meeting this week, several Philharmonic musicians were invited to make a presentation, during which they rallied behind Maazel, calling him “brilliant,” and asking that the board not rush to replace him when his contract expires in 2006. The musicians clearly enjoy working with Maazel, but their support also appears to have much to do with the dearth of potential candidates to replace him at the moment.

The Wall Street Journal sends a reporter to meet with members of the Iraqi National Symphony during their visit to Washington DC. A small, but significant problem, though: how to get through the layers of officials to actually meet with any musicians? After a month of futile trying, Ayad Rahim finally gets a few minutes with three musicians, but nothing substantive. So much for “cultural exchange.”

Hot off the opening of a new $60 million home, the Detroit Symphony “will announce an operating deficit of nearly $2 million on a $28-million budget at its annual meeting of members on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the orchestra’s finances.”

Is Chicago Lyric Opera director Andrew Davis shopping for a new job? “Last weekend, the 59-year-old Davis squeezed Friday night and Sunday afternoon performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony into a schedule that included conducting Wagner’s five-hour “Siegfried” in Chicago Saturday night. Pittsburgh’s music director, Mariss Jansons, will be leaving his post at the close of this season after seven years, and last week in an interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper before the concerts, Davis candidly admitted being interested in the position.”