Category: music

“The future health and development of opera depends on it embracing the whole of society, and that means being a part of society and being prepared to change as rapidly as society itself. We have to find a way of recovering a fundamental sense of adventure, challenge and interaction – a modern world demands nothing less. However, the desire to keep everybody happy – from paymasters to reviewers, from the conservative and wealthy to the modish and wealthy – has created a strange climate of catch-all, in which it is sometimes difficult to understand whether we are being offered vision, excellence, audience-pleasers, or a competition for who can produce the glossiest international brochure.”

After 16 years and $274 million, Disney Hall is opening this week in LA> “Is the long-delayed Disney Hall, then, just a consolation prize for Los Angeles? Does one of the biggest cities in the world find itself in the odd position of playing second fiddle to a Basque regional capital with a population under 400,000? Not exactly. The building is a fantastic piece of architecture—assured and vibrant and worth waiting for. It has its own personality, instead of being anything close to a Bilbao rehash. And surprisingly enough, it turns out that all of those postponements and budget battles have been a boon for the hall’s design.”

Is Microsoft forcing computer users to buy music only by using its browser? “Lawyers for the Justice Department and 19 state attorneys general have formally complained to a federal judge about a design feature of Windows that compels consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft’s Internet browser and steers them to a website operated by the company.”

Apple’s iTunes service for Windows computer users is a hit. “More than a million copies of the Windows version of its iTunes music software have been downloaded in the past three days. The program offers PC users the same services, prices and catalogue of songs, which Apple hopes to increase to 400,000 by the end of October.” Since debuting earlier this year, Apple’s Mac iTunes stores has sold 14 million songs.

Is 99 cents a fair price for a downloadable music track? “Some analysts are beginning to realize that lower prices could greatly expand the size of the digital-music market, still minuscule despite iTunes’ success. A July survey by Jupiter Research of 2,500 adults who use the Internet found that 35% of people are willing to pay 51 cents to $1 for a song by a favorite artist; 20% are willing to pay 50 cents or less; and 19% would pay more than $1 (26% say no price is right, they’ll pay nothing). Problem is, online-music services cannot significantly lower prices without losing money.”

The North Carolina School of the Arts has long had to contend with inadequate facilities. Despite the limitations, the school has turned out an impressive list of music graduates. But now the school is opening a new $10 million home, and with the right tools…

“This hall is our opportunity to take that evolutionary step in creating an orchestra for the 21st Century. We now have the possibilities of enhanced programming and new concert formats, of providing a new gravitas with the community. I’ve always had this feeling that an orchestra should not just be an orchestra but, rather, something that has an intellectual and spiritual impact on the lives of people in the community. You cannot open a new building and simply carry on business as usual. There must be a match of programming and ideology, with the music matching the signals given out by the building.”

Canada’s first real opera house is under construction in Toronto. For now, though, it exists in software. “In a opera house, sound is sacred. The worst nightmare is to pour the concrete, build the place, and then find out the acoustics are poor. So computer software has been heavily pressed into service to establish what kind of sound every person in the hall will hear – before the hall is built. This is something that has only become possible in the past four years, and Toronto’s opera house will be the first to receive the benefit.”

There are only 500-600 Stradivari violins left. To play at in the top ranks of soloists, you want to have one of them. “Say you are a gifted young musician and you need an illustrious instrument to develop your musicianship, career and reputation. To buy one you have to be able to command the fees that only a career on the international circuit can provide. And for that you need a fine instrument. You are stymied.”

The audience for traditional classical music is overwhelmingly caucasian, whether in Europe or North America, and despite paying frequent lip service to the vague concept of “diversity,” few practitioners of the art have made any serious attempts to widen the appeal of the genre. So why does classical music receive such a huge percentage of available public arts funding? “This has always been the case, but now that cultural diversity has moved to the top of the funding agenda, it’s become a serious political embarrassment. There’s something disquieting, in 2003, about the sight of an all-white orchestra playing to an all-white audience.”