Category: music

A Canadian tax on blank CD and audio cassette sales is expected to pay out $19 million to composers, performers, publishers and record labels in the next three months. “The payments are calculated from two measurable factors – the airplay songs get on radio, TV networks and individual music programs, and the record sales logged and reported by labels.”

The National Endowment for the Arts has started a new program to help struggling mid-size and small orchestras. “The program will award a total of $250,000 to 25 orchestras, including the Augusta Symphony in Georgia, the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra in Biloxi, Miss., the North Carolina Symphony in Raleigh, the Stockton Symphony Association in Stockton, Calif., and the Virginia Symphony in Norfolk. The NEA, the country’s largest supporter of the arts, does not expect the individual grants of $10,000 to solve financial shortfalls in themselves. The idea is to boost programs that might attract other donations.”

When Miami station WKAT-AM changed formats from Spanish language to classical a year ago, classical fans were ecstatic. “The first three months were a honeymoon with the audience. They were appreciative that classical was back. And they had a high level of tolerance for what we were doing. But a few months later, the hero worship was morphing into anger: Listeners didn’t like that the playlist included non-classical works and that many of the classical pieces the station did play were truncated…” So a makeover was in order…

The Pittsburgh Symphony opens its season this weekend. But a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the opening. The musicians’ contract expired, and it’s clear that compromises will have to be made because the orchestra is struggling financially.

“As he begins his second season as music director, Lorin Maazel, 73, and the New York Philharmonic’s board are grappling with some urgent issues. Naturally the proposed merger with Carnegie Hall has drawn most of the attention. But the more immediate question concerns Mr. Maazel’s future. If the merger happens as planned, the Philharmonic will relocate in the fall of 2006, by which time Mr. Maazel’s current four-year contract will have run out. Will he be reappointed? Or does the orchestra envision playing its first concert in its new home under a new conductor?”

After 12 years, David Shifrin steps down as director of the Chmaber Music Society of Lincoln Center. “New York’s loss may be Portland’s gain. Shifrin is a familiar figure here, having directed the city’s Chamber Music Northwest festival each summer since 1980. By shedding his New York position, he will be able to devote more time to Portland as well as to his solo career as a clarinet player, to his family (he has a 10-year-old son) and to teaching music at Yale University.”

Music recording giants BMG and Warner seem on the verge of forging an alliance worth $2 billion. EMI, which has been circling Warner and appears to be gearing up for another run at the company, would likely find the alliance too costly to swallow.

The Fort Wayne Symphony in Indiana has frozen wages for all its employees and is looking at restructuring to fight off budget problems. “A weak economy, lagging ticket sales and a decrease in foundation giving all have taken their toll. The new $4.3 million budget for fiscal year 2003-2004, which projects expenses exceeding income by $219,000, was passed by the Philharmonic board at its monthly meeting Tuesday.”

Tony Hall has been running London’s Royal Opera House for a couple years now. “There might have been a time when running an opera house presented unique opportunities for leisurely lunching, schmoozing with business grandees desperate for a favourite seat in the orchestra stalls, perhaps the odd feisty exchange with the prima assoluta of the day. But that was then and this is now, and Hall is the epitome of the modern manager: brisk, fast-talking, affable and relentlessly upbeat.”

“Carnegie Hall has decided that the best way to break down the barriers between classical and pop music, jazz and rock is to mix everything up in a brand-new hall situated below the Isaac Stern Auditorium and above the Seventh Avenue subway. Carnegie’s new real-estate venture, which opened Sept. 12, is an early test: Will this game of musical chairs yield real artistic and commercial dividends? Will it reinvigorate our civic concert life?”