Category: music

“In the generations of German composers younger than Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher is the one with the most impressive track record. He is still in his early 30s, yet has been attracting international attention for a decade. He conducted his first stage work, a ballet called Gesprungene Glocken, at the Berlin Staatsoper at the age of 23, and his first opera, Thomas Chatterton, which was based on the life and mysterious death of the 18th-century English poet, was premiered in Dresden in 1998. Another opera has been commissioned for the Salzburg festival, provisionally titled Heliogabal, though at present that project seems to be on hold, while a third, L’Espace Dernier, will be premiered at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in February.”

“For the past ten years or so, Italy has been arguably the strongest jazz nation in Europe. One continues to discover major players who are almost unknown anywhere else. Although jazz is certainly historically American, its most current developments are no longer any one nation’s monopoly.”

This September, Jennifer Welch-Babidge will make her New York City Opera debut in a new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, playing the title character who goes mad and kills her fiance because she loves his enemy. It’s a heavy role for any young singer, but in Welch-Babidge’s case, there is an added twist – she is very obviously pregnant. Rather than hide her condition, the director is using it to heighten the drama of the opera, with various characters discovering her bulging belly at key moments in the plot.

Orchestral musicians are not known for their love of corporate types, and the orchestra business itself has been in somewhat dire straits for a couple of years now. So there is unmistakable irony in what conductor Roger Nierenburg is doing under the heading The Music Paradigm. Nierenburg, music director of a small Connecticut orchestra, has been marketing the experience of leading an orchestra to big corporations as a management training seminar, with the orchestra serving as a visible (and audible) example of the necessity of competent, innovative leadership. The program is just one of many arts-based business training programs now popular with Fortune 500 types.

“The music industry’s methods of tracking down suspected music pirates have been revealed for the first time. Using digital fingerprints, or ‘hashes’, investigators say they can tell if an MP3 file was downloaded from an unauthorised service. The industry also tracks ‘metadata’ tags, which provide hidden clues about how files were created.” The methods of detection were revealed in the proceedings of an industry lawsuit against a file-trader known by her screenname, ‘Nycfashiongirl,’ who is accused of offering over 900 copyrighted and illegally obtained songs for free download.

The Canada Council holds a competition for musicians to borrow one of 11 string instruments the Council owns. Every three years, the council runs a competition to loan the instruments – collectively worth $21 million. “Musicians must audition before a jury that decides who will be granted one of the instruments. Halifax cellist Denise Djokic won the use of the ‘Bonjour’ Stradivarius cello three years ago and, next week, she will compete to keep it for another three because she feels the Strad has changed both her playing and her life.”

People are raving about Apple’s iTunes. But it’s not a good deal for consumers, or for artists. “Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician ‘recoups’ these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.”

“The Austin Lyric Opera’s 16-year history is melodramatic enough to be an opera itself.” The company almost folded in its first year of existence, and has struggled periodically since, with financial hardship usually accompanied by Texas-sized power struggles at the top. Just last year, the board fired artistic director, Joseph McClain, claiming that his artistic desires were simply not financially achievable in Austin. Now, the Lyric has hired a new artistic director, Richard Buckley, whom they hope will bring a firm but even hand to their often-roiling ship.

Philadelphia’s huge new performing arts complex, the Kimmel Center, has finished its first year of operation with a deficit of nearly $4 million. But Kimmel management points out that it normally takes such massive organizations at least 5 years to turn a profit, and they insist that their hall is well ahead of schedule in the moneymaking department. Much of the first-year deficit reportedly had to do with start-up and hiring costs. The center is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra and several other arts groups, but is owned and run separately from any of its tenants. The Kimmel has an independent endowment of $20 million.

The financially strapped Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is trying some unconventional tactics to save money and get a new contract negotiated with its musicians. The PSO has asked a former board member to mediate this year’s negotiations with the musicians – the current contract expires on September 21. Also, the orchestra has asked 7 older musicians to voluntarily take early retirement, presumably as a cost-cutting move. But none of the musicians have accepted, and the union says that any retiring musicians would have to be replaced, anyway.