Category: music

College students will be getting a warning this fall when they return to school. “Specifically they’ll be warned they can lose their Internet access or get slapped with a costly copyright infringement lawsuit if they aren’t careful about uploading and downloading files using programs like Kazaa.”

Blender magazine takes a stab at a list, and some A-list musicians take some abuse. “Along with expected names like Celine Dion and Vanilla Ice are legends like The Doors and Mick Jagger. Even current top-selling acts, such as the Goo Goo Dolls, Creed and the Gipsy Kings, get savaged.”

The financially troubled Scottish Opera has been told that it may have to drastically scale back its operations if it wants to survive. “The company’s acclaimed run of Wagner’s Ring Cycle starts today, but observers warn the funding problems are getting so bad that it may not be able to continue in its present form.”

“Scottish Opera’s ambitious complete Ring cycle at this summer’s Edinburgh Festival sold out as long ago as October, but the organisers of the Festival held back one performance of Götterdämmerung for people under 27. Faced with frequent attacks that it was elitist, “out of touch”, and aimed only at the “middle-aged upper middle class audience”, the heavily subsidised Festival hoped that the free ticket offer would help to reverse its demographic. But only 237 young people turned up for the performance on Friday, leaving a staggering 1,660 seats empty in the flagship Festival Theatre.”

While other American orchestras struggle mightily to survive, the Boston Symphony sails along. “The BSO audience is larger than those of other orchestras, and its subscriber base loyal. On top of that, the BSO’s endowment portfolio is outperforming others in its field, whose dwindling returns have forced orchestras to downsize. Meanwhile, BSO Inc. has balanced its budget, even running a few six-figure surpluses over the past five years.”

Recording companies blame file-sharing for much of their current woes, and they’re getting increasingly aggressive about going after file traders. “Yet no matter what the label lawyers say, technology itself isn’t the problem. The problem is how the technology is used, and how copyrights are protected with those new uses. Along with that comes the challenge of rebuilding relationships with consumers who are increasingly treated like criminals. Sooner or later, companies will have to shift their emphasis from policing and throwing up roadblocks to their exclusive material and move toward inspiring listeners, engaging them, bringing them into more active modes of listening and interacting with music.”

Los Angelinos are counting on their new Disney concert hall for a lot more than just a home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “When the $274 million, Frank Gehry-designed building opens in October, government and business leaders are counting on it to be the signature of the downtown skyline and an impetus for revitalizing the area.”

DJs perform by spinning vinyl records to get the sounds they’re after. Now a new spinnable CD player offers DJs the opportunity to go digital. “The key to the system – which resembles a small version of a vinyl deck – is a grooved, touch-sensitive jog wheel, which allows records to be stopped and scratched at any time. Until now, the inability to do this was one of the key reasons DJs had shunned performing with CD decks. Deck has a memory card that recalls edit points for tracks. Additionally, the system has an internal memory that can remember cue and loop points, and allows tracks to be remixed live.”

The 46-member Charleston Symphony is facing money problems like every other orchestra in America. So the orchestra is asking its musicians to take an 18 percent pay cut. “The musicians make $21,000 a year on average. An 18-percent reduction would bring that figure down to $17,220.”