Category: music

When it looked like it was going to cost $99 million to upgrade Seattle’s Opera House just to make it earthquake-ready, the city decided to build a new one around the bones of the old. Now the new $127 million house has debuted…

The most important verdict: Acoustics in the new hall are “excellent.” “Though the seating capacity declined only to 2,890 from 3,017, the hall seems much more intimate. The side walls were narrowed, the balconies were extended and the proscenium was made higher. In a visually striking innovation, the side sections of orchestra seats slope upward so they connect with the first balcony.”

Twenty years ago Early Music specialists bringing their aesthetic to Beethoven were a threat to modern orchestras. But modern orchestras continue to perform Beethoven, many of them incorporating the Early Music ideals fo conductors such as Roger Norrington. “To the extent that other conductors have reconsidered issues like balance, articulation, tempos and the use of string and wind vibrato, he has a point. He is taking the view that these interpretive issues are far more crucial than the use of old or new instruments, and he is proving it by spending much of his time with modern orchestras, including the Camerata Salzburg, which he brought to Lincoln Center for these concerts.”

The San Antonio Symphony has only $20,000 in its bank account. And it is meeting with creditors as it tried to reorganize in bankruptcy court. “The symphony hopes to be back in operation as early as November, December or January, and people who bought tickets for the 2003-2004 season will see those tickets honored. But first, the symphony and its musicians must settle on an employment contract. The symphony owes $228,000, or about three weeks’ worth of payroll, to its musicians under the old contract, which expired at the end of last season.”

Is the record single a dead item? “High promotional costs mean the industry doesn’t make much money from the sale of a single. But singles attract new consumers (teenagers buy more singles than any other age group) and drive album sales. Singles also generate valuable media interest – for instance, Blur v Oasis in the 90s. Britpop aside, the singles charts have not been much fun for many years.”

Prominent board members of the three-year-old Opera Company of Brooklyn are resigning over the company’s plans to use a virtual orchestra to accompany a performance of “The Magic Flute”. “The one-night-only production is being presented by the Opera Company of Brooklyn, started just three years ago to help foster the careers of rising opera talent. The company is using the virtual orchestra because it cannot afford a live one,” says the company, which has accumulated a deficit in its short lifetime.

Evelyn and Herbert Axelrod could have given the 30 rare Cremonese string instruments they owned to the Vienna Philharmonic (which reportedly offered $55 million for the lot). Or they could have sold them to the New York Philharmonic, which also came a’calling. Instead they gave them to the tiny New Jersey Symphony for the bargain-basement price of $18 million. It’s a remarkable thing to do…

For the most part, background music played in elevators, stores and other public spaces is an irritation of modern life. But it’s not going to ever go away. Now some designers are using background music as a branding opportunity. Designers try to match music to the brand image a store wants to project…

A new study suggests that more American adults listen to classical music than conventional wisdom would lead you to believe. Peter Dobrin points out that every piece of reliable evidence about classical audiences points to a larger audience. “While skepticism about any survey is a good thing (after all, what qualifies as classical these days, the Three Tenors?), the fact is that Americans clearly like classical music and they’re willing to admit it – in large numbers.”

With dismal news floating out of orchestral offices across North America, aren’t there any major orchestras out there that can offer a proven strategy for the future? The answer, says William Littler, is yes, and one need look no further than the San Francisco Symphony. In the early 1990s, the orchestra found itself in an artistic rut, a fiscal mess, and a managerial malaise. Fifteen years later, the SFS is a model of both financial sanity and artistic integrity, and the ensemble is now regularly grouped together in print with the traditional “Big Five” orchestras. There were no miracles in San Francisco, just hard work by dedicated individuals in all parts of the organization, and there’s no reason why other orchestras can’t follow the same model.