Category: music

Each year 1 million string instruments are stolen, and only 2 percent are ever recovered. Now there’s a plan to track them. ISIS (Instrument Security Identification Systems) embeds atiny electronic tag into instruments. The company “will send out an alert if a musical instrument has been reported stolen. Part of this business will involve implanting RFID tags in stringed instruments – from violins to cellos and from cheap student instruments to million-dollar antiques that are still being played. The implanted RFID tags will make the tricky business of identifying instruments foolproof.”

Okay, so these guys don’t make a sound, but they do have attitude. “The U.S. Air Guitar Championships were held Saturday at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip, and by the end of the night, a national air god emerged. Finally, the United States will be sending a representative to the (eighth annual) World Air Guitar Championships, held in Finland…”

Vinyl records have been collectors’ items for years. But CDs? “Although a few die-hard vinyl specialists will complain bitterly about the fact, the silver disc has now established a significant place within the collectors’ arena. A large number of collectable CD albums and singles are included in the listings, and while their values cannot compete in general with those of the most collectable vinyl items, the fact they are there at all is a demonstration of the way which the market for collectable recorded music is continuing to develop.”

So the recording industry is going to track down music downloaders and sue them? Not for long. Software developers have been working away to make users of the file-sharing services anonymous… “Any technology that allows people to communicate is a step in the right direction,” Soto said. “This isn’t just about exchanging music, this is about the right to create technology and enjoy the right to privacy.”

For some months it’s been assumed in many quarters that New York City Opera would be leaving Lincoln Center to anchor a new cultural complex in the World Trade Center project. But directors of the project are putting out a general call for cultural groups who might be interested in locating downtown, leading to speculation that City Opera’s relocation is not a done deal. “Today’s expected invitation from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation seems intended to send the message that decisions about a cultural element at ground zero will not be based on personal, political or professional connections. ‘We want to cast a broad net to see what’s out there’.”

Amazingly, San Francisco’s last jazz club closed down at the end of April. But the jazz scene won’t stay dark for long in a city at one time known for its jazz; new clubs are opening up. “It’s nearly impossible for musicians in San Francisco to play in a nice venue. We decided we had to open our own place,”

The recording industry says it will begin prosecuting music downloaders who violate copyright. But some users are defiant. “I don’t think they’ll get much money from us. I don’t see it being enforceable. They threaten us, but we just find a different program, and other computer savvy kids will find new programs. It’s an empty threat. I don’t consider it a big deal. Sometimes I only like one or two songs and I’m not going to buy an entire CD for that song.”

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is one of the most famous pieces of music in history. But “what can be said about the Ninth with reasonable certainty? One is that its position in the world is probably about what Beethoven wanted it to be. Figuratively speaking, everybody knows the Ninth. But has anybody really understood it? The harder you look, the odder it gets. In a singular way, the Ninth enfolds the apparently contradictory qualities of the epic and the slippery.”

The Richmond (VA) Symphony reports that it is officially on the list of smaller American orchestras that are not on the verge of folding up their tents and vanishing into the night. “According to a nearly complete year-end tally, the symphony ran a $26,478 loss after spending $3.8 million in the 2002-03 season. The loss could shrink by as much as $20,000 after late-arriving revenues are counted in, said David Fisk, the symphony’s executive director.”

There’s no lack of public support for Berlin’s opera scene, which continues to thrive despite a sluggish economy. But the city is out of money, and appears to be on the verge of shuttering at least one of the city’s three most prominent opera houses. “The three opera houses — the Staatsoper and Komische Oper in the former east and the Deutsche Oper in the west — are relics of the division of Berlin. And now they are victims of post-unification budget cutbacks. And like the plot of a Puccini opera, this drama is very likely to end unhappily.”