Category: music

Recently, musicians from a Dutch orchestra arrived in London to play a concert only to discover it had been cancelled for lack of ticket sales. This kind of thing is happening more frequently, writes Norman Lebrecht. “An awareness is dawning across the musical world that the age of orchestral touring is over, leaving gaping holes in the concert calendar and another economic nightmare. The Philharmonia Orchestra has just totted up a two-thirds drop in touring revenues over the past year. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields which has, for four decades, spent more time abroad than within sight of Nelson’s Column, has ( players tell me) great white gaps in its diary.”

World music artists are cancelling U.S. tours left and right, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining visas in the post-9/11 world, but also out of fear of how they will be received in a newly isolationist and paranoid America. The fact that many world music artists have been active in anti-war movements at home is adding to the pressure to cancel, and musicians are increasingly aware of “rumblings from arts presenters… who [feel] that a newfound xenophobia might be on the rise.”

In Rome, hundreds of student protesters calling for an end to the war in Iraq tried to disrupt a university performance by the famed La Scala Opera Orchestra, under the direction of Riccardo Muti. Rather than cancel the concert or forcibly remove the protesters, Muti addressed them directly, saying “The musicians you see seated here have been touring the world since 1996 in the name of peace.” The protesters apparently conceded the point, sitting quietly for the first part of the performance before leaving the premises.

Consumers worldwide are buying less music, according to industry representatives, with CDs particularly hard hit. “Sales dropped by 7% around the world last year after a 5% dip in 2001, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).” Naturally, the industry says that the number one reason for the slump is the proliferation of illegal downloading sites and the inability of the industry to stay ahead of the pirates. In particular, the U.S. “suffered a 10% drop in album sales in 2002, mainly because fans were getting the music from the internet instead, the IFPI said.” Of course, it’s worth noting that the severe economic slump in the U.S. may also be contributing to the problem.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, one of the UK’s most prestigious ensembles, has cancelled a long-planned tour of China scheduled for next month, due to health concerns surrounding the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS is believed to have originated in China, and there is still much uncertainty surrounding the size of the outbreak there, due to information which was withheld by Chinese medical authorities. The BBC-SSO’s tour “would have been one of the most extensive Chinese tours undertaken by a western orchestra.”

Composer John Adams is happy to have won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music. But “every year I continue to be disappointed that the Pulitzer has stayed stylistically within such a narrow bandwidth of mainly academic music. It doesn’t carry much prestige amongst the composers that I know. I hope that over the years, the people who administer the prize will accept that American music is a far more universal art form than the past history would suggest.”

The Pulitzers are prestigious. But not in the music category, says John Adams, this year’s winner. “I am astonished to receive the Pulitzer Prize. Among musicians that I know, the Pulitzer has over the years lost much of the prestige it still carries in other fields like literature and journalism. Anyone perusing the list of past winners cannot help noticing that many if not most of the country’s greatest musical minds are conspicuously missing,”

The Houston Symphony is performing again, following a bitter 24-day strike, but the organization’s financial woes are far from resolved. “Executive director Ann Kennedy came on stage Saturday to welcome back the audience and to laud the musicians, who then received a strong standing ovation from the crowd (which, due to the perennial problem of no-shows, filled only about two-thirds of the auditorium). With music director Hans Graf on the podium, the musicians then demonstrated through superb playing exactly what is still at stake in the financially desperate organization.”

“By the end of April, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will have replaced the bottom cushions of the 1,800 seats at Orchestra Hall that have been a literal pain in the rear since they were installed last fall. Then, when the symphony is away in the summer, entirely new seats will be installed. The bottom line? The DSO is out $500,000.” The offending seats were originally installed with metal plates in their upholstery, so as to meet building codes. As it turns out, metal plates tend to decrease the comfort level of upholstery. Who knew?

The Juno Awards, Canada’s answer to the Grammys, turned into a near-sweep Sunday night as teen rock sensation Avril Lavigne took home several awards, including Artist of the Year. Lavigne was up against stiff competition, including mainstays Celine Dion and Shania Twain, and many observers saw her dominance as a significant shift in the direction of the Canadian music industry.