Category: music

Pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, composer Bramwell Tovey, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra were among the mostly predictable winners of the classical Junos. Diana Krall won for best vocal jazz album, and Richard Underhill took home the award for best contemporary jazz release.

In an era of fiscal crisis at most American orchestras, the San Diego Symphony has had the unusual luxury of sitting back and waiting to find the perfect person to lead them in a time of newfound wealth. The orchestra received an unexpected and unprecedented $120 million gift last year, and now they may have scored something of a coup in the baton-waving department, reaching an agreement with Jahja Ling to be the orchestra’s next music director. Ling is the director of the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer festival, and a former music director of the Florida Orchestra. San Diego had previously offered the position to up-and-comer David Robertson, who declined the job.

The German Symphony Orchestra is performing in a health club, playing a piece of music for which the audience will have to be submerged in a pool. “The cellists will be on the poolside, playing electric instruments and the sound will be put through a mixing desk and modified. There will be no sound to hear unless you are under the water.”

Sotheby’s is selling a manuscript of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. “In three bound volumes of 465 pages, the offering includes virtually the complete score of that symphony in manuscript. (Two fragments of the same manuscript reside in the Beethovenhaus in Bonn and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.) The hands are mainly those of two copyists, but Beethoven scribbled corrections and changes throughout. The manuscript may have been used at the work’s premiere, in 1824, and it was the basis for the first printed edition, in 1826.”

The Minnesota Orchestra will try a new tactic at educational outreach this week, presenting a set of the orchestra’s long-running “Kinder Konzerts” series, aimed at preschool-age children, narrated entirely in Spanish. The series plays to more than 5,000 children every season, but this is the first time that the orchestra has presented any performances in a language other than English.

Outside of Canada, few have heard of the Juno Awards, and even at home, the ceremony honoring the best in Canadian music is often derisively referred to as “Grammy Jr.” But this year, the Junos may be ready to make an international mark, with artists like Avril Lavigne, Nickelback, and Celine Dion representing a new crop of Canadian singers who have found spectacular success worldwide. But will the stars and the national pride be enough to get Canadians to watch the traditionally low-rated broadcast?

Recording companies that press CD’s with copy protection may be depriving their artists of radio playtime. At at least one station, all the CD players are part of computer systems, and the machines won’t play copy-protected disks…

For years now, the recording industry has carped about the money they lose through illegal downloading and file-swapping, and consumers have yelled back that if the industry didn’t set the prices for CDs and DVDs artificially high, fewer people would need to go the piracy route. But the industry ratcheted up the rhetoric considerably last week when it began to go after a few select college students who have swapped large amounts of digital music and video online. Katie Dean compares the tactic to the American military’s ‘shock and awe’ campaign in Iraq, since the plan isn’t meant to recover financial losses for the industry. In point of fact, it is intended to scare the bejeezus out of college students.

A new set of copyright guidelines being proposed in Europe may not be as Draconian as previously feared. “The proposal maintains that the right to make copies for private use will be maintained, as long as the copying process is not unreasonable vis-a-vis the copyright holder. This suggestion has the intent of preventing copies being made from illegally produced copies, while safeguarding the rights of the individual purchaser.”

“Musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have voted to accept a wage freeze and other financial concessions over the next 2 1/2 years to help the organization deal with its financial troubles. The move, which will save the BSO about $3 million, comes midway through the musicians’ current five-year contract.” It is extremely unusual for a functioning orchestra to renegotiate a contract in the middle of its run, but the Baltimore musicians and management agreed to try to head off at the pass the possibility of a future crisis.