Category: music

How did a film that only grossed $20 million come away with big Oscar wins? “As usual in Hollywood, marketing and politics played just as big a role in this success story as the evident quality of the film.”

How are musicians dealing with the war? “After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, Leonard Bernstein declared, `This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than before’.” Many musicians burrow into their music either to respond to or get away from the world.

Andy Lack, the new CEO of Sony, says that his company predicts that CD sales will fall 15 percent this year. “We’ve prepared for a scenario that acknowledges that industry sales may be down as much as 13-15 per cent this year.” The drop in sales could lead to layoffs of 1000 employees this year.

“The music industry braces for a future that will involve the death of CD stores and the rise of wireless, pocket-size MP3 players that will enable consumers to access thousands of hours of music at the touch of a button. The only real question is how long it will take for those scenarios to become reality. You’ll see CD sections in stores decline quickly over the next few years because they will be replaced by technology that provides dirt-cheap storage and the ability to basically access and play any type of music anytime, anywhere. Wireless technology basically will create a world where we can have anything we want all the time.”

Cd’s revived the recording industry when they were first introduced. They allowed you to listen to music differently and they were a big improvement over vinyl (or so most people thought). But there are drawbacks too to CDs…

The Chicago Lyric Opera sold 96 percent of its tickets this season. But that’s a few percentage points below its customary 100 percent sale. So the company will post a $1-2 million deficit, only its second shortfall in the past two decades.

“Time was you knew where you stood with pop critics. There were certain bylines in the pop press that you could trust with your life, and more importantly, with the future health of your record collection. What strikes me about pop criticism of late – and this afflicts the broadsheets as well – is the tyranny of received opinion. What gives here? Maybe writers are too hidebound by the notion of providing their readers with glorified consumer guides rather informed criticism. Maybe the sheer doggedness of the reviewer’s task dulls the senses, precludes reflection and encourages the quick response. Are there so many mediocre albums coming out that, were reviewers to be honest, their negativity would send readers scurrying to the news section in search of some light relief?”

How many operas are there? a few hundred? A thousand? Fifteen hundred? We’re aware of more and more from the past as the years progress. “Strange then that the part of the repertoire least certainly alive is the modern, the new, the freshly commissioned. But perhaps 50 years from now people will look back on us and pity us for our ignorance of our contemporaries, who are as obscure to us as Handel was to Dent.”

Want to hire the Rolling Stones for your party? It’ll cost you $13 million. The Eagles will play for $7.8 million. Indeed, many famous bands will sign on for a private performance if the money’s right. “Michael Jackson started the trend 10 years ago when he played for the Sultan of Brunei, who has also hired Diana Ross and Whitney Houston for family gatherings, and Bob Dylan has been known to do a gig or two.”

America’s best jazz clubs present great artists, but to small audiences. Lincoln Center’s new jazz complex – a collaboration between architect Rafael Vinoly and acoustician Russell Johnson – now being built at Columbus Circle, will be a versatile institution meant to promote jazz in many forms.