Category: music

Announced at Tafelmusik’s Annual General Meeting yesterday, Canada’s largest period orchestra and choir have reported a consecutive operating surplus of $51,000. Tafelmusik also achieved their highest subscription revenue in five years, and the second-highest number of single tickets sold in the orchestra’s history. The results represent overall concert revenues of almost $1.9 million and an increase of 12% over the 2017 fiscal year.

In videos posted to his Facebook and YouTube pages, Barton plays classical tunes to the elephants, who appear to be captivated by the sounds — and by Barton himself. Barton, according to CBS News, said in a video that he and his wife “liked the sound of the place being a retirement center for old, injured and handicapped former logging and trekking elephants.”

“The contract calls for a 4 per-cent raise in the 2019-2020 season followed by a 4.1 per-cent increase in salary in the 2020-2021 season. There is no raise for the current season where the musicians’ base salary is $97,940 per year.”

“I was in L.A. because we go to L.A. every January or February … And I was looking at the orchestral setup here [at the L.A. Phil] and I thought, ‘Hmm, those first desk strings are really in a tight semicircle.’ They could hear each other very well. And the first two flutes and first two oboes and first two clarinets are ditto, also close in. If I were to add two vibraphones and two pianos, I’d have exactly the piece I was working on at the time, Runner … This is the ensemble that is [already] sitting there in most orchestras.”

“[The SEPO’s] roughly 75 musicians perform on traditional orchestral instruments – strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion – occasionally supplemented by instruments from Middle Eastern traditions. In the three years of the orchestra’s existence, it has performed extensively throughout Europe.” DW’s Rick Fulker speaks with the orchestra’s founder and artistic director, Raed Jazbeh.

How “full-on” is a “live experience” that requires the deployment of what has been described as “a military-grade laser” to create the illusion that a performer who died in 1988 is walking the stage again? And doesn’t a “hologram tour” by a dead rock ’n’ roller run completely counter to the point of live music in the first place?

“Throughout my life I’ve steered an uneasy course between my desire to help change the world and my impulse to escape it. The vessel in which I navigate these turbulent waters is music. … And yet, it’s impossible for me to regard my life as a composer as separate from my life as a thinking human being and a citizen of the Earth.”

The now-former concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra was dismissed for good last week following an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct with students. The news has distressed many teachers and parents of children studying violin with the Suzuki Method, as Preucil was the violinist playing on the official Suzuki instructional recordings. (His parents were among the first teachers of the method in the US.) So Suzuki International and Alfred Music have announced that they’ll be issuing new recordings with another violinist as soon as practical.

“No other American orchestra comes close to equaling the Minnesota Orchestra’s achievement as a recording powerhouse over the past quarter-century. Most orchestras in the U.S. are not recording at all or release only occasional live recordings, usually on in-house labels with zero support from major record companies.” But Osma Vänskä and the Minnesotans have been racking up rave reviews, awards, and sales figures with their CDs on the BIS label. Reporter Terry Blain looks at how they do it.

“I find it supremely uninteresting and not productive, because you find yourself writing the press release before the piece. If you get caught up in self-definition, you don’t do yourself any favors announcing to the world what the project is stylistically.”