Category: music

HyperSonic Sound is something entirely new in sound reproduction. It sounds like it’s coming from inside your head. “It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago – and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ‘whispering tubes’ to convey their dour messages.”

British radio stations are editing their playlists, avoiding songs that contain “offensive or insensitive material” during the war with Iraq. “We need to match the mood and tone of the nation, which seems to be changing on an hourly basis.”

Is there a bigger star in classical music than conductor Simon Rattle? “Rattle’s career path has been a perfect, shooting-star arc from the National Youth Orchestra to Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to his mould-breaking 10 years with the City of Birmingham Orchestra. At 48, he is very young to be a conductor of international repute and he remains, to many, the perennial high-achieving golden boy of British classical music. He certainly seems to be much too amiable and accommodating to have survived and thrived in one of the notoriously brittle areas of the arts.”

The English National Opera, which is thought to have asked the Arts Council for a £10 million bailout because it is “on the verge of bankruptcy, has been turned down, offered a smaller funding package instead. “The package is believed to contain £2 million to pay for seats which tilt back, and a system for surtitles – a surprise request for a company founded to produce operas in English.” Martin Smith, the company’s chairman, “claims that the company will be £4.2 million in the red by January, and insists a fifth of its workforce of 500 will have to go if it is to survive. The number of productions will also have to be cut.”

The chorus of the English National Opera has called off a threatened strike after making a deal with the company for layoffs. “Around one-sixth of the choristers have agreed to take voluntary redundancy, leaving a permanent chorus of 50.”

A Texas Republican Congressman suggests that the way to stop college students from downloading music is to put them in jail. “What these kids don’t realize is that every time they pull up music and movies and make a copy, they are committing a felony under the United States code. If you were to prosecute someone and give them three years, I think this would act as a deterrent.”

The Welsh National Opera is producing a radical version of “Carmen.” It’s short – clocking in at about an hour long. “Its short span is not the only unusual thing about this production, which is currently on tour. It is also radically cheap – tickets cost £5 and £10 – and played at unfamiliar times. Performances are at 2.30pm and 6.15pm: the afternoon show is designed to allow visiting parties of kids to be back at the school gates by home-time, and the early-evening performance is aimed at an after-work crowd.” Will this really tempt people to get the opera habit?

Management of the English National Opera have claimed that the company has lost millions of pounds over the past decade – “on average, £1m to £2m for nearly 10 years.” The losses have been the company’s justification for wanting layoffs and financial assistance from the government. But “analysis of the accounts show that between 1994 and 2000 the company was in surplus in every year but one, before falling back into the red. Last year, its worst since 1997 when it had to be bailed out with £9.2m from the Arts Council, it lost less than £600,000.”

Last week, one of the Dixie Chicks casually mentioned that she was rather ashamed of President Bush sharing her home state, and a furor erupted that has the Chicks’ music being pulled from radio stations nationwide. With that kind of wild-eyed nationalism infecting the U.S., it’s no wonder that protest songs are hardly in vogue among big stars at the moment. But they do exist – on the web. “From hip hop artists Chuck D and the Beastie Boys to veteran singer/songwriters such as John Mellencamp and Billy Bragg, a general distaste for political fare on commercial radio has lead them to the Web, where songs they’ve written to protest the looming war with Iraq are readily available for free.”

Less than a week after the beleaguered Colorado Springs Symphony dissolved itself in bankruptcy court, the musicians of the old CSSO joined with their old music director and a new board leadership of their choosing to form the new Colorado Springs Philharmonic. The executive director of the Phil will be Susan Greene, who had been dismissed from the same position at the CSSO a year ago, sparking angry questions from the musicians.