Category: music

A new US study says that “black teenage girls who view more rap videos are apparently more likely to get in trouble with the law, to take drugs or to become infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Only two factors other than rap-music viewing boosted the teens’ rates of promiscuity, substance abuse and violence: lack of employment and lack of parents who monitor teen activities.

In taking on the top job at Opera Australia, conductor Roger Hickox committed to “moving to Sydney, fund-raising and programming one new Australian opera every two years.” Mr Hickox, 55, was the unanimous choice of the board and the advisory committee. He was among a four-person shortlist that included two Australians. Mr Hickox has been involved with the company since 1994 and has conducted five operas for it.”

The musicians and management of the Houston Symphony continue to take swipes at each other in a bitter contract dispute. A recent editorial in the Houston Chronicle called for management to withdraw its deadline for musicians to accept its ‘last, best’ contract offer, and continue to negotiate, but symphony management insists that the orchestra could run out of money by May if it continues to bargain indefinitely. Meanwhile, the musicians are convinced that the orchestra’s problems are due to gross mismanagement, and charge that the current executive team is determined “to destroy or, at the very least, downsize the orchestra to something they can financially handle but which would not by any definition be a world-class orchestra.”

“The cumulative force of years of negative posturing, while successful in increasing musicians’ pay scales, in my opinion has weakened the Symphony’s prospects and credibility.” So speaks Roy Nolen, a former Houston Symphony board member who says that the orchestra’s problems do not stem from a lack of management competence, but from the inability of the musicians to accept the reality that the residents of the nation’s fourth-largest city simply do not care about orchestral music. “It may be time for the Houston Symphony Society to consider whether a single-city symphony orchestra of high quality is viable in Houston.”

British conductor Richard Hickox has been appointed new director of Opera Australia. Hickox “replaces local conductor Simone Young, whose contract with Opera Australia was not renewed at the end of last year amid controversy over her vision for the company. However, she will remain in the position until Mr Hickox takes the reins in January 2005. Mr Hickox, 55, is now the principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and is also an associate guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.”

Bootleg live concert recording is booming, with fans trading recordings of thousands of concerts over the internet. “It is not just that the recordings of live performances are of far better quality than the scratchy cassettes of 40 years ago. It is that copies of such a recording, and subsequent copies of the copies, are better.”

Norah Jones’ Grammy wins have done wonders for sales of her album. “Come Away With Me,” sold 621,000 copies after her Grammy sweep, almost 500,000 more than the week before, the biggest post-Grammy sales spike ever, according to her record company.”

There aren’t enough good operas being written. Why? Poor music, bad stories, awkward librettos. Aldeburgh is trying to help. So it invited a group of writers and composers to spend a week together exploring one another’s craft. First assignment? team up and write a one-minute scene. It’s tougher than it seems…

The Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall, which will play host to the Los Angeles Philharmonic beginning next fall, has come within $10 million of being fully paid for. The hall is estimated to cost $272 million, and has taken 15 years to go from initial planning stages to final construction. Backers say they are optimistic that the final fundraising push will go quickly, and the county has stepped in with an additional $14.5 million of street and neighborhood improvements around the hall.

The Houston Chronicle editorial board has weighed in on the bitter dispute between the Houston Symphony Soiety and the orchestra’s musicians. “The symphony management promises to present a five-year plan for artistic growth and financial stability in May, but the society demands that the musicians accept its final offer of reduced pay and benefits by Saturday. This precipitous ultimatum might reflect the symphony’s dire financial state, but surely the final hour can wait until the society has a plan to climb out of its hole – a plan the musicians might be willing to accept and aid… Once that compromise is reached, it will fall to Houstonians to give the Houston Symphony the same generous and enthusiastic support they give to rodeos and ball games.”