Category: music

In Montreal, where the media had Kent Nagano all but appointed as the new music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, shock and dismay have greeted news of Nagano’s appointment to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The MSO itself never even acknowledged that Nagano was its top choice, but this may be a case where perception is more important than reality. “While other conductors, such as Eliahu Inbal, Yakov Kreizberg and Emmanuel Villaume, have been mentioned as possible successors to Charles Dutoit, none has created interest to compare with the public frenzy that greeted Nagano.”

Record companies have been known to become apoplectic when advance copies of new releases given to critics wind up in the hands (and computers and MP3 players) of the public. Many companies have resorted to handing out self-destructing CDs and threatening critics with legal action if they distribute the music early. But the V2 label has come up with a unique way to prevent advance copies of the highly anticipated new White Stripes album from being converted to tradable computer files: they put it on vinyl.

“For 75 years, Community Concerts has brought the arts and such luminaries as Beverly Sills and Isaac Stern to small-town America… But now the whole enterprise is in jeopardy, with Community Concerts dismissing employees and leaving a trail of bounced checks, unpaid performers and dissatisfied presenters in its wake.” Fingers are pointing, and most of them are aiming squarely at the company’s owner and chief executive, Brenda Trawick.

The Calgary city council has overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to force the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra to repay a $250,000 bailout once the orchestra emerges from bankruptcy. The proposal was brought to the floor by two aldermen who have consistently sought ways to scuttle the bailout, and who conceived of the plan to attach conditions to the money after it was learned that the Alberta provincial government’s matching contribution to the CPO was more of a loan than a gift.

The first three notes of the slowest/longest piece ever written was being played on a German organ this week. It’s written to last 639 years. “The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible. Composed by late avant-garde composer John Cage, the performance has already been going for 17 months – although all that has been heard so far is the sound of the organ’s bellows being inflated.”

A flurry of media interest greeted the news in January that the notoriously exclusive Vienna Philharmonic had finally hired its first female musician, a violist named Ursula Plaichinger. The strange thing is, Plaichinger has actually been a member of the orchestra for nearly two years, a fact which no English-language publication known to ArtsJournal bothered to mention. The media blitz came after the worldwide broadcast of the Vienna Phil’s famous New Year’s concert showed a brief glimpse of Plaichinger as she played with her section, the first time the orchestra had ever allowed a woman to be shown on its television broadcasts.

The president of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has announced that he is stepping down from his position and leaving the organization, effective the end of this month. The quick timetable makes the unknown reason behind Steven Ovitsky’s departure of interest, but the board insists he was not forced out. However, it may be significant that Ovitsky was a very popular executive with the MSO’s musicians: “He brought musicians into the governing and planning structures of the orchestra, and his palpable love of music impressed them.”

Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev are narrating a new recording of “Peter and the Wolf.” “The last leader of the Soviet Union will join the former US president in a special performance of Prokofiev’s work by the Russian National Orchestra under the command of the Grammy-winning conductor Kent Nagano. The recording will be Mr Gorbachev’s English language debut.”

For two years cash-strapped Berlin has been trying to decide what to do ith its three opera houses. Proposals were made to merge operations, but that plan was vigorously opposed by Staatsoper director Daniel Barenboim. Now it looks like the companies may be saved. “Under proposals announced by the city’s arts chief, the Staatsoper and its renowned orchestra, the Staatskapelle, would retain their independence. But the three opera houses would pool a wide range of technical and administrative facilities and their ballet companies.”