Category: music

To conductor James Levine’s way of thinking, there is plenty of important American music from the 20th Century that never had fair hearing. So he looks upon his new appointment as director of the Boston Symphony as a way to do something about it. “One of the principal attractions for Levine is that he will finally have the opportunity to serve as an advocate for contemporary music, and American music in particular. For him, this has been a lifelong commitment, but none of his previous positions has enabled him to pursue it fully.”

Police have charged that British rap artists are promoting gun culture and creating a “backdrop of music” for influencing alienated young men. Police are calling for an emergency summit with the rap industry, after two teenage girls were killed over New Year’s in crossfire between rival gangs.

A group of foermer KGB spies is offering recording companies a new “watermarking” technology to protect their music from music pirates. This month a music distrbutor “will introduce watermarking technology developed by former Russian spies in St Petersburg, in the hope of attracting more music companies on to the web.

Fresh from condemning Turner Prize shortlisters, British culture minister Kim Howells has attacked British rappers. “For years I have been very worried about these hateful lyrics that these boasting macho idiot rappers come out with. It is a big cultural problem. Lyrics don’t kill people but they don’t half enhance the fare we get from videos and films. It has created a culture where killing is almost a fashion accessory.” Th tirade, delivered on live radio, was quickly labeled “deeply racist” by the rap community.

Readers take New York Times critic Anthony Tomassini to task for his piece criticizing Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway La Boheme. “Mr. Luhrmann has got me happy to stand in line again, and has made some of us (including all the twentysomethings who stood alongside me for three hours for tickets) excited about returning to the opera.”

On a visit to guest-conduct the Minnesota Orchestra, Charles Dutoit speaks for the first time about his tumultuous departure from the Montreal Symphony, and about his ex-wife, pianist Martha Argerich. “Basically, Martha doesn’t play in America, except when I ask her to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t play at all. I think there are only three pianists on this level,” he said, also citing Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Vladimir Horowitz.

The Recording Industry Association of America has taken the lead against digital copying of music, so it’s not surprising the organization would be a target of hackers. The RIAA was hacked again Monday. “This time, the defacement resulted in bogus press releases on the front door, touting the joys of cheese and interspecies romantic relationships.” This was the sixth time the site had been hacked in six months – the question is why the RIAA hasn’t protected itself better…

CD sales might have been down 9 percent in 2002, but not all kinds of music sales declined. Sales of country music CD’s increased 12 percent. “Along with hip-hop, country accounted for three-fifths of number one albums in the US…

A treasure trove of recordings made in the 1950s is about to slip out of copyright. “Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings made in the early- to mid-1950’s — by figures like Maria Callas, Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald — are entering the public domain in Europe, opening the way for any European recording company to release albums that had been owned exclusively by particular labels.”

Back in 1971, after ten years of lobbying and planning, Edinburgh announced it would build a world class opera house. But newly released documents show why the hall was never built. It was sabotaged by civil servants who dubbed blueprints an “expensive fiasco” waiting to happen. “It had taken ten years for Edinburgh’s opera house plans to be accepted – and just a few months for government civil servants to sow the seeds of doubt which eventually led to the whole idea being scrapped.”