Category: music

Staid, traditional American symphony orchestras from sea to shining sea have been going all modern with the architectural designs of their new concert halls. So wouldn’t you just know that Nashville, America’s home of country music and gaudy glitz, would spend its $120 million on an old-fashioned neoclassical concert hall for its symphony orchestra. The orchestra hopes to open the hall in 2006, and has raised more than half of the money required to build it.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra might be struggling under mountains of debt (the orchestra’s executive director recently threatened that that bankruptcy would be a possibility if local donors didn’t step up the level of their fiscal generosity) and wondering how to replace outgoing music director Mariss Jansons, but out-of-town reviews of a recent East Coast tour seem to suggest that, artistically, the PSO has never seen better times.

“Where once pop musicians and their fans were revolted at the thought of letting beloved singles be used to sell sports cars, software or beer, today’s fans are largely accepting while many musicians are eager to sign on. To some degree, this change in attitude represents a shift away from the Sixties-schooled idealism of the Baby Boomers and toward the media-savvy cynicism of Generations X and Y.”

Recording companies have been fighting downloading services, trying to discourage (or sue out of existence) those who enable downloads. Now they’re getting into the downloading business themselves. The “companies continue to use their financial muscle to slow the growth of file-trading networks and to acquire digital-rights management technologies that limit what people can do with MP3s and other files.” The plan? take control of the download market and shove the competition out to the curb.

The English National Opera, leaderless, £3 million in debt and about to be ousted from its home because of a costly renovation, is looking for someone to save it. Could that savioor be Graham Vick, one of “Britain’s few real world-class opera stars and a man not afraid of working with a large heap of manure?”

Recording companies tired of seeing their new releases copied and released online even before they hit stores, are tightening security. They’re not sending advance copies out, and limited pre-release copies are digitally marked so they can be traced if copied. “With certain releases, the record companies are much more careful. Record reps are now booking appointments with me to play certain songs. I either have to hear it in their cars or in my office, or somewhere else private, and they won’t leave behind a CD.”

San Jose’s new symphony orchestra to the stage this weekend. “Symphony San Jose’s success or failure will go a long way in determining the course of symphonic music in the South Bay. Some donors, patrons and musicians are still bitter over the bankruptcy of the 123-year-old orchestra. And even those most enthusiastic about the new orchestra are limiting themselves to a cautious embrace. `If this doesn’t happen, it’s never going to happen in San Jose ever again’.”

What is it about Finland and music these days? Some the best, hottest young conductors are Finnish, and they’re taking oversome of the world’s leading orchestras. “There must be more conductors of international class per capita in Finland than anywhere else in the world.” Is Osmo Vanska, recently appointed music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, the next Finnish star?

The Dallas-based Cremona Society is suing a New York violin dealer after he lost a rare 288-year-old Stradivarius violin made in what is known as Stradivari’s “Golden Period.” The Society had consigned the instrument to dealer Christophe Landon in February, and in April Landon reported it missing. “I do not remember putting it back into the vault,” Landon said last week. He said he has tried hypnosis to jog his memory for possible clues.

With L.A Philharmonic music director Essa-Pekka Salonen stuck in freeway traffic as Friday night’s concert was scheduled to begin, assistant conductor Yasuo Shinozaki donned a pair of tails and stepped in to lead the concert until Salonen could get there…