Category: music

“Steven Sloane, a 42-year-old American conductor, has been named music director designate of the American Composers Orchestra, the only orchestra today dedicated entirely to the creation, performance and preservation of music by American composers. Sloane will succeed Dennis Russell Davies, the principal conductor and music director who founded the orchestra in 1977 with the composer Francis Thorne.” – New York Times

There is a real crisis in the British pop music industry, with “sales in decline and British acts now barely troubling the American charts.” Not such a surprise, writes one critic. The industry did it to itself over many years. – The Telegraph (UK)

The ability to record music did more than just make performances available after the fact. “A century of recording has changed the way we listen to music and the way music is performed – as well as what we listen to – to an extent we are only just beginning to grasp.” – The Independent (UK)

Shanghai is planning the largest production of “Aida” ever mounted. With 2,250 performers, herds of elephants, camels, lions, tigers, a panther, a boa constrictor and 1,650 People’s Liberation Army soldiers dressed as Egyptian legionnaires all presented in an 80,000-seat stadium, the scale is enormous. But there’s only one performance scheduled, and it’s been raining fiercely all week… – New York Times

Is the free dissemination of music on the Web ultimately helpful or harmful to the economics of new music? Four prominent composers – Richard Danielpour, Amy Knoles, Jeff Harrington, Amy Scurria – and intellectual properties attorney Mark A. Fischer discuss the future for serious music. – NewMusicBox

• Composer John Corigliano worries. “There’s so much to take its place now. With Internet and 500 TV channels; I can see that those things [we view today as] essential can be left behind. It’s easy to avoid it and still have a full life without it. And it’s changing hourly. I don’t know if it’s a good thing. [But] there will always be people who love what we do.” – Sonicnet.com

Forty of the world’s most prominent musicians published an open letter in several Berlin newspapers protesting the Berlin government’s proposal to merge the operations of the Staatsoper in east Berlin, which dates back more than 250 years, with those of the modern Deutsche Oper. “The signatories included the tenor Placido Domingo and the conductors Zubin Mehta, Pierre Boulez and Bernard Haitink. ‘As artists who know the Staatsoper, we appeal to you not to destroy the traditions that have been developed’.” – The Guardian

Pittsburghers love Pittsburgh Symphony music director Mariss Jansons so much they’ve been on a letter-writing campaign to try to convince him to stay, after his name popped up as a candidate to be the New York Philharmonic’s next music director. This week Jansons conducted the New York Phil, and everyone was there to check him out. – New York Times

London’s Royal Opera House has turned down impressario Raymond Gubbay’s application to run the company after Michael Kaiser resigned in July. Gubbay, a flamboyant and highly successful producer of opera, has been one of the ROH’s most persistent critics. “The application included plans to limit the number of seats given to ‘friends’, which account for 80% of tickets before they reach the box office, and to reduce prices and increase the number of shows.” – The Guardian

“Music, you would think, is manufactured in the Old Economy, and the distributed free of charge as common property by the New. Yet in that case, is the New Economy an economy at all any longer? Who would go on providing music if buyers want to purchase at one price only, namely that of zero, getting it for free? The Net’s great promise – that every ware should preferably be shareware – does it not overlook that this ‘everything’ has to be produced before it can be distributed?” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung