Michael Kaiser, credited with revitalizing Covent Garden (home to both the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet), announced his resignation today after just 18 months on the job. ROH management now faces the dreaded task of trying to fill the ill-fated directorship; Kaiser was the fourth executive director in just two years. – BBC
Category: music
ME, MYSELF, AND I
Gerald Barry is Ireland’s leading contemporary classical composer. A festival celebrating his work runs this week in Dublin. “Now 48, he retains traces of his long-lived student aura but, whether he is smiling or serious, there is no mistaking Barry’s deliberate innocence. He lives for music and for music alone. As an artist he seems to be in a hurry. Who is he writing for? “Myself.” – Irish Times
LONG-LOST —
— Gilbert and Sullivan song found in the US. – BBC
THE CLASSICAL MUSIC COUNTERCULTURE
With major labels abandoning the classical music genre and alternative purchasing outlets such as the internet on the rise, a new counterculture of buyers of classical music recordings is growing. – Philadelphia Inquirer
MUSICAL REINFORCEMENTS
Los Angeles is known more for its entertainment than its arts. But Mark Swed writes that the recent appointments of dynamic conductors Kent Nagano and Grant Gershon to local music organizations (added to Esa-Pekka Salonen at the LA Phil) give some hope that LA might become a destination classical music city. – Los Angeles Times
ALL THAT JAZZ
At New York’s Columbus Circle a unique new music center is about to start construction. “Never before has a concert hall been conceived from the ground up for the distinctly American sound and style of jazz. During the entire century of its existence, it has been played in nightclubs, saloons and worse; it has been acoustically distorted in symphony halls designed for Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms rather than Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.” – Chicago Tribune
THE PROOF’S IN THE PIRATING
One in five music CDs sold throughout the world last year were pirated versions, according to a new London-based study. That means more than 500 million pirated-music CDs were sold last year alone, and at least 25 million pirated files are currently available for download online. Illegal music sales outnumber legal ones in 19 countries. – The Age (Melbourne)
THE AMATEUR CLIBURN COMPETITION
Inspiring as the competition was, it was also profoundly depressing. It represented a celebration of the piano and the discipline of playing the instrument; it was a celebration of music, and of the people who have to make music, no matter what. But it was also an indictment of a society that has so little place for people with musical gifts to exercise them, especially if they want to live the American Dream.” – Boston Globe
A BUILDING ABOUT…
Okay, so the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music project is a building about music (but it’s not a museum). But what, exactly, is it? “When EMP opens, visitors will step inside a museum that’s also a technological showcase, an educational institution, a research facility, a brick-and-mortar (or rather steel-and-plywood) companion to the Web site emplive.com, and a musical amusement park. Or is it a concert venue, a restaurant and bar, and a tourist trap?” – Seattle Weekly
ALTERNATIVE SOURCES
As doom-sayers worry over the end of classical music recording, new ways of getting orchestra recordings to consumers pop up. – Boston Herald