Category: music

Frank Gehry’s latest project opens next week – the Experience Music Project in Seattle. “Gehry—who admits he prefers Haydn to Hendrix—bought a bunch of electric guitars in Seattle, took them back to L.A., chopped them up and reassembled the pieces into architectural shapes. That didn’t quite work, although the building—a lot rounder—stayed largely Stratocaster-colored. From a distance—say, a high hotel room about a mile away—the 140,000-square-foot EMP looks like a peculiar dessert: purple, red, silver, gold and baby-blue Jell-O with a garnish of green trees. Up close, it’s a trademark Gehry design, a mix of metals cladding ‘swoopy’ shells covering a careful floor plan.” – Newsweek

New PBS show examines what it takes. “All deceased, the immortals who play, speak and are discussed in the program include Claudio Arrau, Alfred Cortot, Emil Gilels, Glenn Gould, Myra Hess, Josef Hofmann, Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Sergei Rachmaninov, Sviatoslav Richter and Rubinstein.” – Chicago Tribune (AP)

A Starbucks assistant manager wins the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. His Prokofiev Eighth Sonata did the trick. – Dallas Morning News

Big time piano competitions have gotten a bad name for turning out faceless wonders. “But this amateur competition, as opposed to the Cliburn, the quadrennial horse race for budding professionals 18 to 30 – kept tapping into an emotional immediacy and intensity too rare in today’s professional music-making.” – Dallas Morning News

Think Latin’s the hot new music genre? Uh-uh, it’s Christian. “Last year, Christian music outsold Latin, which was supposed to be the hot new sound for 1999, by more than 25 million album sales. Its sales are twice those of jazz, classical and New Age music combined. The Christian music industry grew by 11.5 percent, outpacing the music industry as a whole. Christian music makes up 6.5 percent of the market and is the sixth largest-selling musical genre behind R&B, alternative, pop, hip-hop and country.” – Detroit Free Press

It’s a natural – when the new improved edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music (the music world’s reference bible) comes out next fall, it’ll also be available online, complete with sound clip music examples. – The Scotsman 

Some Boston Pops players complained that conductor Keith Lockhart planned to cut three minutes from a Mozart concerto for time considerations. “Tamper with Mozart? Horrors!”  Yesterday afternoon, though, Lockhart reportedly backed off the plan and “decided to perform the Mozart without cuts simply because at this point it is in the best artistic interest of the Boston Pops to limit the unwarranted controversy.” – Boston Herald

BMG recording label settles copyright infringement suit with MP3.com, then turns around and licenses its music to another web start-up. The legit music download era begins. – Wired

The Bayreuth Festival decides to postpone a decision on who will take over leadership of the Wagner festival after controversy dogs the process. – BBC Music Magazine

— named principal conductor of the Los Angeles Opera Company. – Los Angeles Times