Category: music

– the newly rebuilt Covent Garden in London. Wednesday the house’s ninth performance was cancelled since the opera house reopened in December, due to software problems controlling scenery in a production of Harrison Birtwistle’s opera “Gawain.” – BBC

Ed Sullivan tried putting on the Met in the early days of television and his ratings bombed. Writes one critic of a more recent small-screen encounter: “I’m in favor of real writers’ getting television money for something other than sitcoms about pimples, and real composers’ getting television money for something other than jingles about deodorants, and public television’s investing in more than three tenors. It can’t be that spectacle doesn’t work on a smaller scale — what else is pro football, not to mention pro wrestling? Isn’t opera just premature music video?” – New York Magazine

A New Yorker campaigns to gather up boatloads of pianos and ship them to Cuba. In 1993 he was having a drink at the Tropicoco Resort in Havana and heard a hotel pianist try to tinkle out “Strangers in the Night.” He found out how awful all the pianos in Cuba, the most musical of islands, were—ravaged by the salty air and the comegen, the deadly tropical termite that “likes to mate inside piano wood from cold climates like Germany.” From that moment on, Benjamin Treuhaft vowed he would improve the piano situation, and formed his not-for-profit group. – Village Voice

Cleveland’s redo of Severance Hall has one critic reflecting on a concert hall’s contribution to the success of an orchestra. – New York Observer

Dismissing the famous dissident memoir supposedly dictated by Dmitri Shostakovich, and discounting testimony of friends and family, American musicologist Laurel Fay’s new biography of the composer claims he was an obedient Soviet citizen. Why? Because, she claims, no document signed by Shostakovich exists confirming his dissent from the Communist regime. – London Telegraph

Cleveland’s newly refurbished Severance Hall had an open-house performance day, and for the first time in the life of the 69-year-old hall, a sign briefly went up on an exterior door saying “Full to Capacity,” which is miles beyond “Standing Room Only.” – Cleveland Plain Dealer

London’s Royal Philharmonic traveled to San Francisco this week. But the music was so hyped up on steroids, so loud and overbearing, it was like an overenthusiastic dinner guest you couldn’t wait to leave. – San Francisco Chronicle

Composer Michael Kamen’s “New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms” had its premiere with Washington’s National Symphony this week. Kamen says he’s trying to demolish barriers between rock and classical music. After all, he says, “They have music in common, the same 12 bloody notes.” – Washington Post

• Same 12 notes? A review: “Last night, the National Symphony Orchestra offered nothing but weeds and garbage, music that doesn’t belong in a concert hall, music that adds nothing to our understanding of the sentiments it strives to depict, music that has little use of any kind. It was two hours of despair and perhaps the worst single evening at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall this season.” – Washington Post 01/14/00

The orchestra is facing its largest deficit ever, it’s just laid off some staff to save money, the music director is on a year-long sabbatical, and transition from previous longtime managerial leadership has been, to put it kindly, rocky at best. These are among the challenges waiting for Deborah Borda as she took over running the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week. – Los Angeles Times

Singapore government buys $600,000 Guadignini violin to promote young Singaporean violinists. Violin is loaned for three years to those chosen, with a possible three-year renewal. – Singapore Straits Times