Category: music

“Facing a funding shortfall and mounting debt, the San Antonio Symphony reached an agreement with its 72-member orchestra for a temporary layoff during the 2016-17 season to help the organization shore up its finances.”

New York’s newest orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra of New York (PONY), is commissioning new films to accompany its music, using drone cameras to show the audience the musicians in action, keeping ticket prices low ($5 to $40), and working from project to project without a season announced in advance. Can they make it work? (first four paragraphs, then scroll to 23rd paragraph)

Martha McSally (R-Ariz.): “We have hundreds of people playing the tuba and clarinet. … If we really had a manning crisis, from my perspective, we would really tell people to put down the tuba and pick up a wrench or a gun.”

“If ENO is to survive, it must do so in reduced circumstances. It is an understandable impulse for the company’s defenders to decry any cut or any change. But it must change. Its history is full of change. It moved to the Coliseum only in 1968, for example. At the same time the question of what ENO is – what it is in its bones and sinews – must be cherished and protected.”

“I don’t want to cancel a show, because people have paid to come hear me sing the three queens. So … I wash my hands constantly; they’re raw from washing. I’m going to the gym and really taking care of myself and trying to stay fit, eating properly. Anything I can do.”

Rupert Christiansen: “Urbane and cultured, [Mark Wigglesworth] is a charming and intelligent person with exceptional musical talent, but his big ego and high-handed obstinacy are qualities that, in its current ’emergency measures’ position, ENO cannot accommodate. He’s long been well known to be a tricky customer with a short fierce temper, and his brilliant early career hasn’t fulfilled its promise because of it.”

Charlotte Higgins: “For many years now, ENO has been a paradoxical place. It has had a superb orchestra and chorus, the best technical team in Britain, and has produced artistically brilliant work. This is true even now, as everything seems in a state of disintegration, with its productions of The Magic Flute and Akhnaten.”

“I don’t mind being solicited. It’s entirely appropriate for them to market themselves and ask for money. While I haven’t donated anything yet, that actually is on my agenda for this year. On the other hand, when all you do is solicit money, how does that build any sort of relationship with or loyalty to the organization?”

“He stood before the Philadelphia Orchestra with the face of an anguished god, saying little with his partially paralyzed mouth, much through his hands, and more through his eyes – behind thick, sometimes askew glasses. In 1962, Otto Klemperer, one of the great conductors of the 20th century, returned to the Philadelphia Orchestra after an absence of more than 25 years, having suffered a brain tumor, a stroke, severe bipolar disorder, and third-degree burns from setting himself on fire by smoking in bed.”

It’s a slow, patient, calming craft that has largely remained unchanged since the 1800s – much like the wage, Richard Wilson jokes – but why are people still drawn to it? And do they make any money?