Category: music

“Despite the massive success of Adele’s album 25, which sold a whopping 7.4 million copies in only six weeks, 2015 marked the first time in U.S. history that new releases were outsold by catalogue albums.”

“He has been credited with lifting the standard of the Dallas Symphony, an achievement that gained wider recognition when he was named Musical America’s Conductor of the Year in 2012.”

“What the New York Philharmonic more urgently lacked under Gilbert was a dynamic, charismatic figure able to galvanize excitement around the orchestra’s concerts. It’s not clear that van Zweden fully offers that.”

“At a press conference this morning, the Philharmonic introduced Jaap van Zweden, who will take up his duties in 2018. He was in transit from Hong Kong, where he conducts the Hong Kong Philharmonic, to Dallas, where he leads the Dallas Symphony. He will simplify his schedule in order to make room for America’s oldest and testiest orchestra.”

“A new bill from Philly City Councilman Mark Squilla would require owners of nightclubs, cabarets, bars and restaurants in the city to collect the names, addresses, and phone numbers of entertainers — bands, rappers and DJs — in a registry, and to share that personal information with police upon request.”

“The computerized programming of the International Touring Organ delivers what’s in essence a digitized synthesis of the sounds of Carpenter’s favorite pipe and electronic organs” – theater organs as well as church and concert-hall instruments – with “five manuals (keyboards), a specialized pedalboard, and controls for the stops [as well as] a supercomputer/amplifier unit, the brains of the array, and an expansive proprietary system of specialized speakers. But no pipes.”

“The most hotly awaited event of the opera season just got a new leading man. Cold Mountain, the years-in-the-works Jennifer Higdon opera based on Charles Frazier’s 1997 Civil War-era novel, was written with star baritone Nathan Gunn in mind – but he has been replaced by up-and-coming Jarrett Ott. Gunn withdrew from the Feb. 5-14 run at the Academy of Music. His stated reason was family illness.”

The Met says that Kaufmann has withdrawn from the production, which opens on Feb. 12, due to illness. Alagna, who has never sung the lead tenor role, is stepping out of the Met’s current run of Pagliacci in order to learn it.

“That leaves two conductors who are considered leading contenders for the position: Jaap van Zweden, the music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra — though dark-horse candidates have been known to emerge victorious in the orchestra’s past searches.”

“Starting Monday, Fort Worth Symphony members are working under new terms. The contract that musicians turned down, and that management imposed anyway, cuts their wages by eight-and-a-half percent.”