The Detroit Symphony “is launching what it says is the country’s only on-demand archive of orchestral video performances. Intended as a perk for donors contributing at least $50 to the DSO’s annual fund, the Replay archive will allow listeners to watch performances drawn from the orchestra’s free, weekly high-definition webcasts dating back three years.”
Category: music
Riccardo Chailly Is Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s Next Music Director
“The renowned conductor … got an early break when, as a very young man, he was hired as Claudio Abbado’s assistant at La Scala in Milan. Now Mr. Chailly, 62, is following in the footsteps of Mr. Abbado, who died in 2014, in more ways than one: he became principal conductor at La Scala this year, and on Thursday he was named music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which Mr. Abbado revived and led for 11 years.”
BBC Radio’s Global Business News Program Goes To The Opera
“Opera is an expensive art form. It receives millions of pounds of public money. Can that be justified? Peter Day gets a range of operatic experiences – from top opera companies, to pub performers and a country house summer festival. The first opera was performed 400 years ago in Italy; how does the future look?” (audio)
There Are Fewer Than A Dozen Full-Time Staff Classical Music Critics In America. Is This A Problem?
“If a newspaper critic as an influential arbiter of taste has declined, this hasn’t led to less music criticism. Rather, a void is being filled by bloggers and other Internet pundits, who for the most part are unpaid.”
Prince Compares Traditional Recording Contracts To Slavery
“His pitch to the group was simple: Typical record company contracts turn artists into indentured servants with little control over how their music is used, particularly when it comes to revenue from streaming services playing their music online — and he wants to change that.”
The Orchestra Light Show That Ate Cincinnati
Tens of thousands flock to the Cincinnati Symphony’s now-annual light show extravaganza lighting up the outside of the Music Hall. Last year 42,000 tickets to the free event were claimed in a matter of minutes. This year, the orchestra charged for tickets and cut down the number, making for a different experience…
Tenor Fractures Spine After Stage Collapses Underneath Him
During a performance of Turandot at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Italy on Friday, tenor Marco Voleri, playing the Emperor Altoum, was sitting on his throne when a cable snapped and the platform fell in, causing him to tumble more than six feet.
L.A. Phil Has An Exciting New – And Female – Associate Conductor
Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla – increasingly known as simply “Mirga” after rapturously received concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall this past season – was a Dudamel Fellow and assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic; she’s now being promoted to associate conductor, effective next summer.
What If You Don’t Want Your New Musical Theatre Singers To Sound Like Idina Menzel?
“Vocal training for classical music and vocal training for musical theater need different foci, to an extent. Each requires meticulous attention to a separate set of performance traditions.”
The New CEO Of The Pittsburgh Symphony Has To Confront Attendance And Budget Issues
“Pittsburgh Symphony projects it will run another million-dollar-plus budget deficit this season, and has seen ticket sales fall to 50 percent for the classical subscription series and to 54 percent for the Pops. The symphony’s last balanced budgets were for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons, before the financial sector meltdown.”