“To better unify the disparate El Sistema education programs across the United States, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is embarking on a new initiative with four other organizations to create a national platform for youth orchestras.”
Category: music
John Luther Adams Wins $50K William Schuman Award
“The Columbia University School of the Arts has announced that John Luther Adams is the newest recipient of the William Schuman Award, a major recognition given periodically over the past three decades. Named for its first recipient, the award, in the form of a direct, unrestricted grant of $50,000, is one of the largest given to an American composer.”
Florida Grand Opera May Pull Out Of Fort Lauderdale
“Florida Grand Opera is considering exiting from the Broward Center for the Performing Arts next season, a move that would leave Fort Lauderdale without professional opera performances for the first time in the quarter-century since the center opened.”
Finally, Good News From Atlanta Symphony: $1.25M For Salaries
“The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s push to rebuild its ranks, a major issue in the stormy nine-week player lockout that delayed the 70th anniversary season, has received a boost in the form of a $1.25 million Musicians’ Endowment Fund pledge.”
Here’s Why The Same Old Music Sells Best
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, scientists found that the more popular a musical style grew, the more generic it became—partly due to the glut of artists that flock to a burgeoning sound and the drop-off in innovation that tends to accompany demand.”
Study: How Musical Complexity Correlates With Popularity
“We show that changes in the instrumentational complexity of a style are related to its number of sales and to the number of artists contributing to that style. As a style attracts a growing number of artists, its instrumentational variety usually increases. At the same time the instrumentational uniformity of a style decreases, i.e. a unique stylistic and increasingly complex expression pattern emerges. In contrast, album sales of a given style typically increase with decreasing instrumentational complexity.”
How Data About The Music You’re Listening To Is Changing The Music Business
“Concert promoters study Spotify listens to route tours through towns with the most fans, and some artists look for patterns in Pandora streaming to figure out which songs to play at each stop on a tour. In fact, all of our searching, streaming, downloading, and sharing is being used to answer the question the music industry has been asking for a century: What do people want to hear next?”
FCC Rules: Airlines Must Allow Musical Instruments On Planes
“This rule requires that carriers must allow a passenger to carry into the cabin and stow a small musical instrument, such a violin or a guitar, in a suitable baggage compartment, such as the overhead bin or under the seats in accordance with FAA safety regulations.”
Classical Music Administrator Resigns From Position, Reminds Organization To Keep Things Radical
“Question the impulse to administer people, to make them compete against one another, to set up panels of judges or bureaucratic processes to make what should be individual artistic decisions. Don’t put arbitrary barriers between artists and audiences. “
The San Francisco Symphony Is Loving Its Chance To ‘Break Out’ Of The Big Concert Hall
“It’s an informal party setting for ages 21 and older, with the audience seated on faux leather benches set up between two stages. A half dozen well-attended bars serve exotic drinks: Mad Monk (Dolin Dry Vermouth, Benedictine, St. George Absinthe, orange peel) and dubious snacks (truffle-scented popcorn).”