Category: music

“The low price reflects how little is left of the opera company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2013 after years of growing deficits and costly missteps with its endowment.”

“The kerfuffle exploded in the violin world like an out-of-tune screech in a Haydn quartet. The Suzuki method is vastly popular, selling some half a million books a year, according to its publisher; Mr. O’Connor is a star who has toured with the jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, worked as a major session musician in Nashville, composed for the concert hall and recorded with top musicians including Yo-Yo Ma.”

“‘This would not be a takeover, and it’s not throwing a life raft to a sinking ship,’ Cantrell said. ‘I want to look at it as a partnership into the future.'”

“Geoff Baker’s book specifically compares El Sistema to Chetham’s. He argues that both institutions have hidden classical music’s ‘dirty little secret’ — that the intimate, overwrought relationships between mentor and pupil encourage sexual abuse.”

“Baker, who produces little actual hard evidence, is not up to penetrating Sistema’s secrecy. His feet-on-the-ground reporting comes from his own visits to nucleos and talking with disgruntled musicians who have various axes to grind.”

“Although it will be filmed before live audiences, it is meant to be seen on television or online, in short installments that will be released over two years. The production will also include online extras, including video clips that look at the process of composing and staging the piece.”

Revenue in the year ending Aug. 31 reached $20.8 million and expenses totaled just under $21.5 million. Smith said the budget for the current fiscal year is about $29 million, compared with several years in the recent past when expenses reached as high as $32.4 million (in 2009). The decrease in musicians’ compensation accounts for $1.7 million, he said.

“The deficit era is over,” new CEO Jeff Melanson said in an interview before the TSO’s annual general meeting where it was announced the orchestra posted a modest surplus of $222,349 on revenues of nearly $24 million. It’s a considerable improvement over last year’s deficit of $1.2 million and $800,000 the year before.

“The planned theater has been the subject of one of the most closely watched legal battles in the worlds of classical music and philanthropy, after a major benefactor of the Lucerne Festival, Christof Engelhorn, offered to donate more than $100 million to build it, but died before the money was paid. That led officials from the festival to sue for the money.”

A press release from the orchestra’s own offices accuses Park Hyun-jung of “abusive language and sexual harassment” and violating employees’ human rights, hiring the children of her friends, and driving away half of her staff and three-quarters of the SPO’s patron group. (in English)