Category: music

“Commissioner John Venekamp … pointed out that the opera is vying for funds against other arts organizations ‘that have worked hard and do strategic planning and are managed well’. … [The vote] came after representatives from the opera presented a 2015 transition plan with a budget slashed by 40 percent” and an assurance from the acting COO that there will be “no more fat cat salaries or company cars”.

Conductor (and Minnesotan) William Eddins has a little list. A few samples: “There is such a thing as bad publicity.” “Independent audits of a non-profit are essential. It’s much harder to agree on a direction for an organization if you can’t agree on the basic facts.” “Most people don’t know the difference between a lock-out and a strike.” “The easiest way to fulfill the prophecy that ‘the orchestra is going down the toilet’ is to flush it yourself.”

“The [initial] meeting almost did not happen. The union took the extremely unusual step of inviting reporters to the negotiating session, which led the Met to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board arguing that having reporters present ‘would stifle the atmosphere of free and open discussion that is needed for good-faith collective bargaining’.”

“Mendelssohn wrote the privately commissioned piece, titled ‘The Heart of Man is Like a Mine’, in 1842. It was never published but the original manuscript has now emerged in a private collection in the US.” (includes video performance of song)

“The city has run out of rehearsal space. These days there’s hardly anywhere for a cello and a marimba to meet. In neighborhoods across Boston, musicians lug unwieldy instruments up the stairs of triple-deckers for “house” rehearsals because it’s the only place to practice. But leases routinely prohibit the playing of instruments, and, in any case, apartment rehearsals are limited to the goodwill and noise tolerance of neighbors.”

“The response of the New York audience has been boisterous. Never before in modern Met history have two different singers in the course of a few days earned applause so long and tumultuous that they had to repeat arias.”

“Sometimes, you almost suspect there are concert saboteurs with cellphones poised to disrupt a performance at the most crucial moment. You see? Here I am going on about an infuriating cellphone when I should be describing the Philadelphia Orchestra’s superb concert.”

“Orchestra Iowa has grown to be the state’s largest not-for-profit performing organization in terms of budget and performance schedule. That budget has doubled from a low of $1.6 million right after the flood, and 150 concerts are staged per year in the Corridor, in all Cedar Rapids and Iowa City schools and in venues in such cities as Fairfield, Davenport, Mason City, Ottumwa and Coralville.”

“A group of New York artists is working on an opera telling the story of Jacobs’s fight against Moses’s utopian schemes to raze Manhattan neighbourhoods. The battles turned Jacobs, a freelance journalist married to an architect, into an activist and formed her thinking about urban issues articulated in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.”

“Alan Gordon, who represents singers, dancers and stage managers, said he is pushing for more transparency as the Met for the first time in decades seeks to cut labor costs. The Met is seeking to cut pay for members of the three biggest unions by more than 16%.”