Category: music

“As it prepares to re-enter labor negotiations with its musicians, the Nashville Symphony has reduced its debt to less than $23 million, lowered operating expenses by $10 million a year and set a new ticket sales record.”

“As recently as 2008, only 2.9 million LPs were sold in the United States, representing about 0.7 percent of annual album sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Last year those sales climbed to 9.4 million, representing 3 percent of all albums, and the independent, off-the-grid nature of many of those sales may mean that vinyl’s numbers are underreported.”

The New Hampshire orchestra abruptly canceled its last two concerts and let its music director go. Now it’s planning to reopen in the fall with new musicians, a new music director, and a new venue.

“I think that classical music is always going to be here, as long as there are human beings. But I think that everyone has to think about what is the right way to take care of classical music. It is not the first time when there are problems. I don’t know if there has ever been something which is not called difficult time, in history. I think it’s always time to try to adjust.”

Karen Cohn, the board chairman who presided over the sudden plan to dissolve the company, stormed out of the meeting, as did several other members as well as general director Ian Campbell and his deputy and ex-wife, Ann. Carol Lazier, who gave $1 million toward saving the company, is now acting board chair, and she declined to say if Campbell is still affiliated with the Opera.

The Awl charts the entire course, from the Conception Phase and Underground Phase, through the Indie and Hipster Phases, into and out of the Top 40, to the Shame Phase and beyond. (Not to forget the karaoke afterlife.)

“If you are close to a sound source – such as a speaker – you are close to a lot of pressure waves. Direct sound exposure often doesn’t cause capillaries to burst, it’s the pressure.

“Live opera is as physical as art gets, though you would never know that from sitting in any major opera house. In the Sam Wana­maker Playhouse, you can feel singers’ breath on your face; you can hear their inhalations as well as their sung exhalations, the scratch as well as the sustained tone of the violins. Some illusions are lost but with them goes a certain artifice that holds you at arm’s length.”

In part three of a series on what’s ailing America’s flagship opera company and how to cure it, Dawn Fatale looks at engaging the public and at casting – and says the Met must stop casting five to six years in advance.

“Alexander Pereira, who is scheduled to take over the Milan opera house on Oct. 1, signed an agreement to buy four productions for La Scala from the Salzburg Festival, where he is the director, without the approval of the Italian authorities.”