Category: music

“The Digital Music Report published by industry body IFPI shows that a 0.3 per cent growth in the piracy-decimated industry has been reversed, with total revenues falling from $16.5 to $15 billion in 2013. Total recorded music sales have shrunk by 45 per cent since 2000.”

“Without smart, independent critics who know their stuff, everything collapses into hype, public relations, and the almighty dollar. We have already seen where that leads us—take a look at the trendline of recording sales, if you have any doubts.”

“The Memphis Symphony Orchestra will finish its current season after all. Two $100,000 donations and a series of benefit concerts have helped narrow a $400,000 shortfall from the fall.”

“Historians now credit him with having pretty much invented the American pop song in its purest form: the bastard stepchild of the parlor song and the minstrel song, of the European and African strains of American music.” (And that child is very much a bastard – ever heard the second verse of “Oh, Susannah”? Yikes.)

Beginning this fall, the pianist and MacArthur Fellow, who just won the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize, “will work with the SPCO for three years on performances, collaborations with vocal artists, new commissions by American composers and a North American tour.”

“Now, just a few years after he was little known outside of piano circles, offers are pouring in. On Tuesday the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will name him an artistic partner, beginning next season.”

“Music and performing was my way of getting through that, and it healed me in some ways. You perform in front of people and get your feelings out, and then you can retreat again and be your private person.”

“Singing in a choir is a transcendent experience – and there aren’t many of those in life. It instills gratitude and bliss without the contortions of yoga or hangovers of alcohol.”

“I am resigning now because I do not believe the current leadership has the vision to restore the Orchestra to its place among the great orchestras of the world,’’ longtime principal clarinetist Burt Hara wrote in a letter to his colleagues.

El Sistema was founded in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu, a musician and economist, and it has flourished under eight different governments while aiming to keep many impoverished kids on the straight and narrow. “Ultimately, we have no idea how Dudamel, maestro Abreu and others are functioning in El Sistema. Abreu’s way of working has always been to try and influence the politics subtly from the inside. The second he takes a public stand, he can’t do that anymore.”