Category: music

“The last piece that can’t be stolen and disseminated en masse is the experience, because even if you get it later on, it’s not in real time. What’s exciting is what happens now – that’s the very nature of Facebook’s business, of social networking. Musicians are fascinating while they’re working. When that ends, they’re just selling.”

“Choirs, though, occupy a grey area in terms of professional and amateur music-making, and looking to characterise a ‘professional’ choir requires a definition that looks further than the simple details of whether or not its members are being paid to be there, or have non-related day jobs.”

There’s a sizable contingent that thinks Gilbert’s interpretations of the standard rep are dull. Anthony Tommasini counters that Gilbert is a hard worker, innovative programmer and dedicated public face of the orchestra – and that anyone who can sell out programs of Ligeti and Stockhausen in the U.S. must be a kind of genius.

“Codaex’s most prominent clients included the fine Austrian label PentaTone – which launched the career of violin star Julia Fischer, and whose artists today include major conductors Marek Janowksi and Philippe Herreweghe – as well as SOMM, Canadian labels Analekta and ATMA, as well as Australia’s ABC Classics and many, many others.”

“The excitement of seeing top-notch talent go fist-to-fist in thrilling performances all week has swept up the community. Each round saw increasing attendance and the finals were sold out by Wednesday. At the last minute, a live webcast was added, and on Saturday, the competition sold $5 tickets to view a live feed to a recital hall at CCM.”

“Classical music fans fear that MPBN will follow a national trend of taking music off its primary station — 90.1 FM in the Portland area — and moving it to a separate network to accommodate more news and talk.”

“We want to hear from tuba players, chamber quartet members, conductors, composers, piano teachers, orchestra fund-raisers and any other professionals about what sparked their interest in the field.” (Er, in 250 words or so.)

“Steinway spends almost a year building each grand piano, and pianists fret that an assembly line speedup at the company’s two factories would spoil what they prize: the delicacy of a Steinway’s touch, the colorations of its sound.”

“The divide [in the Middle Ages] was between Gregorian chant and vernacular music outside the church sung by traveling entertainers known as jongleurs. Eventually, church composers began to use the bass lines of ‘popular’ tunes as a way to keep the masses coming to Mass.”

“Multiple sources close to the dispute say representatives of the two sides met with an independent mediator this week to see whether ground rules can be set for formal bargaining. The mediator idea arose from private conversations with Gov. Mark Dayton, these sources say.”