Category: music

“The numbers are in. Subscription services such as Rdio and Spotify, free video streaming on YouTube and customized Internet radio stations such as Pandora are growing much faster than music downloading. But there’s not a lot of money there yet for your average recording artist. As a result, second-tier acts are struggling to find ways to make a living from their music.”

“The Sydney Opera House will live stream 20 performances over a two-year period straight to YouTube, thanks to a new partnership. … Shows will be streamed on their own dedicated channel, though the list of performances has yet to be announced; expect the first live-streamed show to be announced in early 2013.”

“In recent weeks, musicians from the Jacksonville Symphony continue to perform without a contract. … Last week, the Times-Union editorial board met with a group of musicians from the symphony to hear their side of the dispute.”

“I imagine they were delighted to be distracted from trying to fix the problem by a thousand querulous messages arriving every minute. Did we really think that through, Twitter?”

Former concertmaster: “I feel like we’re on the brink of something big, and the question is for the community: How do they assess the worth of this orchestra and what it means to the city?”

Architecture critic James Russell makes his list: “The possibilities are bracing. It’s worth dreaming big.”

“The Metropolitan Opera faces growing operating losses as it prepares to sell bonds for the first time since its founding in 1883. Losses from operations swelled 7 percent last season to $135 million, according to bond documents. It was the third consecutive operating-loss increase.”

“Founded just five years ago, the ensemble has now chosen a musical director who really stands out from the classical music crowd: she’s a woman, she’s Korean and she’s only 29 years old” – and already has an international reputation as a cellist.

“The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and its musicians have ensured labor harmony through the 2014-15 season by extending and modifying their collective bargaining agreement. … Under the terms of the new agreement, the Milwaukee musicians relinquished most of a previously planned raise for the 2012-13 season.”

“Audiences fed up with a radical director’s take on an opera usually save their rage till the final curtain calls. Monday night at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in the first of four performances of Cherubini’s Médée, the audience couldn’t wait and interrupted the performance. There are limits, it would seem, on just how far a director can go, and for many those limits were breached.”