Category: music

Orchestra management has cancelled the four remaining concerts scheduled this month following the strike called by musicians last weekend.

“Almost everything you read about the state of the record industry is, at best, totally useless.”

“Three vice presidents, including two who were on the six-member team representing Atlanta Symphony Orchestra management in difficult contract negotiations with musicians, are departing the orchestra. The ASO did not announce the moves but on Tuesday confirmed the leaders are leaving at week’s end.”

“Nowadays, the idea of a powerful personality who imposes his will on others is unthinkable, and there is something anachronistic in the role of conductor. At the same time, the overall professional level of an average orchestra player has grown immensely, which allows a conductor – who is now primus inter pares [first among equals] and not a dictator – to dedicate himself to music making.”

Montreal Symphony trumpeter Russell DeVuyst: “Unfortunately, the current image of a symphony-orchestra conductor is all about glamour and charisma, and that is what the audience now expects. People view the conductor as the only one who produces the sound and the music, as if he or she could do this by a magical wave of the baton.”

“Other 2013 awardees include David Lang, Composer of the Year; pipa player Wu Man, Instrumentalist of the Year; Joyce DiDonato, Vocalist of the Year … [and] El Sistema’s founder and Dudamel’s mentor, José Antonio Abreu, as its Educator of the Year.”

“The orchestra’s management was scheduled to sit down with the board of directors from the Minnesota Orchestra Association so the musicians” – who have been locked out since October 1 – “could express their concerns about pending contract proposals.”

David and Christopher Alden, aged 63 and native New Yorkers, are known for daring and sometimes controversial stagings of the classics. David (finally making his Met debut) made his career in Europe, where his style is more or less mainstream, while Christopher “has persevered in America, doing what he wants to do, where it’s basically completely against the grain.”

“Gustavo is a dreamer and a fantasist – a king who wants to escape his duties, who initiates an affair with the wife of his staunchest defender almost to create his own assassin (Christ and Judas?) – a king who laughingly (how many kinds of laughter there are in this piece, ranging from light to diabolical to desperate) plots his own death step by step.”

Mezzo Laurie Rubin explains: “Most won’t admit to this, but conductors grunt when a crescendo comes. I listen for things like that. The way I keep the beat is that I can feel the wind of their arms moving, or you hear their clothes moving.”