Category: music

“For more than a week, the country’s most promising string players have been vying for the right to borrow a priceless instrument, at no cost for three years, from the instrument bank. The contest is down to 13 finalists for 13 violins.”

“Contract talks between the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra management and musicians once again are at a standstill after the latest round of negotiations ended without a solution in sight.” On minimum pay, the sides are still about $10,000 apart.

“The musicians of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra – locked out since Aug. 25 with no paychecks or insurance – are willing to accept $5.2 million in salary and benefit cuts if it means they can get back on the stage soon. But as both sides try to come up with an agreement that would help erase a projected debt that could top $20 million, there is one caveat.”

The number of lawsuits against major record labels over digital royalties keeps growing.

“If we do not act decisively now, we will lose the orchestra.”

Will planned CSO concerts in other cities be cancelled as the musicians and management take hard-line stances on the contract?

Only a few kids get the free lessons, but they’re good for the kids: “You see them become more sociable as the year goes on. Their confidence increases. Sometimes you can scarcely believe it’s the same child from the start of one year to the end.”

“Minnesota Orchestra management and musicians are still worlds apart as they meet with a federal mediator on Monday, six days before the orchestra’s union contract expires.”

“More than 100 Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians went on strike Saturday, infuriating patrons who came to Orchestra Hall expecting a show.”

Critics say that new “core” education standards in the UK are a “short-sighted, wholesale attack on secondary music education” that “will emasculate not only our world class music education system but also our entire creative economy.”