Category: music

“As Kickstarter has exploded in popularity, I’ve started to see signs that there are others like me — a movement of fans as producers, commissioning work from their favorite artists instead of waiting for the artists to come to them. It feels like the next logical step in the evolution of fan funding.”

Dietmar Machold, 62, “whose company Machold Rare Violins had been in the family for five generations since it was founded in 1861, was charged with embezzlement, bankruptcy fraud and grand commercial fraud.” He’s alleged to have passed off as Strads two ordinary violins which he gave a German bank as security for a multi-million-euro loan.

“When the NSO went to China in 2009, it was the orchestra’s first tour in seven years. Now, it appears that touring, as NSO Music Director Christoph Eschenbach promised, is becoming a matter of course. … Only eight months after its return from South America, the orchestra will go on another tour, of Europe, for 11 days in January and February.”

Last month at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, chef Jason Bond and composer Ben Houge (best known for video game music) presented Food Opera: Four Asparagus Compositions, in which Houge tried to explore in music the flavors and textures of the asparagus dishes Bond served. (No voices in this opera, though.)

In a letter that went to orchestra musicians on May 31, the DSO said it “cannot financially sustain our programming and cannot go forward with the next season as originally planned.”

“It was intended to break a seven-decade unofficial boycott and smash an enduring cultural symbol of the Nazi era. But the first performance of works by Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer, by an Israeli symphony orchestra in the Jewish state was never likely to be a harmonious event. And now it has been thwarted.”

“She posts just-written songs to YouTube and is a prolific correspondent on Twitter, soliciting creative feedback from her 558,000 followers, announcing impromptu gigs and selling tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise in flash sales. That engagement has brought her rare loyalty.”

“Tel Aviv University announced Monday that it would not permit a scheduled Wagner concert to take place on its campus, after it had evoked angry protests.” A TAU spokesman claimed that organizers never informed the university that the concert – part of a daylong symposium sponsored by the Israel Wagner Society – would include Wagner’s music.

“It was hard to write. It’s important not to have a mockery of their faith. … [In 2008] the polygamist women were saying on The Larry King Show, ‘Isn’t this America? Don’t we have religious freedom? We’re not bothering anybody. What’s the problem?’ It was important for this to not become a political tract.”

“The Copyright Board of Canada has certified new tariffs that apply to recorded music used at live events including conventions, karaoke bars, ice shows, fairs and, yes, weddings. The fees will be collected by a not-for-profit called Re:Sound.”