Category: music

“Composer Michael Nyman, who wrote the music for Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano and is a long-term collaborator with Peter Greenaway, is furious that the Royal Opera House has rebuffed his approaches to stage a work in Covent Garden — and he has threatened to withdraw his tax in protest.”

“The cuts are in response to the orchestra’s 2011 deficit of $2.9 million. No musicians or artistic staffers were affected by the layoffs. The musicians’ union is in negotiations with orchestra management for a new deal to replace the contract that expires in September.”

“English National Opera artistic director John Berry has claimed the current trend for arts organisations to screen their work live to cinemas in a bid to extend their brand was a distraction from ensuring a company delivers the best live performances possible.”

“American singer-songwriter Paul Simon and Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma were named winners of Sweden’s Polar Music Prize,” worth one million kronor (roughly $146,000).

“The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith.”

“Federal authorities seized the dajaz1.com site based on assertions from the Recording Industry Association of America that it was linking to four “pre-release” music tracks in November, 2010. The authorities gave it back nearly 13 months later without filing civil or criminal charges because of apparent recording industry delays in confirming infringement.”

A source at the Royal Palace in Madrid says that “experts had set the cello on its side padded with foam so they could photograph it but it tipped forward and knocked against a table, breaking its neck from the body.”

“For the last six years the name CBGB has been little more than a logo on T-shirts for young people in the East Village. Now a group of investors has bought the assets of that famous punk-rock club, which closed in 2006, and plans to establish an ambitious music festival this summer, with an eye toward reopening the club at a new downtown location.”

“That his band was Ellington’s instrument has become a cliché, but it is a misleading one. An instrument is a passive object that takes its energy from its operator. That’s not how Ellington worked. He was a tremendous talent-spotter, and part of what kept that talent close by was his willingness to let it have its voice, and more, to highlight and showcase it, and most importantly, to involve it in the creative process.”

“It’s no longer necessary for artists to play by the rules of a specific genre to make music that resonates with a crowd. You don’t need to strive for authenticity in the same way that artists of a previous generation did because the rules for what it means to be authentic don’t apply anymore.”