Category: music

“Classical music has long embraced musical patronage, and now it’s happening in pop, too. Meet the new mentors.”

Despite the difficult economy, the company will present premieres in three consecutive summers: Oscar (2013) by Theodore Morrison, starring countertenor David Daniels as Oscar Wilde; Judith Weir’s Miss Fortune (2014), which has its world premiere this summer at the Bregenz Festival; and Jennifer Higdon’s first opera, Cold Mountain, based on Charles Frazier’s best-selling novel and starring Nathan Gunn.

The union lawyer “says the lack of records about specific donor wishes bolsters the union’s suspicion that the orchestra cannot prove that its $120 million in various endowment accounts is donor-restricted. That being the case, he says, parts of the endowment can be used to satisfy the union’s potential claim as the largest creditor in the bankruptcy.”

“While the major labels and pop music may be able to reap a real income stream from Spotify simply due to the sheer volume of streams, the Spotify model is not financially sustainable for any indie niche label. As the industry moves more in this direction (competitor Napster, for example, only yields slightly more, about 1 cent per stream), it will simply choke the indie labels out of business.”

The Syracuse Philharmonic Society “has new leaders, a new financial plan rooted in Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music and a flexible attitude about the venues and kinds of music it will play. A new group could immediately start performing, but it would take about five years to evolve into a stable, full-time orchestra.”

The first season programmed by artistic director Lyndon Terracini includes a three-opera summer Mozart festival (in English), Bruce Beresford directing Korngold’s Die tote Stadt with the orchestra piped in in surround-sound from the studio next door, a Francesca Zambello Traviata on a floating stage in Sydney Harbour, and a national tour of South Pacific starring antipodean heartthrob Teddy Tahu Rhodes.

Bolstered by reviving concert attendance, Live Nation Entertainment Inc. posted a 23% jump in revenue and reversed a year-earlier loss.

“The orchestra notes the union has barely budged from its initial demand of a 10 per cent increase over two years. The orchestra says even an 8.5 per cent hike is far beyond the symphony’s capacity, saying it is proposing four per cent over two years.”

“A total of 31 festivals have been cancelled or postponed this year so far and many more are struggling to sell out. Financial results compiled by PRS For Music released last week showed there was huge growth in the festival industry last year with income up by 20% from 2009.”

The warehouse housed stock of more than 150 independent record labels. One of them, Memphis Industries, tweeted: “All the stock we got left is sitting in our office. Devastated is the word.”