Category: music

“The elimination of the production will take the opera’s season down to four full operas, with the new chamber opera series taking up the fifth spot. In addition, the production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde will be an opera in concert and not a full staging of the German giant’s work. And the opera came close to loosing the fifth production as well.”

‘The Swiss maestro, now 75, held talks in North Korea late last month and says cultural officials there support the idea. South Korea says it’s willing to review the plan. Dutoit hopes to hold an inaugural concert on Aug. 15, the anniversary of a then-unified Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.’

The Sachal Orchestra is sparking something of a revival. Their first jazz album Sachal Jazz was released recently. The veteran American jazz musician, Dave Brubeck, described their interpretation of one of his tracks as “the most interesting recording of it he has ever heard”.

“Staff members were scouring supermarkets for electrolyte-replenishing Gatorade: lemon-lime flavor, which the costume department figured would cause the least problematic stains. An assistant was sent out to buy a large box of condoms, to serve as protection for the microphone transmitter packs worn on the backs of singers.”

“The Fans First Coalition was unveiled this week with a mission of protecting 
consumers from predatory ticket scalpers and with support from the likes of 
R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Maroon 5 and Jennifer Hudson, according to the
 paper. But it is financed by Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster.”

“It’s as if nobody wants to talk about CDs for fear of sounding like a dinosaur. But while 90% of discussion about the music industry concerns digital consumption and how to monetise it, actual sales show the majority of music fans are, in fact, such dinosaurs.”

“Borders was never another Tower: You wouldn’t encounter clerks who could reel off their objections to the Penguin Guide‘s picks, … but it still was a store that acknowledged classical music exists. Moreover, Borders was still a big enough player that the chain’s reaction to new releases … really mattered to labels, and certainly affected their print runs of CDs.”

“Backed by Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster, a group of concert promoters and artist managers this week declared war on resellers who buy tickets in bulk and then resell them on sites such as StubHub, Craigslist and elsewhere.”

“Opera is often dismissed as a dead art form, as an elitist plaything of the wealthy and the out-of-touch. While the wealthy do remain patrons of the opera houses, statistically speaking, the average opera viewer is much more…normal.”

“Despite getting more sales tax money than any Allegheny County performing arts group for years, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra lost about $3 million in 2009 and 2010.”