Category: music

In a June 14 letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Brooklyn Philharmonic Artistic Director Alan Pierson wrote, ‘Since our cousin, the New York Philharmonic, has other activities that don’t allow them to continue the tradition of free concerts in the parks this summer, we’d be happy to step in and play for free for the people of New York City in their place.”

“Facing nearly $2 million in debt, Austin Lyric Opera on Wednesday revealed its newest austerity plans, which include cutting one-fourth of its performances and an aggressive fundraising effort that has already netted nearly $1 million.”

Joshua Kosman: “No, the truth is that just like in the corporate and financial world, these failures began at the top, and go back a long way.”

“The BBC today announces a central plank in its contribution to the Cultural Olympiad – an enormous celebration of orchestral and other live music” – called Music Nation – “across the UK from Shetland to Cornwall.”

Composer Lisa Bielawa on her Tempelhof Broadcast: “I wanted to see hundreds of community musicians, from all over Berlin, come together and make music together on the runways and taxiways. It seemed impossible to achieve, but then again, everything always seems impossible when it first occurs to me.”

“The province opened the doors of Montreal’s long-awaited concert hall on Tuesday and the sound was horrendous. Buzz saws, sanders and the incessant hammering of hard-hat workers created a din above which chief architect Jack Diamond could scarcely be heard.”

“In a sign that the Metropolitan Opera may be easing itself out of several years of recession-battered books, company officials said Wednesday that the opera expects to achieve a balanced budget this year for the first time since 2004.”

“The contract, ratified Saturday night, calls for a 9.7 percent across-the-board cut in musicians’ salary in its first year — one of the biggest wage reductions in the orchestra’s history. Annual base salary will be $100,110, down from $110,764 this season, but musicians paid above scale will give back more. Wages will be frozen the second year of the contract.”

“A review of the opera’s financial records reveals yawning, longstanding gaps between its income and its expenses. Though the company has been critically acclaimed, internal documents show its performances now run less than half full on average, and its net assets have plummeted by more than 80 percent in the past seven years to $9.6 million.”

Following in the footsteps of John Cage’s Notations, a 1969 collection of unconventionally notated scores by the likes of Berio, Oliveros and Cage himself, Theresa Sauer has assembled a new collection of graphically rendered, visually striking music. (And this one’s in color.)