Category: music

“Citing unspecified scheduling conflicts, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra announced Tuesday that it would not be presenting its traditional Concerts in the Parks Series this summer.” There will be one free concert with crossover tenor Andrea Bocelli in September.

The 75-year-old conductor has battled numerous health problems over the past several years: esophageal cancer, hernia, pneumonia, even shingles. Ozawa announced this week that he will conduct Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival, which he founded in 1992.

“The City Opera is too important for New York to lose. And one need not look back to the days of Beverly Sills to find an artistically vibrant company. As recently as the 2006-07 season, under Paul Kellogg’s leadership, the company was in good shape and gave six performances a week. This reminds us that the City Opera’s current difficulties stem not from a proven inability to function economically–though running it has never been easy–but from missteps by management.”

Orchestras worldwide are having a white-knuckle ride due to shifts in the global economy and their Australian counterparts are looking on with trepidation.

In a new production of Aida mounted at the foot of the Masada fortress, “the Israelis have upped the ante by replacing traditional scenery with cutting-edge 4-D video technology and expansive lighting. The staging had many of the 8,000 opening-night attendees audibly gasping at what they saw.” (Eat your heart out, Robert Lepage.)

“Several musicians said the money people gave them in the park was their sole source of income. An alto saxophonist, Rakiem Walker, estimated that musicians could earn from $20,000 to $120,000 a year by playing there full time.”

“Can the blues endure? And even if it does, will it remotely resemble the raw, gritty sound of its origins? More than a few musicians still playing believe there’s life yet in a music that opened the door to jazz and set the stage for rock and rap, hip-hop and R&B.”

“The orchestra, based in New York, was founded in 2004 by Alondra de la Parra, a rising young Mexican conductor, and made a specialty of Latin American music. It toured in Mexico recently in honor of the country’s bicentennial and gave three or four concerts a year in New York.”

“Anne Parsons, who became a lightning rod for criticism by musicians and their supporters during the recent six-month strike but earned praise for her leadership from key donors and the board, has signed a three-year contract extension … [with] neither a pay raise nor pay cut.”

“We think we seek excellence and genius, yet we frown and tut-tut when someone goes about it in a nonconformist way. Exhibit A: Leonard Bernstein … Had he only (focused more, composed more, been more disciplined – insert your remedy of choice here), he would have been truly great. So runs the party line. Bernstein’s greatness, in fact, lay in his being exactly who he was.”