“In a week when it was repeated that cassettes will no longer be sold because CDs have so secured the market, the predator that will soon swallow the compact disc flashes its teeth again. On Monday, Coca-Cola launchesmycokemusic.com, a legalised music download website for Britain, imitating Apple’s iTunes online record-shop, which itself plans a spin-off here.”
Tag: 01.17.04
LA Opera Expands With Room To Grow
Now that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has moved across the street to Disney Hall, LA Opera is expanding its season. A $48 million budget will finance a season of “premieres, revivals and stars.”
James Levine In Boston
James Levine reveals his opening lineup for the Boston Symphony. “He is just past 60 and has more or less run the musical end of the Metropolitan Opera for more than 30 years. His health is both a mystery and a cause for concern. He walks gingerly and conducts sitting down. His musical energy, on the other hand, is as high as ever and his graphic if understated conducting style just as compelling. He talks as if he is planning on a long future.”
Big Brother’s Watching… Does Anybody Care?
It used to be that surveillance was thought to be a bad thing. But a new book argues that reality TV makes being watched cool. “Reality shows glamorize surveillance, he writes, presenting it as one of the hip attributes of the contemporary world, an entree into the world of wealth and celebrity and even a moral good.”
Dance Of The String Quartet
How do members of a tring quartet keep from arguing? How do they stay togeter year after year? “Lurking behind the first question is an idealistic vision of a quartet as a non-stop idyll of glorious music-making with your friends, a working life as fulfilled and perfect as the Beethoven quartets we play. The implication of the second question is that this long and intense menage à quatre must be some sort of Strindbergian dance of death, endured by a species of subtle masochists. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between – although some groups veer towards one extreme or another, especially if they last for decades.”
Experience Music Project Cuts 129 Jobs
The Experience Music Project in Seattle lays off 129 employees, among rumors of further downsizing. “It is the third time that the museum at the foot of the Space Needle has eliminated employees in January – 46 people were cut last year and 124 were laid off in 2002.” The $240 million museum devloted to music, designed by Frank Gehry, has only been open since 2000.
Will European Noise Regulations Kill Beethoven 9?
European Union noise regulations for workers might mean that symphony orchestras will have to quiet down. “The intriguing issue, though, is whether the directive will impose changes in the repertoire itself. The London Symphony Orchestra says that this is a real possibility. Loud works like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler may have to be scheduled more rarely and surrounded by quieter pieces. Look up the European commission’s website and you will find a section mocking the idea that Beethoven’s Ninth symphony – the EU’s anthem – might even fall foul of the noise at work directive. But the idea is not so far-fetched.”
Gray – Talk Of Suicide As An Artform
“When Gray went for a walk last Saturday night and vanished into the streets of New York, it seemed that one hidden fantasy may have at last come true, and the monologist’s voice may have no scripts to deliver in the future. Gray’s disappearance is a startling, troubling event, and one that hopefully might still have a happy resolution.”
Trying To Love The WTC Memorial (It’s Difficult)
James Russell is trying very hard not to hate the design for the WTC memorial – even after the revisions. “What it takes to make a commemorative work of design meaningful can be quite subtle—and quite hard to evaluate before it’s built, even in slick computer-produced images. But aspects of the revised Ground Zero memorial raise questions, lots of them.”