Downloading’s Tower Of Babel

Legal downloading of music is becoming increasingly frustrating as players and download stores support different formats designed to protect music from being copied on a mass scale. The problem? Music downloaded in one system won’t play on another. Now there’s an effort to standardize the digital rights management formats in hopes of making it easier for consumers. But will the plan catch on?

Milan’s Maestro Muti

“No conductor today is master of all he surveys as much as Riccardo Muti in Milan. Music director of La Scala for nearly 20 years and still going strong, Muti acts as a symbol for his country’s culture at home and abroad. Where Italian music is concerned, he is proud and protective. He rigorously schools his singers in the traditions he imbibed as a student – traditions which, through his revered teacher Antonino Votto, go back to Toscanini and Verdi himself, traditions that are in danger of being lost as national cultures succumb to the international melting pot of modern life.”

Booker Jury Objects To Jury Chairman

Members of the Book Prize jury are objecting to the appointment of John Sutherland as chairman of the jury. “He is an appalling choice, because of what happened last time round. ‘Last time round’, when Professor Sutherland was a judge in 1999, he wrote a piece for the Guardian in which he described the judging process. His analysis was thunderously denied by two fellow judges, who accused him of a ‘breach of trust’.”

Actors Unions Make Deal With Hollywood

Hollywood’s two major actors unions have made a deal on new contracts. “Under the agreement, which still needs final approval, actors will get a nine per cent minimum pay raise over three years, increased money for the unions’ health and pension plans and greater protections for stunt actors and extras. However, actors did not get a larger share of DVD residuals, which unions representing writers and directors had tried unsuccessfully for in their recent contract negotiations.”

Radio Lives – On The Internet

“Thanks to broadband technology, the internet has created thousands of new radio stations that, generated simply by the home PCs of amateur DJs, cater to every music taste, no matter how obscure. These days, anyone can be a radio star. You don’t have to be a technical whiz to join this radio revolution – all you need is a PC and a subscription to a radio website, such as Shoutcast or Live365.”

Guggenheim Power Struggle: Krens v Lewis

Peter Lewis’ departure from the Guggenheim makes him the loser in a struggle with director Thomas Krens. “For years the two had diverged on what the museum’s focus should be. Mr. Krens was interested in creating Guggenheim satellites around the world to build on the raging success of its showy outpost in Bilbao. Mr. Lewis felt that Mr. Krens should keep the museum’s attention on New York, getting the finances of the mother ship in order and perhaps seeking once again to open a branch elsewhere in the city. Each came to the conflict with distinct advantages…”

Gardiner: Do-It-Yourself Recordings

Why did John Eliot Gardiner set up his recording label? “The catalyst came five years ago, when Deutsche Grammophon pulled out of a project to record all the 198 sacred cantatas that he, together with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, were performing on his millennial Bach Pilgrimage. The CDs were supposed to be, in every sense, a record of this historic tour, which began in the Bach heartland of Weimar and then criss-crossed Europe presenting the church cantatas on the feast days for which they were composed. In the event, DG issued only a handful of CDs from a potential 50 or more.”