Could Obama's Election Be Good for Country Music? Wait - wasn't much of the country music world (and its fans) behind John McCain? Sure - "The GOP and Nashville hitched themselves to each other as far back as the Nixon years." But, says David Browne, as country ruled the charts through the years of conservative political dominance, Nashville churned out "too many Southern-adult-contemporary ballads and obnoxious power chords." Some time in eclipse might be just what country music needs. The New Republic 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@09:40PM

What Is (And Isn't) Michael Kaiser Doing To Save NY City Opera? The arts world's Mr. Turnaround, called in by board chair Susan Baker in the wake of the company's dark season and the loss of Gérard Mortier as artistic director, isn't taking the helm himself. "I've been asked by Susan and the board of the opera to help them write a plan for going forward. It's very specific… If they asked me [to take over], I'd say no." New York Times 11/20/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@09:36PM

Pittsburgh Symphony Raises $48 Million "The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra announced today that it has raised more than $48 million toward its goal of $80 million to increase its endowment and repair and enhance Heinz Hall." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@09:23PM

Danail Rachev To Eugene Symphony The 38-year-old Bulgarian maestro Danail Rachev, currently assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will succeed Giancarlo Guerrero as music director of the Eugene (Oregon) Symphony Orchestra as of next season. Other predecessors in the job include Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Marin Alsop. The Oregonian (Portland) 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@09:19PM

Well, It's One Way To Get Into A Sold-Out Concert Adriano Graziano rang up Welsh National Opera looking for a last-minute ticket to a gala concert. The response from the man on the phone: "You're a tenor, aren't you? I don't suppose you are free tonight? Our tenor is ill." The Times (London) 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@09:15PM

Indy Symphony Back To Deficits, But Not Panicking The Indianapolis Symphony ended the fiscal year in the red for the first time in five years. "The board and managers are re-evaluating the orchestra's current 'business model,' with hopes of beefing up the roughly $120 million endowment, increasing earned income and containing costs." Indianapolis Star 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@06:32AM

What Can Music Do For Math? Academics are divided on whether or not studying music can help students get better at other subjects like math, but the people who believe it can are passionate about the connection. "[Music lessons have] given them discipline, confidence and self esteem to perform well under adverse conditions..." Washington Post 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@06:28AM

Musicians On Fire The wildfires ravaging Southern California are producing some stunning video. "A group of classical musicians on their way to a Riverside Philharmonic concert this weekend were on the 91 freeway as the fire literally crossed it." Being musicians, they filmed their adventure and set it to a Shostakovich soundtrack... LAist 11/18/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@06:23AM

Another Orchestra On The Brink "In its 72-year history, the Charleston [SC] Symphony Orchestra has had its moments of near demise. But rarely have things looked this bleak. CSO board president Ted Legasey shocked some audience members Saturday during intermission of the Masterworks concert when he announced they could be attending the final CSO concert of 2008 unless the group raises $250,000 immediately to pay for the month of December." Charleston Post & Courier (SC) 11/18/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@06:16AM

CBC Offers To Help Orchestra Transition The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which drew fire for its decision to stop funding the CBC Radio Orchestra, says that it has offered to help the ensemble in its quest to become a standalone orchestra. "The CBC has offered to give the rebranded orchestra three broadcasts next year and to commission more new works... [The orchestra] would also be able to use the CBC's facilities in Vancouver for rehearsals and its library of sheet music." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@06:05AM

Philly Concert Hall Weighing Major Renovation "Just months after paying off construction bills dating from its opening seven years ago, [Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts] is undertaking its next act: renovations... The scope of the project is still fuzzy, though Kimmel leaders are taking this moment in time to think big." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/19/08

email this story | Posted 11/19/08@05:57AM

Royal Concertgebouw Tops Gramophone's List Of World's Best Orchestras A poll of critics from Europe and North America named Amsterdam's favorite band no. 1 in its list of the globe's 20 best symphony orchestras. The U.S. has seven orchestras on the list (with Chicago, Cleveland and L.A. at nos. 6, 7 and 8); Germany has four (including the second-place Berlin Phil), and Russia has three. Bavarian Radio (Munich) 11/18/08 (in German; includes complete list)

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@09:27PM

Yo-Yo Ma Musical America's 2009 Musician Of The Year The musically peripatetic cellist takes the honors on the 10th anniversary of his Silk Road Project. Other Musical America "Of The Year" winners include Marin Alsop (Conductor), Christopher Rouse (Composer), Stephanie Blythe (Vocalist) and the Pacifica Quartet (Ensemble). Musical America 11/18/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@09:24PM

When Tenors Go Bad The Cape Town Opera has fired tenor Richard Mbovane after he was caught on camera - twice - stealing electronics from a store in Berlin, where the company was touring. The Times (South Africa) 11/16/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@09:14PM

Young Tenor With Chicago Lyric Dies At 31 Ryan Smith, a first-year member of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago and a 2007 winner of the Met's National Council Auditions, died last week at age 31 of lymphoma. Chicago Tribune 11/17/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@09:08PM

S.F. Opera Director Addresses Financial Future "General Director David Gockley acknowledged the obvious truth in a brief address to the audience before Sunday's opening performance of 'La Bohème': The financial picture at the San Francisco Opera isn't pretty. ... There had been a small drop in ticket sales, he said, but the more pressing problem was the decline in the value of the company's endowment and fears about possible future shortfalls in contributions." San Francisco Chronicle 11/18/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@07:24AM

Covering Classics Is Safe, But It Doesn't Help Young Writers If established singers "don't have to pay attention to new songwriters, what happens to the great American songbook? Even modern pop songs need interpretation. ... Performed at a different tempo, transposed to another key, given a new arrangement or sung by a gifted singer, a song takes on a new life." But older singers looking for cover songs tend to look to classics, not new work. Wall Street Journal 11/18/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@05:51AM

U Of Cincinnati's Tall Order (Maybe): 165 Steinways "A vast fleet of pianos is expected to arrive in Cincinnati next month, part of the largest order -- by number of instruments -- ever filled by the Steinway & Sons piano company. The College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati said it is plunking down $4.1 million for 165 pianos, to be delivered over the course of the academic year." The New York Times 11/17/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@05:03AM

Royal Opera House: If No State Funding, No Manchester "London's Royal Opera House, which seeks to open a branch in Manchester that would cost 60 million pounds to 80 million pounds ($90 million to $120 million), said the project would be dropped if it failed to receive state money." Bloomberg 11/17/08

email this story | Posted 11/18/08@04:47AM

On His Way Out The Door, LA Phil Fetes Salonen "If any city knows how to hype someone, it's LA. But it says something that even in a place more internationally famous for its silicon implants than its orchestral music, they can really put out the bunting - literally, since Salonen's mugshot is all over downtown LA - for their music director." The Guardian (UK) 11/17/08

email this story | Posted 11/17/08@03:34PM

Post-Mortier, What's City Opera's New New Direction? "[D]espite the Mortier fiasco, a bold, exciting (but cheaper) agenda remains exactly what the company needs," Justin Davidson prescribes. "It needs to reconnect with the reasons Fiorello La Guardia founded the 'People's Opera' in the first place--as a frothier, less pretentious, and more affordable alternative to the Met." New York Magazine 11/24/08

email this story | Posted 11/17/08@02:16PM

Diversifying Classical Music "A recent survey by the League of American Orchestras showed that blacks made up less than 2 percent of professional American orchestra musicians, while Latinos made up less than 3 percent. They are similarly underrepresented among chamber musicians and soloists. But that is slowly changing, thanks largely to the Sphinx Organization, a nonprofit venture dedicated to increasing the presence of blacks and Hispanics in classical music as composers, performers and listeners." The New York Times 11/16/08

email this story | Posted 11/17/08@05:38AM

And With Only The Briefest Talk, Famed Guarneri Quartet Decides To Retire The storied quartet, together since 1964, is playing its final concerts. "People always ask do we have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. The truth is that we've never had more than a one-year plan. I don't think we ever talked about retiring someday." San Francisco Chronicle 11/16/08

email this story | Posted 11/16/08@08:28PM

Reich To Obama: Take Some Jazz To D.C. Could President Obama give the original American music form a major boost by inviting it back into the White House? "Obama's mixed-race heritage reflects the genome of jazz, which first blossomed when multiple cultures and classes converged in New Orleans at the turn of the previous century." Chicago Tribune 11/16/08

email this story | Posted 11/16/08@11:34AM

MN Opera Makes Major Commitment To New Rep "The Minnesota Opera will commit $5.5 million over seven years to contemporary repertoire under a new program just announced. Minnesota OperaWorks envisions three commissions, three revivals of American works and an international co-production." Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 11/16/08

email this story | Posted 11/16/08@10:39AM

Parsing Andre Violinist/showman Andre Rieu "insists that musical categorisation is meaningless; that there is no difference between classical and non-classical music, or high art and low art... He depicts his critics as members of a stuffy musical elite with narrow aesthetic tastes, yet regularly demeans in interviews music that is not to his taste and classical musicians who choose not to perform in his manner." But then, Rieu isn't as much a musician as a profit-driven industry. The Australian 11/17/08

email this story | Posted 11/16/08@10:19AM

CBC Radio Orchestra Not Going Quietly The Vancouver-based CBC Radio Orchestra plays its final concert this weekend, and fans of the ensemble are expected to protest the CBC's decision to scrap it. And while the orchestra is expected to continue performing, at least for now, under a new name, the sting of the CBC's slap is still fresh. The Globe & Mail (Canada) & Montreal Gazette 11/15/08

email this story | Posted 11/16/08@09:34AM

UK Study: People Consuming More Music "The study found 44 per cent of people polled claimed to have consumed more music this year than in 2007. As well as the swelling market for live music, this surge may have something to do with commercial harnessing of music through means other than record sales, since 69 per cent of "the most passionate music fans" agreed that brand affiliations provide a valuable new revenue stream for artists." The Guardian (UK) 11/14/08

email this story | Posted 11/14/08@07:23AM

Deeply Troubled Columbus Symphony Fires Music Director "Junichi Hirokami, a native of Japan, took over the baton in June 2006 and had one year remaining on his contract. He was openly critical of the symphony board during labor negotiations with musicians in the last year. The contract dispute led the symphony to suspend operations for almost five months before reaching an agreement in September." Columbus Dispatch 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/14/08@06:57AM

Newsflash: Opera In America Is Not Dying From "High School Night" in San Francisco to the city-wide Ring festival in L.A. to the Met's HD moviecasts to the fact that "Nearly every opera company in the country has a new work somewhere in its schedule" (per the chairman of Opera America), the art form is in good health, despite the financial crisis. Christian Science Monitor 11/14/08

email this story | Posted 11/13/08@08:58PM

Must Be Better Than The Liverpool Oratorio Peter Maxwell Davies has written a new piece dedicated to Paul McCartney: a 20-minute choral ode called Liber Pulsationis Fabulatoris. No, that's not "the book of fabulous vibrations" - it's a text by Hildegard von Bingen with the typically not-quite-sensical title "The Book of Pulsations of the Creator of Legends." (By the way, PMax says that "Paul is as great as Schubert and still has not received the full recognition that his talent deserves.") The Times (UK) 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/13/08@08:24PM

Guarneri Quartet Violinist Stricken With Cancer "The Guarneri String Quartet has postponed its Portland concerts on Feb. 14 and 15. John Dalley, the group's second violinist, has cancer and needs to undergo treatment , according to Linda Magee of Chamber Music Northwest." The Oregonian 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/13/08@08:14PM

Met Drops Next Season's Ghosts Of Versailles "Cutting costs in the wake of the economic downturn, the Met[ropolitan Opera] is dropping next season's highly anticipated revival of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles that was to feature the company debut of Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson, who also were to appear, instead will sing in a less-costly revival of Verdi's La Traviata, Met general manager Peter Gelb said Thursday." MSN (AP) 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/13/08@07:33PM

Smithsonian Nurtures Native American Composers "For the last three years, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian has been mounting one of the more adventurous concert series in town, showcasing new classical music by Native American composers. Admit it -- you didn't know there was such stuff." Washington Post 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/13/08@04:33AM

Pierre Boulez Curates Art Exhibition At Louvre "[T]he art show titled 'Work:Fragment' gathers 70 works by artists such as Ingres, Cézanne, Degas, Delacroix, Kandinsky, Klee, Giacometti and Picasso alongside scores from Wagner, Bartók and Varèse and works by writers from the 19th and 20th centuries." The program, the first at the Louvre ever to be curated by a musician, also includes 11 live and six filmed concerts. Agence France-Presse 11/06/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@09:26PM

Michael Kaiser To The Rescue Once Again Faced with money troubles, a nearly dark season and the departure of artistic director-designate Gérard Mortier, New York City Opera is turning for help to "the performing arts world's Mr. Fix-It," Kennedy Center CEO Michael Kaiser, who has famously presided over turnarounds at Covent Garden and American Ballet Theater and helped steady Miami's teetering Adrienne Arsht Center. Musical America 11/12/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@09:04PM

Latest Candidate For The Strad Secret: Mushrooms "A Swiss researcher said Thursday he had hit on an unlikely way of recreating the unique sound of a Stradivarius violin - by treating the wood of a replica instrument with mushrooms." Agence France-Presse 11/06/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@08:52PM

Dallas Symphony Cancels Concert Butterfly The DSO is replacing its concert performances of Madama Butterfly, scheduled for next May, with a conventional orchestra-and-chorus program. For once, it's not due to the current economic mess: the orchestra is avoiding conflict with The Dallas Opera's new Butterfly planned for the following spring. Dallas Morning News 11/13/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@08:44PM

Hip-Hop Artists Celebrate Obama "Since last week, hip-hop artists have issued a host of new songs in tribute to Obama's victory... There's obvious joy and celebration, but also a sense of historic moment, and almost a tragicomic awareness of what it took to get to this point." Washington Post 11/12/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@06:23AM

Changes Coming To Sydney Symphony Leadership The Sydney Symphony's controversial general manager is reportedly leaving the organization next year. Sources say that a number of important behind-the-scenes figures have left the orchestra during GM Libby Christie's tenure, having chafed at her micromanaging style. Crikey 11/12/08

email this story | Posted 11/12/08@05:52AM