SEPTEMBER 2000

Friday September 29

• JUST ONE OF THE PLAYERS: Yo-Yo Ma is "exuberance incarnate, arguably the finest, certainly the most dynamic cellist on the international circuit." And yet he still spends half of every concert tucked in the back of the orchestra playing as one of the section cellists. "It would make him the world's most expensive rank-and-file orchestral cellist but for the fact that, as he says, ‘I come free after the interval. You know, there's nothing like the thrill of sitting at the back of the cellos, close to the basses, wind and brass.’" The Telegraph (London) 09/29/00

Thursday September 28

• PIANO POLITICS: If the winner of a major international competition feels it necessary to later enter another big competition, what does that say about the first competition that it wasn't able to properly launch the career of its winner. "As this all suggests, the piano competition circuit is rather more of a lottery than most competition organisers would like the public to realise." Irish Times 09/27/00
• A LOT TO ASK FROM AN ORCHESTRA PROGRAM: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra travels to Sydney with a program featuring the orchestra and Maori performers. "A note in the program explains that the concerts not only project biculturalism for international purposes, but launch a tour that will take these performances to the people of New Zealand itself in an act of reconciliation - or at least of united purpose. Such a worthy plan has its risks." Sydney Morning Herald 09/28/00

Wednesday September 27

• BETTER TO PIRATE THAN KEEP SINGING ABOUT MAO? Despite ongoing government surveillance, new music is flowing more freely in China due in large part to the internet. Piracy is rampant, but some say illegal copies are the only way around decades of censorship. “Even today, anyone who records a CD has to submit its lyrics on paper to state censors for their approval. ‘If the government wants to dictate what we should listen to, we have no choice but to rely on pirated stuff.’” Newsweek (International edition) 10/02/00

Tuesday September 26

• ORCHESTRAS ARE NOT DYING: A music critic who wrote about the "dysfunctionality" of the modern symphony orchestra hears plenty of dissent from readers. National Post (Canada) 09/26/00
• STERN STUFF: Carnegie Hall spends the weekend paying tribute to Isaac Stern, the violinist who became one of the most powerful movers in the music world. New York Times 09/26/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• THINKING ENGLISH: The BBC Orchestra is quintessentially English. So how does Leonard Slatkin, renowned for championing American music, fit in as BBC's new muic director? The Telegraph (London) 09/26/00
• KISSIN OFF: Evgeny Kissin is acclaimed as one of the best modern pianists. Yet one critic notes an alarming trend in his playing: "At the louder and more extroverted end of the dynamic spectrum, though, Kissin's taste for thunderous banging is growing ever more pronounced. Without gradations or subtlety, he will suddenly begin to pound away - sometimes in midphrase, sometimes at sectional transitions that are then marked all too starkly. The result is a maddening duality, a kind of sonic whiplash that keeps listeners shuttling uncomfortably back and forth between dynamic extremes." San Francisco Chronicle 09/26/00
  • WHAT DOES IT MEAN? "What one heard was a combination of generalized intensity, interpretive ardor and an exceptional technique. Nevertheless, the search for that elusive quality called poetry continues in Kissin's career. You came away admiring a succession of problems variously solved, rather than gleaning any notable insights into the works performed." San Francisco Examiner 09/26/00
• WHAT A DRAG: A male percussionist/composer with the New Zealand Orchestra has a thing for dressing up in drag. When he appeared onstage for a concert dressed as a women, orchestra management "read him the riot act." But the act turned into a gig writing a piece for the orchestra for percussionist-in-drag. Sydney Morning Herald 09/26/00

Monday September 25

• ITALIANS ON TOP: Time was when the Russians used to dominate international piano competitions. But this year's Leeds International was dominated by the Italians - three of the top six finalists were Italian. The Telegraph (London) 09/25/00
  • ITALIAN WINS LEEDS: Alessio Bax, at 22 the youngest of three finalists, is the first Italian ever to win at Leeds. The Times 09/25/00
• MARKET FORCES: This year's instrumental soloists with Canadian orchestras tend to be young, female and good looking. "Presenters aren't interested in art any more. They're interested in selling concerts. They're trying to find ways that will draw an audience, and they're following the standards of what's happening in our general culture. The values of Hollywood have long been to misuse women and their bodies to bring in audiences." The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 09/25/00

Sunday September 24

• PUZZLING WELCOME: The London Philharmonic held a day-long celebration to welcome Kurt Masur, the orchestra's new principal conductor. But the performance roster was a multi-cultural stew that had virtually nothing to do with Masur's esthetic. "What on earth is the poor man being welcomed to? An orchestra or an agenda? A concert series suited to his musical character, or a musical re-creation of the Millennium Dome?" Sunday Times (London) 09/24/00
• OH THOSE CRITICS: The Dallas Symphony recently took an extended European tour. The reviews are in, and, depending on your seat (or your publication) the critics thought it was an "indifferent," "immaculate," "outstanding," or "disappointing" series of concerts. Dallas Morning News 09/24/00
• THE COMPLETE RECORD: It's not so easy getting recording contracts these days, even if you're a big star. But Turkish pianist Idil Biret has been recording a prodigious amount of music - 40 CD's for Naxos in recent years, including three complete-works multi-disk projects about to come out. Boston Globe 09/24/00

Friday September 22

• TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK: John Tavener is the composer of the moment in Britain. His music is undeniably popular with the public. But he's not exactly a fan of much music history:  "I hate progress, I hate development and I hate evolution in most things, but in music particularly," Tavener has written. Schoenberg is "the filthy, rotten 'dirt dump'" of the 20th century. The German tradition from Bach to Berg is a "rotting corpse" and "a hideous sound world". The Guardian (London) 09/22/00

• TRYOUTS: Kurt Masur withdraws from two weeks of subscription concerts with the New York Philharmonic, citing health reasons. No big deal, but the orchestra's choices to replace him happen to be two conductors rumored to be in the chase to succeed Masur as the NYPhil's next music director. New York Times 09/22/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

Thursday September 21

• AUSTRALIAN OPERA COMPETITION GOES WRONG: Opera Foundation Australia staged its competition recently, but participants are crying foul. "Earlier this week, finalists received a letter from the Opera Foundation informing them that the $40,000 prize had been awarded to another singer who had not taken part in the competition." Sydney Morning Herald 09/21/00

Wednesday September 20

• PAVAROTTI WITH YOUR PETROL? In an odd marketing move, Universal (which controls the Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and Philips labels) will release classical CDs in England and Germany at rock-bottom prices. “Those neon-lit shops where you exchange a week's wages for 10 litres of unleaded and a bunch of stale flowers are going to be swamped with classical CDs at an irresistible price.” The Telegraph (London) 09/20/00

• HITTING THE RIGHT NOTES: A rare interview with Simon Keenlyside, one of the world’s leading baritones, and the most internationally successful British classical singer of his generation. The Telegraph (London) 09/20/00

• WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME: At a time when mega-music and bookstores seem to be taking over the market, a small Music shop in Baltimore proves that personal attention still counts. The Idler 09/20/00

• THE WAGNER SOAP OPERA: The succession battles at Germany's Bayreuth Festival are killing it. Eighty-one-year-old Wolfgang Wagner has run out of ideas. "The selection of artists seems haphazard and patchy, and it is a long time since any Bayreuth production has made waves in the opera world." And yet, the "director-for-life" refuses to step aside unless the festival's board chooses his hand-picked successor. Chicago Tribune 09/20/00

Tuesday September 19

• "AIDA” GETS THE AXE : Egypt’s lavish annual production of “Aida,” performed each autumn under Cairo’s pyramids, was abruptly cancelled by officials Monday. One possible cause? This year’s production coincided with Egypt’s general elections, and the opera has been criticized as an extravagant waste of public funds. Yahoo! News (Reuters) 09/18/00

• ANOTHER LOOK AT BERLIOZ: Berlioz's excellent memoir is a model of the genre, as entertaining and eventful as any novel. Now a new biography attempts to fill in some of the holes. The New Republic 09/18/00

• AN ANONYMOUS ART: Accompanists are the music world’s unsung artists. “Twice the work, half the pay, and people invariably forget your name. What self-respecting pianist would choose such a career?” London Times 09/19/00

• FIVE PIANOS, 50 FINGERS: Five members of one family are piano students at the Juilliard School. New York Times 09/19/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

Monday September 18

• THE MAHLERIZATION OF BEETHOVEN: After two weeks, the National Symphony's tour through Mahler's reinterpretations of the Beethoven symphonies concludes. It was revealing that "Mahler's intent was not so much to alter Beethoven as to bring to light what is buried within his music. In Mahler's hands, the modern orchestra can 'restore' lines that are lost, thoughts that get buried, details that are implicit but suppressed." Washington Post 09/18/00

• FIRST PRIZE - A STRADIVARIUS: The Canada Council selects a crop of young musicians to whom it will lend valuable musical instruments, including a couple of Strads. CBC 09/17/00

Sunday September 17

• AN INSIDE-THE-WALLS MAKEOVER: The English National Opera, mindful of the many travails of Covent Garden with its extravagant theatre makeover, has embarked on a more modest plan for its infrastructure. The Telegraph (London) 09/16/00 

• THE STAR ORCHESTRA ADMINISTRATOR: The New York Philharmonic lost out on its bid to hire Riccardo Muti as its next music director. But Zarin Mehta, the orchestra's new top executive has some important orchestra-building of his own he'd like to accomplish. The New York Times 09/17/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

• LESSONS OF A LIFETIME: Isaac Stern is 80 and looking to teach. "What I can do best and what I think is most worthwhile is teaching the players how to think. I teach them how to listen to themselves and be honest, so they can become independent and go as far as their talent can take them, which is usually farther than they've gone at the time that they come to me. The main direction is teaching them not how you play, but why. Why do you want to be a musician?" Los Angeles Times 09/17/00

Friday September 15

• SO YOU'RE GOING TO COMPOSE AND OPERA... Composer John Williams was startled to read in the press earlier this week that he is going to write an opera for Placido Domingo and the Los Angeles Opera. Williams concedes he's talked with Domingo about a project but that nothing has been agreed upon. "Better minds than mine have tried opera and not been successful - it is an art that has had difficulty renewing itself, especially in this country. Boston Globe 09/15/00

• MARRIED TO THE BAND: When you marry an orchestra musician, you're marrying the whole orchestra. An orchestra wife writes about how she spent the summer. The Guardian (09/15/00

• FINALLY - A USE FOR THE ACCORDION: A new British study finds that the kind of music played in stores greatly influences what consumers buy. "When French music was played, French wine outsold German varieties by five bottles to one. When German music was played, it outsold French by two bottles to one." The Age (Melbourne) 09/15/00

Thursday September 14

• HOUSTON SYMPHONY'S NEW MUSIC DIRECTOR: Houston Symphony names Hans Graf to succeed Christophe Eschenbach. Graf is currently music director of the Calgary Philharmonic and the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine in France. Houston Chronicle 09/14/00

• CHICAGO SYMPHONY'S NEW CONTRACT: Musicians of the Chicago Symphony sign a new contract, making them the highest-paid orchestra musicians in the US. Pay jumps to "$1,770 a week, or $92,040 annually, in the first year, rising to $95,940 the second year, $100,100 the third and $104,000 the fourth. Chicago Sun-Times 09/14/00

• KURT MASUR'S PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC: Masur directs his first concert as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic on Saturday. “Listening to the greatest music is equivalent to what a Buddhist monk is doing if he meditates for hours, independent from the surrounding world. I would like to bring people to a point where they feel that they need to go to a symphony concert, just as a Christian needs to go to church." The Telegraph (London) 09/14/00

• SO LONG STANDING-ROOM : Angry opera fans led a candlelight vigil and marched in front of La Scala before the opening of la Bohème Tuesday to protest the opera house’s recent decision to replace its popular standing-room section with seats. Nando Times 09/13/00

• ITZHAK PERLMAN, CONDUCTOR: One of the world's best violinists turns to conducting, making his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut. How'd he do? Los Angeles Times 09/14/00 

• CAN IT BE? Eliesha Nelson, the newest addition to the Cleveland Orchestra's viola section, is the first black woman to become a full-time member of the orchestra. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 09/14/00

• CUSTOMS AGENTS AS CRITICS: Why did British Customs agents seize the Beatles' gold records when the discs were being shipped to the UK back in 1967? And why does Customs still have them? "On 10 March 1967, a Customs officer, B Lampert, wrote to a manager, saying: 'If it is considered that sale of these plaques will not embarrass the department, then sale would have to be of a specific nature with advertisements in the 'music papers'. I have no idea of the price we could expect to realise but I understand the Beatles are on their 'way out' (result of quick market research on teenage neighbours!)'." The Independent (London) 09/14/00

Wednesday September 13

• IN NEED OF A “RADICAL RETHINK”: Ever since moving into its new home in Covent Garden last winter, the Royal Opera has been plagued by financial and management crises. “Almost everything that has gone wrong at the Dome was dry-run at the ROH. The long-running crisis is neither a matter of money (the usual excuse) nor of human frailty, but of a deep-seated structural fault that can only be remedied by a radical rethink.” The Telegraph (London) 09/13/00

• BARENBOIM NEGOTIATES WITH BERLIN: The City of Berlin says that Daniel Barenboim will not renew his contract as director of the Staatsoper, after the city's culture minister flies to Chicago for negotiations with Barenboim.  "Given Barenboim's stature in the international classical music world, Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen has stated that the city should try to keep him at the Staatsoper 'no matter what'. But so far, the city's senate has refused to allocate additional money." Chicago Sun-Times 09/13/00

• DILUTING THE MUSIC: As the Hispanic population grows in the US and Latin music becomes part of the mainstream, traditional Latin music forms are being changed - some say diluted - in a widening cultural schism in the booming Latino community. Chicago Tribune 09/13/00

• OPERA'S BEST FRIEND: High-tech investor Alberto Vilar - a friend of Placido Domingo - has given $24 million to the Los Angeles Opera, the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia to fund permanent traveling productions. Nando Times (AP) 0/12/00

  • OPERA ANGEL: Vilar's L.A. Opera donation breaks down into two parts - $6 million will go for new productions over three years, starting in 2001. One million dollars a year over the next four years will support and expand the company's training and coaching program for young singers. These donations come on the heels of a separate Vilar pledge to L.A. Opera of $2 million, announced by its new artistic director Placido Domingo on Monday. Los Angeles Times 09/13/00

Tuesday September 12

• MAESTRO VS ORCHESTRA: This weekend Kurt Masur takes up his new post as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic. The relationship between the traditionalist maestro and the experimenting and pragmatic LPO could generate sparks. Good thing. Perhaps "the bizarre, almost century-long seclusion of orchestras from the real energies of cultural life is coming to an end. The orchestra is about to become interesting, a place of argument and contestation, just as it was in the Romantic era." The Times (London) 09/12/00

• A STAR WARS RING: "Plácido Domingo, the new artistic director of the Los Angeles Opera, announced today that George Lucas's special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, would design a new version of 'The Ring.' The epic, beginning with 'Das Rheingold' in 2003, will span two seasons." New York Times 09/12/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

  • THE PLACIDO PLAN: Domingo announced plans to transform the Los Angeles Opera with a series of initiatives, including an ongoing relationship with the Kirov. "In addition, Domingo promises to make good on his previously expressed intentions to tap the Hollywood talent pool and reach out to the Latino community, as well as to expand the company's training program for young artists." Los Angeles Times 09/12/00

• THE TURNAROUND KING OF OPERA: Michael Kaiser was touted as the man to turn around the tumultuous problems of London's Royal Opera House. And he got the house reopened last winter after its renovation. But instead of sticking around, he was soon out the door and on his way to Washington's Kennedy Center. The Telegraph (London) 09/12/00 

• OPERA MARATHON: Over the next three months the English National Opera has set itself a challenge -  "celebrating 400 years of Italian opera in no fewer than ten new productions. They will hire seven directors, six costume designers and five lighting designers. There will be just one master-designer presiding over the entire project - Stefanos Lazaridis. The Times (London) 09/12/00

• HONG KONG PHILHARMONIC APPOINTS FIRST LOCAL-BORN MUSIC DIRECTOR: Samuel Wong served as assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic and is also music director of the Honolulu Symphony. The Age (Melbourne) 09/12/00

Monday September 11

• SCHWANN GOES WEBBIE: The venerable Schwann Catalog, the bible of recordings releases, ceases quarterly publication to go annual with ongoing web updates.  "One of the reasons we're doing this is that new releases come out so frequently that a quarterly catalog wasn't timely enough. Also, the Schwann Opus quarterly was exceeding 1,200 pages. Over the years we've tried all sorts of tricks, abbreviating record label names, changing fonts, abbreviating instruments. But the size of the catalog made it very costly to print." New York Times 09/11/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

• MUSIC MARATHON: The Berlin Festival is attempting the the most comprehensive survey of 20th Century music ever mounted - 83 programs in five weeks featuring 83 composers. "The festival is an awesome undertaking, and it provides a fascinating glimpse into how one of the world's most musically important cities views recent history. It also shows the ferocious determination in Berlin to keep classical music a powerful and dominant art form. The lineup of concerts is no less than staggering." Los Angeles Times 09/11/00

• MAHLER'S GO AT BEETHOVEN: The National Symphony performed Mahler's redrawing of Beethoven symphonies last week. "What we heard was an interpretation that was obsessed with microscopic details of color, timbre and phrasing, one that added exclamation points to all the notes that Beethoven had already outlined in bold. Tempos fluctuated wildly to accentuate the arrival of dramatic or lyrical themes. Pregnant pauses heralded melodramatic climaxes. Altered bowings dissected phrases for closer scrutiny." In short - it was magnificent. Washington Post 09/11/00

• ROCK ON: An archeologist posits that the first musical instrument wasn't a flute, but a blade being hit by another piece of flint. The rocks date from about 40,000 years ago. "What you get is actually three or four tones from each of the blades, once you've practised a little bit." CBC 09/10/00

Sunday September 10

• COMIC OPERA: London's Royal Opera House re-opened last winter with a string of technical disasters. But the whole project was ill-fated before the ROH even closed for renovation. "Eighteen months before closure, the ROH had nowhere to go. The right decision would have been to delay closure, and therefore the redevelopment, until clear plans had been crystallised." First of a Three-Part Series The Telegraph (London) 09/09/00

• NO STANDING, NO PARKING: La Scala's standing room tickets are much coveted. But as the opera house heads into a renovation, the company does away with its low-priced standing room. "That shuts the standees out of the coming season's celebrations of the 100-year anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Verdi." Ottawa Citizen (AP) 09/09/00 

Friday September 8

• COMPETITION ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE: The Leeds Piano Competition, set to run next week, is one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world. "But competitions aren't what they used to be. There was a day when being a prize-winner was a passport to celebrity. But now competitions are so numerous that winning at least something is fairly commonplace. They are also subject to accusations of infighting, poor decisions and corruption." The Guardian (London) 09/08/00

• BOWDLERIZING BEETHOVEN: Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony begin their Beethoven-as-reconceived-by Mahler series. Some things work, some don't. "Last night's concert could not have happened at any other time in history but our own, and because of that, it's worth hearing. A century ago, critics would have to have been either fer or agin this sort of thing. Now they can hedge with that best of all hedges: Who knows if Mahler's Beethoven is good or bad, but it's certainly interesting." Washington Post 09/08/00

• BARENBOIM ULTIMATUM: Conductor Daniel Barenboim has given the Berlin Senate an ultimatum: provide $5 million more for the budget of the Deutsche Staatsoper or he will leave at the end of his current contract. "I have said what the Staatsoper needs," he is quoted as saying. "Either it receives that. Then I will stay. Or it does not receive that. Then I will go." Chicago Tribune 09/08/00

• OPERA LOVER: A Danish billionaire has decided to pay the entire £118 million cost of building Copenhagen's first opera house. Ananova 09/07/00

• QUICK FADE: Karkheinz Stockhausen was one of the leading lights of the mid-20th Century avant-garde, and he influenced many composers. "Yet today it is hard to find Stockhausen even on CD, let alone in performance. He has all but disappeared from view. Some of the reasons for this lie at his own door. Stockhausen now releases CDs on his own label, but makes it frustratingly difficult to buy them." The Guardian (London) 09/08/00

Thursday September 7

• LOST AND FOUND: Long believed lost, supposedly rediscovered and recorded in the 1990s, then “refound” nine months ago in the basement of a Moscow museum, Shostakovich’s Second Jazz Suite is finally being faithfully reconstructed to its original form for its premiere at Saturday night’s closing of The Proms. The Telegraph (London) 09/07/00

• TAKE IT SITTING DOWN: When La Scala’s season opens next week with “La Bohème,” the opera house’s famous standing-room galleries will be empty, due to fire-safety regulations. “This is tragic news for its habitual dwellers, the feared and respected ‘loggionisti,’ the ardent opera buffs who sit or stand in the galleries and are said to dictate failure or success.” New York Times 09/07/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

• STAR OF TOMORROW: A Canadian singer has taken first place in Placido Domingo's $50,000 world opera competition in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times 09/07/00

Wednesday September 6

• LICENSE TO PLAY: After extensive negotiations with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the U.S. Justice Department agreed Tuesday to revise a 1941 court order regarding the licensing of music for performance and broadcast (including over the internet). ASCAP currently licenses 50% of all musical performances in the U.S. Nando Times 09/05/00

• SANTA FE TRAIL: After 43 years, John Crosby steps down as head of the Santa Fe Opera. "Santa Fe has been a huge influence on the American opera scene, the way Glyndebourne influences opera in England, and Aix-en-Provence influences opera in France. You walk across the deck here on a summer evening, and you see the movers and shakers of the opera world. And when an opera has been a success here, it is suddenly looked at by other companies." New York Times 09/06/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

Tuesday September 5

• PERIOD INSTRUMENT CHIC: "With such high-profile modern instrumentalists and institutions dabbling in - one can't quite say embracing - the period instrument movement, it's clear that the once daunting walls between period and modern performers have tumbled down (though there are holdouts like violinist Pinchas Zukerman, who describes period performance as "s---")." National Post (Toronto) 09/05/00

• "ENHANCING" OPERA: Last year the New York City Opera installed a "sound enhancement" system. After a season to get used to it, how did it work? "The results, to these ears at least, were troubling. On some nights, the opera sounded more or less normal (more when seated in the First Ring, less when seated mid-orchestra). On other nights, one heard odd echoes, bizarre imbalances between stage and pit, voices losing what one thought was natural focus, strange thumps and gurgles. After a while a curious psychological affliction set in: the tendency to listen to the sound rather than the music. A little knowledge can be a distracting thing." Opera News 09/00

Monday September 4

• CONTROVERSY FOR LATIN GRAMMYS: The Latin Grammys hit national TV in the US later this month, and the event has been touted as a means of bringing Latin music to a wider audience. But the awards have stirred up controversy, with a number of musicians charging that regional styles are being ignored. Orange County Register 09/04/00

Sunday September 3

• DAMAGED INSTRUMENTS: The Dallas Symphony got a rude surprise when they got off their plane for a European tour. Several of the orchestra's instruments had been damaged in the cargo hold of the plane. "The basses had literally come unglued, apparently while stored in the un-air-conditioned cargo hold of an American Airlines Boeing 767 jet during a 3½ hour on-the-ground delay Wednesday night at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport." Dallas Morning News 09/03/00

• BASTARDIZING BEETHOVEN: Gustav Mahler was always after the bigger better thing. So when he rewrote Beethoven's symphonies, he really believed he was making them better. "In the years since Mahler's death in 1911, the 'painted-over' Beethoven editions have been largely ignored and so, for the most part, his acts of barbarism could only be read about and imagined. Starting Thursday, though, audiences at the Kennedy Center will have a rare opportunity to hear for themselves what all the fuss once was about." Baltimore Sun 09/03/00 

Friday September 1

• WILL THE REAL MOSCOW PHILHARMONIC PLEASE STAND UP: A miracle has been reported in Hong Kong: apparently the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra was in two places at the same time - Asia and Europe! Either that or a group of Russian musicians masquerading as the MPO sold tens of thousands of dollars in tickets to unknowing Hong Kong music-lovers...who may begin demanding their money back. South China Morning Post 09/01/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

  • AUDIENCE WONDERS WHETHER TO ASK FOR MONEY BACK: Hong Kong's music lovers are having to face the embarrassment that no one spotted their mistake. BBC 09/01/00

• BEHAVING BADLY: One of Britain's top music administrators has launched an attack on violinist Kennedy for his manner of dress and the way he speaks. In return Kennedy fired back with a letter in The Times: Such comments "merely serve to demonstrate the typical arrogance of a self-appointed guardian of the arts world," he wrote. He went on to lambaste "ill-informed classical music administrators who consciously encourage exclusivity, refusing to embrace those outside their spectacularly precious world." Sonicnet 09/31/00