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DECEMBER 1999
- DO THE MATH: "About 846 million new
CDs were sold last year. But at least six billion MP3 files were downloaded
from the Net in the same period. Although a medium still in its infancy, MP3
threatens to effect the most far-reaching changes in the way we listen to,
store, think about and (crucially for the music business) pay for music
since Thomas Edison recorded Mary Had a Little Lamb onto a wax cylinder in
1877." London Telegraph
12/31/99
- "GEE -
THIS WILL MAKE BEETHOVEN," Walt Disney was said to have said after
watching the original "Fantasia." Now there's an update - here's a
blow-by-blow description. Toronto
Globe and Mail 12/31/99
- ROUGH DECADE: The Three Tenors road show
has gotten embarrassing, especially as heard in a San Jose sports arena
through a sound system that must have cost all of $9.98. "Comparing
these singers with their decade-old selves is not flattering. The luster has
dimmed considerably even from the internationally televised Paris World Cup
concert two years ago." San
Francisco Examiner 12/31/99
- A contrary view: "Heartwarming
and often very beautiful. And to hear the unique blend of these three
voices in their over-the- top encore of ``Torna a Surriento'' as the
crowd roared is to feel the immensely sensual power of music. It is a
lucky universe that boasts these stars." San Francisco Chronicle
12/31/99
- EX
MOBIL EXEC TO RUN OPERA: Appointment of ex Mobil treasurer brings some
serious for-profit expertise to the non-profit Washington DC opera company
at a time of potential expansion. Washington
Post 12/30/99
- ALL
AROUND US: The biggest thing to happen to music in this century was its
evolution into a soundtrack for living. "Before recording, nobody
realized how much empty space there was in the world, at work, at home, in
the car and bus, in the exercise room and at the neighborhood bar and
restaurant, waiting to be filled with music." Toronto Globe and Mail 12/29/99
- A
$1.5 BILLION HABIT: North Americans spent a record amount on concert
tickets this year. Here's a list of the top grossers. Variety 12/29/99
- RE-ENGINEERED:
Time was when classical recording companies vied for any technical
advantage. All that's changed in recent years. Decca was the last to go,
selling off its equipment to a pair of entrepreneurs and this week releasing
the last of its home-reared sound engineers. An era ends. London Telegraph 12/29/99
- SELF
PROGRAMMING: Are the days of the music album numbered? New digital
technology allows consumers to build their own song order. But there are
still some bumps along the way. The
Atlantic 12/99
- THE COMPOSITIONS THAT ARE
ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE YOU: A "Fantasia" to induce the cold
sweats. Financial Times 12/23/99
- THE
PROBLEM WITH "FANTASIA 2000" No longer a collaboration of
equals" as was the first version, writes Norman Lebrecht. London Telegraph 12/22/99
- Previously: ATTRACTIONS AND IRRITATIONS: Disney's new "Fantasia
2000" revives old arguments. New
York Times 12/21/99 (one-time
registration required for entry)
- And: "FANTASIA
2000" DEBUTS AT CARNEGIE HALL: "Hey," shrugged Disney
chief Michael Eisner, accepting handshakes after it was done, "I go
for the emotion." Los
Angeles Times 12/20/99
- MANY
RESPONSIBILITIES AND MUCH TO LIVE UP TO: Straining to like John
Harbison's "Gatsby" opening at the Metropolitan Opera. New York Times 12/22/99 (one-time registration required for entry)
- MUST BE THE PR:
Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has had a tough time attracting
visitors. "None of us has been totally satisfied with how well the
public understands who we are, what we do, how successful we've been, what
our vision of this institution is and where we're going." So the PR
director's been fired. Cleveland
Plain Dealer 12/22/99
- A BIT
CONCERNED: With college kids downloading music for free over the
internet, music producers are battling a culture in attempt to stop piracy. Wired 12/22/99
- LAST SYMPHONY OF THE
CENTURY: The BBC helps keep classical music tradition vital. Financial Times 12/22/99
- YOU
PICKED THE WRONG TIME TO LEAVE ME BLUE SHIELD: New album sings the blues
of managed care. Only $14.95 co-pay. Hartford
Courant 12/22/99
- CIRCULAR
ARGUMENT: British Medical Association study says that playing the
saxophone is a major health hazard for jazz musicians. CBC 12/21/99
- THE
SECOND PERFORMANCE PROBLEM: Andre Previn beats the odds with a second
production of "Streetcar" announced for Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/21/99
- COMBINING
PERIOD MUSIC WITH OPERATIC STYLE: "Gatsby" opens tonight at
the Met. New York Times 12/20/99 (one-time registration
required for entry)
- THE
MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE: A Havana drama with several
happy endings. New York Times
12/20/99 (one-time
registration required for entry)
- Previously: MAKING
GOOD MUSIC AND NEW FRIENDS: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 12/18/99
- And: WHOOPS:
Milwaukee Symphony watches as Havana's air traffic controllers deny
landing permission to a cargo plane carrying many of the orchestra's
larger instruments.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 12/17/99
- And: SYMPHONIC
DIPLOMACY: Since the fall of communism it's been years since a
visiting orchestra has come to Havana. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 12/16/99
- And: Interview
with Milwaukee music director St. Petersburg Times 12/16/99
- GROVER
WASHINGTON, JR, dies at age 56, after recording program for CBS
early-morning show. BBC 12/18/99
- AN
EXTRAORDINARY PASSION FOR MUSIC: Soweto is one of the last places you'd
expect to find an orchestra. But a determined British violinist with amazing
energy has built an orchestra and a music program from scratch. The group
has even recorded its first CD - a Christmas album. London Telegraph 12/18/99
- THE FUTURE OF HIGH
"C": New operas everywhere and the future seems bright. In
Amsterdam, British filmmaker Peter Greenaway and Dutch composer Louis
Andriessen joined forces in Writing to Vermeer. At the Monnaie in
Brussels, star director Luc Bondy and Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans
collaborated on The Winter's Tale, an adaptation of the Shakespeare
play. A critic who saw them both wonders about the viability of the artform.
Financial Times 12/17/99
- CLEVELAND
ORCHESTRA musicians sign new five-year contract. Base salary climbs to
$100,000. Cleveland Plain Dealer
12/17/99
- SILENCE
IS GOLDEN: Yamaha introduces a new silent cello. CBC 12/16/99
- TOP 100:
National Public Radio releases its list of the 100 most important musical
works of the 20th Century, as voted on by 14,000 NPR listeners. NPR 12/14/99
- SUPER-MESSIAH:
They were pounding on the doors of the church in Montreal begging to be let
in to participate in annual CBC "Messiah" sing-along. Toronto Globe and Mail 12/15/99
- BAD
NEWS ON THE RECORDING FRONT: Peter Gelb, president of Sony Classical,
delivers the bad news - recording is not a birthright. Better have a real
reason to record or just don't do it. The
Independent 12/15/99
- OF
CRUMB AND BOULEZ: Big celebrations for Pierre Boulez on his 75th, while
George Crumb gets leftovers for his 70th. Not fair, writes Norman Lebrecht.
Crumb has had much more influence on the century than his older colleague. London Telegraph 12/15/99
- GREAT
GATSBY: John Harbison's new opera, set to open Dec. 20, is the
Metropolitan Opera's first contemporary opera since 1992. Harbison describes
his piece as "a version of the musical opportunities in the book."
Boston Phoenix 12/14/99
- WORLD
MUSIC: "Nearly two decades of fakes, frauds and charlatans are not
exactly a great advertisement for a style of music which once was touted as
the future of pop." But the Buena Vista gang seems about to change all
that. Sydney Morning Herald
12/14/99
- E
IS FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL: London Symphony Orchestra, which has claimed to
be "the most recorded orchestra in the world," sets up its own
recording label. The Independent
12/13/99
- ROSENBERG OPERA:
Opera about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg by American composer has successful
premiere in Berlin. Die Welt
12/13/99
- REINVIGORATING
OPERA: Chicago Lyric Opera takes the initiative on renewing American
opera with an ambitious multi-year plan of new work. The company's
leadership sits down for a conversation with the Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune 12/12/99
- WHERE
POP MEETS CLASSICAL: An evolving relationship gets a jolt of
imagination. Los Angeles Times
12/12/99
- THE EARTH
MOVED: Seven years after its "official" groundbreaking,
construction finally begins on Los Angeles' new $200+ million Disney concert
hall. Orange County Register
12/12/99
- THE
DECADE AHEAD: Chicago's Lyric Opera has had a major influence on other
companies with its commissions of new work. Now an ambitious 10-year plan to
help reinvigorate the artform. Chicago
Tribune 12/10/99
- TOUGH NUT: The New
York City Ballet musicians strike is over, but the issues were legitimate.
Says a former board member on the state of the music: "Ugly sound,
wrong notes, missing notes have become increasingly familiar. The musical
direction has grown slacker and slacker – it’s no secret that the
company has been unable to hire a strong new musical director because of the
absurd rules and attitudes that have come to govern the orchestra’s
performance." It was time to confront the issue. New York Observer 12/10/99
- TORONTO
SYMPHONY settles strike with musicians. Terms include a 30 percent
raise, making the orchestra the highest-paid in Canada. But about that
troubling multi-million-dollar deficit... CBC 12/8/99
- METALLICA
VS. CLASSICAL: You could be forgiven for thinking you'd wandered into an
uber-thrash heavy metal convention. But look, oh, up there on the stage
behind the heavy metalers - it's none other than the Berlin Philharmonic. It
was loud. Bloody loud. Irish Times
12/9/99
- BEETHOVEN
SELLS: A newly-discovered manuscript of a string quartet by Beethoven
lasting only 52 seconds, sells for £180,000 at auction. BBC 12/9/99
- AND THE WINNER IS...
The name of the biggest-selling American recording of the century was
revealed this week. Move over Michael Jackson... San Francisco Examiner 12/9/99
- REMEMBERING
CELIBIDACHE: Recordings with which to remember one of the great
conductors of the century. National
Post 12/9/99
- FALLING
ASLEEP IN BERLIN AND SALZBURG: Personnel changes in top jobs in musical
capitals portends a future not worth waiting for. London Telegraph 12/8/99
- The new man in Salzburg New York Times 12/8/99
- DIGITAL
MUSIC over the internet will account for 80 percent of music sales by
2005. But it won't be cheaper, says one recording exec - it'll cost you
more. Wired 12/8/99
- PAGANINI
DISCOVERY: Manuscripts for twelve violin and guitar sonatas by Paganini
have been found in Italy. They were written "with teaching in
mind." They'll be auctioned in Rome next week. Sydney Morning Herald 12/8/99
- BIRTHDAYS
FUNERALS & COCKTAIL PARTIES: Sixty-four year-old Daniel Hays is a
pianist who plays in grocery stores, at parties, wherever. Never had a big
career. Now he's ready to perform with an orchestra, so he put an ad in a
Baltimore paper: "SENIOR CITIZEN ready to perform the Rubinstein
D-minor Piano Concerto but needs an orchestra. Can you help?" Baltimore Sun 12/8/99
- TRAVIATA EXTRAVAGANZA: June made-for-TV
$10 million production in Paris will be beamed to 125 countries for 1.5
billion people. (AP) Cleveland
Plain Dealer 12/8/99
- CALL
THE SPIN DOCTOR! Philadelphia Orchestra is desperate to raise the last
$25 million for its new hall. Will it sell its current digs - the venerable
Academy of Music? Absolutely not, it says. But...the orchestra would
"transfer ownership" of the Academy in exchange for $50 million.
"Under the right conditions, the orchestra would accept money for the
142-year-old hall, turn over title to someone else, and no longer own
it." But it wouldn't be a sale. Really. Confused? Philadelphia Inquirer 12/7/99
- A FAILURE ON ALL POSSIBLE TERMS: An
updated "Messiah for the Millennium" is
a bust. "...the dreadful Roger Daltrey" butchered everything.
"Chaka Khan was all over the place. Gladys Knight was just not equipped
to sing this music. All this was peppered with the offensively ambiguous
double-speak of narrator Aidan Quinn's pointless role. Was he scorning or
supporting Handel's Messiah story? Who could tell?" Irish Times 12/6/99
- MOST
POPULAR: John Adams is ranked the most popular and most performed living
American composer, and one of the top 5 of all time. Miami Herald 12/5/99
- TOP
TEN: One critic's nomination for the ten best classical recordings of
1999. Chicago Tribune 12/5/99
- JAZZ
GREAT CHARLIE BRYD died Thursday in Annapolis. Baltimore Sun 12/3/99
- KEEPING
SCORE ON THE WEB: Publisher opens portal site that will make sheet music
available for downloading on the net. Buy just one song/buy the whole
concerto. Is it the end of sheet music stores? Wired 12/2/99
- DO
THE MATH: By most accounts, musicians are handing over their tunes for
free to new MP3 sites in record numbers. Is anyone getting rich? In August,
MP3.com sold 15,600 CDs on behalf of 26,700 artists listed in its online
database. New digital format may be cheaper, but it's not exactly turning up
a whole new generation of stars. Salon
12/2/99
- SINGING
FINE: Chicago-area soprano sings a little courtroom Verdi to delighted
judge and escapes speeding ticket.
CBC 12/2/99
- MOZART
EFFECT REVISITED: Six years ago scientists reported that listening to
Mozart made people smarter. But last summer a new study failed to reproduce
the results from the first, disappointing waves of music fans. A closer
look, though, "shows that Mozart's music does have a profound effect on
the brain, though no one knows why. Rats raised on Mozart run through mazes
faster and more accurately. People with Alzheimer's disease function more
normally if they listen to Mozart; the music even reduces the severity of
epileptic seizures." Toronto
Globe and Mail 12/1/99
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