Another Failure In South Florida When the Florida Philharmonic folded last summer, many expected its audience to find a home with other local classical groups such as the New World Symphony, or the Miami Chamber Symphony. But the MCS hasn't performed since February, due to a cash shortage, and this week, the chamber ensemble officially cancelled the 2003-04 season. As in the case of the Florida Phil, donors to the MCS have been reluctant to throw good money after bad, and the group has not been able to stabilize its finances in the 11 months since its troubles became public knowledge. South Florida Sun-Sentinel 12/31/03

Key West: The Part-Time Pro Orchestra The Key West Symphony is unlike any other. "The symphony draws talented musicians from other orchestras, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They fly in three times a year for a week of rehearsals, fun in the sun and performances that draw accolades from residents and visitors. Conductor Sebrina Maria Alfonso, a Key West native, returned to the island in 1997 after working and studying internationally to bring to life her dream: a world-class symphony in a town with a permanent population of less than 30,000 residents." Andante (AP) 12/30/03

Downloading Program Tops 2003 Internet Searches The information most searched for on the internet this year? It was info about Kazaa, the downloading program, says the annual Yahoo! list of most-searched terms. "Kazaa, which has more than 17 million registered users in Europe and the US, attracted attention in 2003 after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) took action to stop web users sharing music through such file-swapping software." BBC 12/30/03

The Electric Guitar Going Digital Gibson is setting out to introduce the first major innovation to the electric guitar in 70 years. "An audio converter inside the instrument's body translates string vibrations into a digital signal that can travel over a standard Cat-5 Ethernet cable. The company will continue to sell traditional Les Pauls, but CEO Henry Juszkiewicz thinks it won't be long before all guitarists go digital." Wired 12/03

Patrons Protest Orchestra Conductor's Dismissal "One of the Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) Symphony's most generous financial supporters is demanding the resignation of the entire board of directors for the "unjust dismissal" of conductor Martin Fischer-Dieskau." Toronto Star 12/30/03

Piano Museum May Close Kalman Detrich's New York piano museum is out of money and almost out of time. "For 40 years he repaired pianos, and for 20 years he has exhibited them in the Museum of the American Piano, the eccentric little Manhattan attraction he created. On Wednesday, unless a benefactor miraculously appears to pay his rent, he will close his museum and send his collection to foster homes while he figures out how to pursue his passion." The New York Times 12/25/03

Suing The Downloaders (It Works?) Canadian recording companies are about to begin suing downloades. Why? It appears to be an effective tactic. "In the United States, since the American recording industry began filing lawsuits earlier this year, Kazaa usage has fallen 41 per cent, according to monitoring of Internet use by Nielsen/NetRatings. As a result, sales of CDs began to rise in the U.S. after three years of decline." Edmonton Journal 12/29/03

Rethinking Music (And How To Sell It) There are numerous experiments in selling music online competing for consumers. A company called Magnatune offers no set prices, and a variety of creative music licenses. "Magnatune is one example of a growing movement among arts organizations, civil libertarians and artists who are rethinking the whole notion of access to creative works and copyright laws. Some, like Magnatune, believe they can profit if their artists make their works more readily available, in some cases for no charge; or if they even relinquish at least some rights to their works." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/29/03

Label Sales: This Can't Be Good For The Music Business The sale and dismantling of two of the best music labels in 2003 bodes ill for the music business. "Those two developments, both announced in the fall and awaiting governmental approval, represent a tipping point - the moment when, with swift decisiveness, the patient, long-term approach to record-making that prevailed at the major labels through much of the rock era bit the dust." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/28/03

Is The Music Album Dead? "With the recent boom in 99-cent-per-song downloading sites, music fans are cherry-picking their favorite tunes and ignoring full-length albums – much to the dismay of musicians who spend months crafting them. The album's glory days could be history, with three-minute singles ruling the music world as they did in the 1950s. That shake-up would not only affect the record labels' bottom line but might also transform the way pop music is created and heard." Dallas Morning News 12/27/03

Czech Workers Demand Employers Stop Playing Christmas Music Labor unions in the Czech Republic have demanded that employers stop playing Christmas carols in department stores of "pay compensation for causing emotional trauma to sales clerks." The unions have "written to major chains and demanded that employees be compensated. He said the unions want $19 or two days off as a possible compensation. They've received no response." Andante (AP) 12/24/03

Botstein Hired To Revive Jerusalem Symphony Early this year, the Jerusalem Symphony briefly stopped paying its musicians, even though they agreed to 20% salary cuts to try to save the orchestra. The orchestra was placed in receivership, its chairman resigned amid accusations of financial mismanagement and going-out-of-business signs went up on the concert hall." Now American conductor Leon Botstein has been hired to revive the orchestra's fortunes. "Botstein was hired, with the backing of the Jerusalem Symphony's musicians and Israeli cultural officials, to try to rescue the forgotten stepchild of Israeli orchestras after it had been all but abandoned by its main backer, the Israel Broadcasting Authority." The Forward 12/26/03

A Big Job In Detroit Whoever becomes the Detroit Symphony's next executive director will have a lot of work to do. Not only is the orchestra searching for a new music director, "the DSO has run operating losses of about $3 million the last three years, including a $1.8-million shortfall in 2003, its largest deficit in more than a decade. A $1-million transfer from its endowment two years ago leaves the accumulated deficit at $2.2 million." Detroit Free Press 12/24/03

• Previously: Kang Quits, DSO Left Wondering Why The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is losing its top executive, just as it is trying to find a new music director and cope with a hefty financial shortfall. Emil Kang, who had earned praise as DSO president for his consensus-building skills and efforts at sharpening the orchestra's artistic vision, resigned abruptly on Monday, without explanation. The orchestra's new board chair has refused to comment on whether or not Kang was forced out, but another board member says that, at least, the board "as a group" did not ask for the resignation. Kang, 35, was one of the youngest administrators of an American symphony orchestra. Detroit Free Press 12/23/03

Free Music? On Its Way You want free music? Legally? Coming right up. "You're going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies. It's not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It's going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels. Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give away 100 million iTunes downloads in a promotion that kicks off in February with a Super Bowl ad." CNN.com 12/23/03

Kang Quits, DSO Left Wondering Why The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is losing its top executive, just as it is trying to find a new music director and cope with a hefty financial shortfall. Emil Kang, who had earned praise as DSO president for his consensus-building skills and efforts at sharpening the orchestra's artistic vision, resigned abruptly on Monday, without explanation. The orchestra's new board chair has refused to comment on whether or not Kang was forced out, but another board member says that, at least, the board "as a group" did not ask for the resignation. Kang, 35, was one of the youngest administrators of an American symphony orchestra. Detroit Free Press 12/23/03

• Previously: The Detroit Symphony's $2 Million Deficit Hot off the opening of a new $60 million home, the Detroit Symphony "will announce an operating deficit of nearly $2 million on a $28-million budget at its annual meeting of members on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the orchestra's finances." Detroit Free Press 12/09/03

Why Is Music Just A Commodity? "Seldom, it would appear, is music simply thought of or enjoyed as music anymore. It's a commodity, a type of virtual contraband, the "sport" at the centre of cutthroat, Olympian competitions. Even the sense of community that a shared love of music is supposed to bring people has been supplanted by a pitched us-against-them mentality between the recording industry and the hordes of downloaders it longs to drag into court." Toronto Star 12/22/03

Why Recording Labels And Download Companies Can't Get Together So with all the money to be made in online downloading, why don't recording labels and the downloading networks just get together and be content making their fortunes? Answer - they don't like each other. "Label executives continue to hold hush-hush meetings with leading distributors of file-sharing software, trying to find common ground. But they also seethe at the companies' refusal to change their software in ways that might deter piracy, using words like "extortion" and "rape" to describe their situation." Los Angeles Times 12/21/03

On Writing Words For Opera Poet Lavinia Greenlaw recently found herself writing an opera libretto. "Singing is not a casual act. Opera (again, like poetry) works best when it refuses to be embarrassed about its artifice. Libretti work best when the lines are fluent and convincing, but also emphatically styled. As I have begun to learn in my own libretto-writing, it's a question of texture rather than vocabulary. Rossini once said: "Give me a laundry list, and I will set it." WH Auden points out that this is not so great a claim, since lists lend themselves to music particularly well. Any words can be used if they contain a space for the music and action and are strong enough to change shape without losing meaning. It's like making the skin for some fantastical beast based on what it is going to do rather than what it might look like." The Guardian (UK) 12/20/03

Detroit - Bigger Than Jazz Detroit's troubled Labor Day jazz festival is morphing. "The new festival, which would begin in 2005, will keep jazz at its core but also showcase Detroit's Motown legacy and the city's unique contributions to blues, rock, R&B, gospel and techno. The result, according to artistic director Frank Malfitano, will be Detroit's answer to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival - North America's biggest and most successful annual music festivals, both of which attract tourists from all over the world." Detroit Free Press 12/19/03

Jacksonville Symphony Impasse The Jacksonville [Florida] Symphony is in a dispute with its musicians. "The symphony says it has a $2.4 million deficit and has proposed shortening the symphony season by two weeks, cutting musicians' salaries by 10 percent and suspending pension contributions and paid leave. The musicians say they just signed a five-year contract in February and expect the symphony to honor it." Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville) 12/21/03

Pittsburgh Symphony Sued For Age Discrimination The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is being sued by its former ticket manager, who claims that she was the victim of age discrimination when she was dismissed without cause at the age of 60, and replaced by a 30-something employee who made a lower salary. The plaintiff "is seeking back pay and benefits, compensatory damages and attorneys' fees." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/19/03

The Composer Who Didn't Kill Mozart Ask your average classical music buff how Mozart died, and most will probably answer that he was murdered (or at least driven to the grave) by his jealous rival, Antonio Salieri. This theory has been around for centuries, and was firmly embedded in the modern consciousness by Milos Forman's 1984 film, Amadeus. But the truth is that Salieri had very little motive to kill off Mozart, and there is nothing but the thinnest anecdotal evidence to link him to the master's death. Furthermore, Salieri was hardly the hack composer that Amadeus made him out to be, and a newly revived interest in his operatic work is sweeping across Europe. The Guardian (UK) 12/19/03

A 'Pocket Of Classical Resistance' In The Deep South "The defensive posture of classical music these days has been much argued. But in the face of folding orchestras, diminishing finances, vanishing record sales and retracting audiences, there exist stubborn and imaginative pockets of resistance determined, for example, to put string instruments into the hands and ears of children. The University of South Carolina, now a model for the rest of the country, is doing work here that may at best keep the violin a mainstream instrument and at worst provide it a permanent niche. It will not be allowed to become an antique." The New York Times 12/21/03

Good Marketing, Or A Legacy Diminished? The Montreal Symphony Orchestra is currently marketing the heck out of a new Christmas CD it recorded with Quebec singer Bruno Pelletier. To date, the disc has sold over 100,000 copies, which has Arthur Kaptainis despairing for the orchestra's reputation. "Pelletier is a voiceless wonder in the Helmut Lotti tradition. Splashy arrangements by Simon Leclerc cannot disguise the ghastly mediocrity of Pelletier's singing, which is not even reliably in tune... If there is a musical equivalent of blasphemy in Quebec, this is surely it." Montreal Gazette 12/20/03

Whatever Happened To Using A Couple of AAs? Apple iPod users are, let's face it, a bit over-the-top in their love of the device, which is, let's face it, just a jukebox with a long memory. Still, many iPod users claim they couldn't live without theirs, which has caused some consternation of late, because as it turns out, the rechargable battery packs that power the little boxes of joy can run down after a year or so. No problem, you say? Just pick up a replacement pack, you say? Good thought, but Apple doesn't actually sell replacements, and the company has been telling users to shell out $300-$500 for a whole new iPod when their batteries run down. One jilted user was so angry that he's made a film about Apple's betrayal. Washington Post 12/20/03

Pop Opera Comes Full Circle When Bugs Bunny first appeared in a cartoon as the protagonist of a spoof of The Barber of Seville, the public roared with laughter, but classical purists rolled their eyes at what they saw as the bastardization of Great Art. Decades later, with classical music becoming an endangered art form, and pop culture occupying an ever more important role in society, the Vancouver Opera is using the cartoon to promote their more traditional performances. "You might call this missionary work. From a company with a million-dollar debt, teetering a few years ago on the brink of bankruptcy, Vancouver Opera has transformed itself into a debt-free, community-conscious, grassroots purveyor of an art form once associated with social elitism and a disdain for everything Bugs Bunny stood for." Toronto Star 12/20/03

State Department To WSJ: You Want Access? You Got Access The US State Department wonders why the reporter from the Wall Street Journal who tried to get access to the Iraq National Symphony during its trip to Washington DC earlier this month, had so much trouble. "We arranged for Mr. Rahim to meet members of the orchestra at a restricted briefing on Monday afternoon. We arranged for his attendance at the open dress rehearsal. We invited him to join the reception for the orchestra held after the concert..."
Wall Street Journal writer Ayad Rahim responds: I had to work through an eventual 31 officials to get anywhere... "I only began to gain 'access' - what little there was of it - after my deadline had passed. That happened only because my repeated, fruitless efforts had become known to this paper's editors and because their frustration had filtered back to the State Department." Wall Street Journal 12/18/03

• Previously: Clamping A Lid On Iraqi Orchestra Musicians The Wall Street Journal sends a reporter to meet with members of the Iraqi National Symphony during their visit to Washington DC. A small, but significant problem, though: how to get through the layers of officials to actually meet with any musicians? After a month of futile trying, Ayad Rahim finally gets a few minutes with three musicians, but nothing substantive. So much for "cultural exchange." OpinionJournal 12/10/03

Over Budget, And Maybe Out Of Luck A concert hall already under construction in suburban Washington, D.C., and intended as the second home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is in danger of having the plug pulled on its funding if the local county council does not approve an additional expenditure for cost overruns on the project. The council is reportedly "galled by the request for more money, given that the council agreed to approve its $44.6 million share of the cost only after explicitly writing into the funding bill that the council would not pay a penny more." Washington Post 12/19/03

Downloading At The Big Blue Box WalMart is rolling out its own online music download service, with what it says are "hundreds of thousands" of songs available in Windows Media format. In typical WalMart style, the big draw is expected to be low prices: where many other download services are charging 99 cents a song, WalMart is charging 88 cents. Wired 12/18/03

Recordings In The UK: Prices Fall, Sales Rise Unlike in the US, sales of recorded music have been growing in the UK. Why? Maybe it's price cuts. "Average prices have continued to fall and reached a new low of £10.40 for the year ending in September, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said. It said prices of new albums had fallen by 7.6% since it began providing detailed records at the start of 2000." BBC 12/18/03

Everybody Congo! "In smart discos, sweat-box bars and market-places across Africa, Congolese music is rampant. Local musicians can rarely compete. Even in Lagos, the proud home of high-life jazz, clubs echo with Congo's trademark throbbing bass, tinging guitars and racing falsettos. And in Europe Congolese music has become almost synonymous with African music. Europeans call it soukous, after secousse, the French for “jolt” or “shake”. In Paris and Brussels, Congolese stars draw crowds of 20,000." At home, though... The Economist 12/18/03

Game Boy Symphony Some avid players of Game Boys, are using the little electronic game consoles to compose and play music. The music is "surprisingly complex." "The gizmos serve as musical notepads, the modern-day equivalents of Beethoven's pen on paper. The group then sets up in smoky bars and other modest local concert venues to treat — or subject — their audiences to beeps, buzzes, clicks, recorded-speech snippets and other computer-age sounds, all strung together into assaults on the senses." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 12/18/03

London Music, 2003: The Bland Leading The Blander? "If most years are dispiriting for full-time opera companies because of the parlous state of their finances, against which they generally manage on stage to achieve minor miracles, this one was different; there was less talk of monetary problems (with certain exceptions) and far more of artistic disappointment, especially where the two London-based companies were concerned. It's hard to think of more than a couple of productions at either the Royal Opera House or at the Coliseum (before ENO temporarily decamped to the Barbican to allow its home to be renovated) that lodge in the memory or could remotely merit a revival." The Guardian (UK) 12/18/03

A Tale Of Two Clubs In New York City, famous performance spots abound, and countless bars, clubs, and watering holes can lay claim to having "launched" the career of a superstar or two. But few clubs have the lineage of the Bottom Line, which was recently ordered to close after falling behind in its rent payments to New York University, and few have the social cache of CBGB, which has played host to the cutting edge of the American punk movement for three decades. There are lessons in the contrast between the current fortunes of these two clubs, and the hardest one may be that, all too often, it isn't enough to be legendary, or even good at what you do. You've got to be lucky, too. Toronto Star 12/18/03

Waiting For A Revolution That's Already Here At a recent music industry conference in Aspen, "the divisiveness and panic in the room were evident" whenever conversation turned to the state of recorded music. The problem seems to be that, while most in the industry recognize that a major sea change in the way the public consumes recorded music is upon them, few are willing to hitch their wagon to a particular horse before knowing what the new industry standard will be. In the meantime, the CD market continues to tank, and the people for whom that particular piece of turf is sacred continue to fight like cornered rats to forestall the digital revolution. Denver Post 12/18/03

Baltimore Cutting Music Lessons For Kids Fifteen children, dressed to the nines, gathered in the rotunda of Baltimore City Hall yesterday to play their violins and cellos for the politicians who are closing their music school. The Baltimore Talent Education Center provides after-school music training for 180 children from across the city. "The school system, facing a financial crisis, has reassigned the three full-time teachers who run the weekly lessons, saying their talents will be better used in music classrooms in schools. The teachers' redeployment is the result of an immense school system staff reduction; layoff notices were sent to more than 700 employees last month." Baltimore Sun 12/18/03

Of Rings, Wagner and Tolkien Lord of the Rings certainly has a Wagnerian feel, writes Alex Ross. And not just because rings are at the center of the two epics. "Tolkien refused to admit that his ring had anything to do with Wagner’s. 'Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased,' he said. But he certainly knew his Wagner, and made an informal study of 'Die Walküre' not long before writing the novels. The idea of the omnipotent ring must have come directly from Wagner; nothing quite like it appears in the old sagas." The New Yorker 12/16/03

The New Divas "This fall has seen a remarkable outpouring of albums by female opera singers," writes Charles Michener. "The majority of them, as it happens, are not sopranos but mezzo-sopranos; we’re living in an age when, curiously, many of the most interesting female voices belong not to the leading ladies who impersonate the tragic heroines around which most operatic plots creak, but to a powerful group of slightly lower-voiced women who rival, and frequently outstrip, the prima donnas for vocal charisma." New York Observer 12/17/03

Jazz Critic Giddins Leaves Voice Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins is leaving the Voice after 30 years. "I don't like writing short, and it's time. In jazz, time is all. I'm as besotted with jazz as ever, and expect to write about it till last call, albeit in other formats. Indeed, much in the way being hanged is said to focus the mind, this finale has made me conscious of the columns I never wrote." Maybe in a blog on ArtJournal? Village Voice 12/16/03

Canadian Recording Industry To Sue Uploaders The Canadian recording industry says it is going to begin suing uploaders of music. "Any litigation would be a course of action we are really being forced into. It's a process that's a last resort, to try and address the huge problems, because the industry's lost 30 per cent of its retail base since 1999. The losses [in Canada] are in excess of $425-million." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/17/03

Barenboim Threatens To Quit Berlin Opera Company Berlin Staatsoper director Daniel Barenboim has threatened to quit the company if a planned city reorganization of Berlin's three opera companies goes through. Barenboim told the German daily Die Zeit that "the federation would jeopardise his artistic integrity as it had the final say in determining the Staatsoper's programme. 'Without changing the titles, the three directors have been reduced to vice-directors, because suddenly there is someone above them who dictates what they can and cannot do. If I can't perform something that is musically important to me, I will not continue this job." The Guardian (UK) 12/17/03

The Land Where Music Is Banned "A public ban on music has gradually taken effect in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, after a radical alliance of right-wing religious parties swept to power in local elections last year. Music and film stores have closed, musicians have been harassed and vigilantes routinely tear down posters and torch tapes, decrying them as un-Islamic." BBC 12/16/03

Carmen In Seville (For Real) A production of Bizet's "Carmen" is going to be staged on the streets of Seville, where the opera is set. "Thousands of spectators will be invited to follow the tale of doomed love as it is played out around city landmarks. Spanish film-maker Carlos Saura will direct only 10 performances as part of the city's international music festival starting in September." BBC 12/16/03

Union Saves Music Program Oakland Technical High School was going to lose its music program until America's largest union came up with the money to save it. "The 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union, which represents school employees and has strong ties in Oakland, donated more than $91,300 to the school at a ceremony last Wednesday in honor of International Human Rights Day. The money pays for the music director position and keeps several music programs afloat for one year, such as the pep squad band, piano classes and a choral program. The donation also sets up a student chorus called Voices of Justice." Contra Costa Times 12/16/03

More On Conductor Judging Last week New York Times critic John Rockwell posed the question: who can better judge a conductor - the audience or the players working for the conductor. Michelle Dulak disagrees with how Rockwell framed his question, as well as how he went about answering it. "There is, of course, a sense in which musicians are self-serving. They aren't typically looking for comfort or ease, exactly; but they are looking for something, and it may not be exactly what the audience — or rather the critics — want. To read Rockwell, you'd think he was not merely a critic but the director of a critics' PAC (Political Action Committee)." San Francisco Classical Voice 12/16/03

• Previously: Do Musicians Know Best? Orchestra musicians aren't always the best judge of the conductors who make them sound best, observes John Rockwell. "Whereas critics tend to prize creative excitement, profundity of interpretation and charisma, orchestra musicians — while hardly forswearing such virtues, at least in principle — often seem to base their decisions about a conductor on his rehearsal efficiency and lack of pretension. There can be no doubt that Mr. Maazel is a fabulous technician. A lot of us agree that the orchestra has rarely if ever played better; it gleams. And no doubt his rehearsals run like clockwork. The controversy has to do with his interpretive skills, or depth, or vision. And the concern is that for all the pride orchestral players take in their music-making, efficiency trumps inspiration when they come to pick a music director." The New York Times 12/12/03

NY Subway Musicians Go To Korea New York subway musicians are a constan presence underground. One entrepreneur thought they would be a hit in the Seoul subway, which doesn't have performers. So she rounded up some players and flew them to Korea. "They were featured on Korean talk shows and news shows, and their faces were all over the papers. And the buzz only increased as the days passed. On the day of their second performance, the musicians arrived at GangNam station to find several hundred people sitting quietly on the floor, some with their own mats, waiting for the music to start. By the time the trip ended two weeks later, the five musicians were the toast of the town, featured in just about every newspaper, magazine and TV show of note." Newsday 12/16/03

San Jose Opera - Dreading A Move To A New Home Opera San Jose is supposed to move in September into a theatre renovated for $75 million. But the finances of getting into the building and living there scare the company. ``We are running frightened,'' general manager Irene Dalis said. For 20 years, she has looked forward to moving the company from the 515-seat Montgomery Theater to the California Fox, she said, ``and now I dread it.'' San Jose Mercury-News 12/12/03

Orchestras - Back To The Past (And Stuck There) Why must orchestras present such a formal presence? "No wonder young people find this museum approach such a turn-off. Linked to the earthen rigidity of most mainstream concert programming, and the general predictability of the repertoire, the majority of weekly orchestral offerings in the Usher Hall or the Royal Concert Hall can have as much pull as a traditional Church of Scotland service. Come to think of it, the audience profile in both cases is about the same - elderly and growing thin on the ground. Surely it’s time to freshen things up, bring our orchestras into the modern age and apply the creative touch to more than just the sound of the music." The Scotsman 12/15/03

NY City Opera Leadership Changes Horses The 80-year-old chairman of New York City Opera, Irwin Schneiderman, is stepping down from the job. He's "leaving at a crucial moment for City Opera, which desperately wants a home of its own, having shared the New York State Theater for 38 years with the New York City Ballet. The company has long complained that the theater was acoustically unfit for opera." The New York Times 12/15/03

Canada Enacts Tax On MP3 Players Canada is imposing a new tax on MP3 players. "A price increase of between $2 and $25 will come into effect after the Copyright Board of Canada gave the go-ahead Friday on a new levy for digital audio recorders, including Apple's hot-selling IPod. The move is part of several efforts underway to combat music downloading and copying." Canada.com (CP) 12/12/03

Why Has Berlioz Been So Ill-Treated? The Berlioz bicentennial has hardly made a dent in the standing of France's greatest composer. "The diplomatic contagion of French ambivalence has encouraged the rest of the musical world to treat Berlioz as an objet trouve, an acquired taste instead of an established one. Two centuries after his birth, Berlioz is not espoused by concertgoers with the confidence they attach to Brahms, whose revelations were minor by comparison. The bicentennial year is ending without a perceptible improvement in Berlioz appreciation. The innate pettiness of France has condemned its greatest composer to perpetual disavowal, his bones to a peripheral tomb." La Scena Musicale 12/10/03

Fenice Rises In Glittering Gala A glittering assortment of international luminaries attended this weekend's reopening of Vencie's La Fenice opera house, eight years after it burned down. "To Venetians and opera lovers throughout the world, the 18th century theater represents the soul of this unique lagoon city, and its resurrection from the ashes - Fenice means phoenix - was cause for celebration across Italy. Fans lined up throughout the day to admire the newly polished marble facade, with the Fenice symbol, a gilded phoenix, hanging in the entranceway." The Guardian (UK) 12/14/03

• Previously: Why La Fenice Is So Beloved "A stunningly beautiful building La Fenice certainly is. Ingeniously wedged into a tiny space surrounded by canals just to the west of St Mark's square, it had only 814 seats, now 990 (compared with La Scala's or Covent Garden's 2,000). With its curves, its rococo decorations and its five levels of blue-and-gold boxes, galleries and its crystal lamps, it radiates a matchless theatrical warmth. But the reason the Venice opera house has a special place in the hearts of opera lovers is also the reason why it burned to the ground in January 1996." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

The Savior Of Saint Louis? David Robertson's appointment as music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra seems to be solidifying the notion that the SLSO, so recently on the brink of financial collapse, is back as a major player on the national orchestral scene. "A lot was riding on the identity of the new music director. The wrong conductor could have derailed the orchestra's forward momentum, artistically and financially. But the right conductor - and there can be little doubt that Robertson's the one - will build on what his predecessors left him and then help the orchestra on to even greater things." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/14/03

Putting Mahler In The Right Order When Mahler wrote his almost unbearably bleak 6th symphony, he broke up the pervasive despair of the score with a beautiful, lush slow movement. Mahler originally intended the slow movement to be played just before the finale, but then switched it with the scherzo movement in the work's first rehearsals. The new order remained the standard until 1963, after Mahler's death, when the inner movements were flipped again, ostensibly because of 'new scholarship' on the work. "Now it has become clear that the transposition of movements was no mere mistake but a willful act of an editor, Erwin Ratz." The New York Times 12/14/03

The Power Of Small-Time Orchestras Major symphony orchestras are cultural treasures, and a point of pride for the cities which have them. But for every big-budget, 95-member symphony orchestra, there are countless smaller, semi-professional orchestras performing across America, feeding the desire of ordinary concertgoers for an affordable night out listening to great music in a more casual setting than the big boys offer. "These orchestras truly live by their own rules, mixing classical and pops on the same program. They often flourish during tough economic times that bring larger orchestras down... At the very least, these orchestras offer the tactile experience of being in the same room with a masterpiece." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/14/03

Won't The Real Slim Shady Please Report To The FBI? You may have missed it, what with the capture of Saddam Hussein and all the recent suicide bombings in Iraq, but rapper Eminem recently threatened the life of the President of the United States. Sort of. A line from an unfinished song off a bootleg recording of an Eminem concert reportedly includes the following: "I don't rap for dead presidents. I'd rather see the president dead." Of course, Eminem is just a pop musician in a frankly thuggish corner of the music industry, and he clearly isn't planning an assasination attempt, so the Secret Service isn't taking it seriously or responding to silly questions about it. Only, wait. Actually, they are. The Guardian (UK) 12/13/03

Why The Met Is Worth The Money $7 million per year. That's what it costs to put the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the air each Saturday afternoon. With the Met scrambling for new sponsors, there are rumblings in the opera world that the price tag is just too high, and that the broadcasts aren't worth saving. Nonsense, says William Littler. There are other great opera companies, but none that consistently match the Met's high level of performance. "I've visited them all, and I've never encountered in any of them the sustained quality I experienced last weekend during four performances at the big house at Lincoln Centre. As Harold C. Schonberg, late music critic of The New York Times, once observed, The Met sometimes fails, but when it does, it does so on a level of its own." Toronto Star 12/13/03

Met Broadcasts - Where Are Our Priorities? Jan Herman wonders about the scale of American culture that would allow broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera go off the air. The Met needs $7 million to fund the broadcasts. "In major league baseball, $7 million would not pay the salary of a decent pitcher. The six stars of 'Friends' make $1 million each per half-hour episode. Compare this to the absolute top fee for a singer at the Met, Amercia's most prestigious opera house: $15,000 per performance. No one, no matter how big, not even Placido Domingo, makes more. Mere bagatelle or pittance indeed. What does all this signify? Many things, of course. But one of them is that "given America's wealth, talent, and educational resources, it could be the Athens of the modern world, but is fast losing that chance" and opting instead to be its Rome." Straight Up (AJBlogs) 12/12/03

Do Musicians Know Best? Orchestra musicians aren't always the best judge of the conductors who make them sound best, observes John Rockwell. "Whereas critics tend to prize creative excitement, profundity of interpretation and charisma, orchestra musicians — while hardly forswearing such virtues, at least in principle — often seem to base their decisions about a conductor on his rehearsal efficiency and lack of pretension. There can be no doubt that Mr. Maazel is a fabulous technician. A lot of us agree that the orchestra has rarely if ever played better; it gleams. And no doubt his rehearsals run like clockwork. The controversy has to do with his interpretive skills, or depth, or vision. And the concern is that for all the pride orchestral players take in their music-making, efficiency trumps inspiration when they come to pick a music director." The New York Times 12/12/03

The Last Year Of Met Radio? For 64 years the Metropolitan Opera has been broadcast on radio every saturday afternoon while the company was in season. But this season may be the last. The broadcasts have "been a cultural lifeline for generations of listeners, both those who live in places far removed from any opera company and those who may live just a subway ride from Lincoln Center but can't afford to attend. They are carried by some 365 stations in the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, South America, 27 European countries, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, reaching, according to the opera company's most recent survey, an estimated total of more than 11 million. The Met has been unable to obtain a new sponsor to pick up the annual $7 million cost of the broadcasts." The New York Times 12/12/03

Cold Weather Equals Good Violins The wood used by the old master Italian violin makers was special - the product of a mini ice age in Europe. "Trees grow slower in colder weather, producing denser wood for that season. So, narrower tree rings grow in cold weather than rings grown in warmer seasons. Narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin but would increase the wood's density, the researchers said. The change in climate therefore made a difference to the violins' tone and brilliance, they said." Discovery 12/10/03

Comeback In St. Louis? Two years ago, the smart money in the orchestral world said that the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra would be lucky to exist in 2004, and that even if it survived, its downward spiral of debt and disorganization would cost it its place in the top ranks of American orchestras. Since that dismal time, the SLSO has scrambled back from the fiscal precipice, shored up its organization, and, this week, hired one of the most celebrated young conductors of his generation, David Robertson, as music director. With Robertson on board, the orchestra is convinced that it will shortly complete one of the great comebacks in industry history. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/11/03

Telegraph: Iraq's Orchestra Inspiring The Washington Post may have dubbed it a "show concert," but the audience in Washington, D.C. was clearly moved by the music-making of the Iraqi National Symphony in its American debut this week. "The mournful strains of the balaban (a distant cousin of the oboe) and the haunting screech of the oud (the forerunner of the lute), [made] a captivating premiere at the Kennedy Center," says Alec Russell, and the Post failed to make mention of the hundreds of Iraqi expatriates who lined up all morning in the snow just to get tickets, or the rousing ovation of the (mostly) non-partisan crowd. The Telegraph (UK) 12/11/03

• Previously: Iraqi National Photo-Op Comes To D.C. Tim Page was looking forward to the Washington debut of the Iraqi National Symphony. He's still looking forward to it. According to Page, last night's performance, which was callously manipulated by politicians and press alike, and in which the INS was mixed in with members of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra, wasn't a concert so much as a cynical photo-op for the Bush administration. "The State Department flew 60 musicians the 6,200 miles from Baghdad to Washington to play for less than an hour in tandem with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many traveled so far to do so little." Washington Post 12/10/03

A Whiff Of Elgar A long-forgotten 42-second piece of music by Elgar is being recorded by the Hallé orchestra in the BBC's Manchester studios. It's "thought to have been the world premiere of a composition Elgar completed more than 80 years ago." The Guardian (UK) 12/11/03

Let's Don't God Save The Queen! David Blunkett is a sportswriter who has had to endure more singing of England's national anthem than anyone ought to have to, he writes. What a sad little tune, without much redeeming value. "God Save The Queen offers neither entertainment nor cultural commentary... it stubbornly refuses to transcend the 18th-century stolidity of its four-square rhythms and trite melody." Maybe it's time for a competition for a new national song? The Guardian (UK) 12/11/03

Clamping A Lid On Iraqi Orchestra Musicians The Wall Street Journal sends a reporter to meet with members of the Iraqi National Symphony during their visit to Washington DC. A small, but significant problem, though: how to get through the layers of officials to actually meet with any musicians? After a month of futile trying, Ayad Rahim finally gets a few minutes with three musicians, but nothing substantive. So much for "cultural exchange." OpinionJournal 12/10/03

Pittsburgh Opera Cutting Back The Pittsburgh Opera, which has been looking for ways to trim its budget, is announcing that it will cut back the number of productions it mounts next season from five to four, and will replace the fifth opera with something called a "special production." The company says that the cutback will give it much-needed financial breathing room, and stresses that it isn't in anything approaching dire fiscal straits. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/10/03

Is A Revolution Coming In Detroit? With the Detroit Symphony having just announced a nearly $2 million deficit, the orchestra's president and its new chairman seem to be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the city's philanthropic community, as well as at the feet of their own musicians. President Emil Kang suggests that the current model for American orchestras may simply no longer be viable, and that solutions will not come easily. To the musicians of the DSO, who have already been asked to reopen their contract early, these may be fighting words. To the city's corporate leaders, it will either be seen as a call to action or a desperate attempt to shame them into giving to an organization in trouble. Detroit News 12/10/03

Iraqi National Photo-Op Comes To D.C. Tim Page was looking forward to the Washington debut of the Iraqi National Symphony. He's still looking forward to it. According to Page, last night's performance, which was callously manipulated by politicians and press alike, and in which the INS was mixed in with members of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra, wasn't a concert so much as a cynical photo-op for the Bush administration. "The State Department flew 60 musicians the 6,200 miles from Baghdad to Washington to play for less than an hour in tandem with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many traveled so far to do so little." Washington Post 12/10/03

• More Than Propaganda Tim Smith admits that there was "a certain air of propaganda" about the Iraqi National Symphony's Washington debut, but he says that the music-making won out in the end. "The considerable variance in technical ability among the Iraqi players, who range in age from 23 to 72, was unmistakable, but so was the commitment and energy behind the notes... As the music gently unfolded, it was impossible not to think of all those, Iraqi and American, who have died - and will continue to die - in this conflict. But the evening was most about the future, the promise of what a reinvigorated cultural life could bring to a country that has seen so much pain." Baltimore Sun 12/10/03

Even San Francisco's In The Red During the various orchestral crises of the last few years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a shining example of fiscal and artistic balance, having planned for an economic downturn which few others saw coming, and having posted surpluses as other orchestras ran deficits in the millions. But even the SFS isn't immune to a 4-year economic slump, and this week, it announced a small deficit of $135,945 on a budget of more than $50 million. Most American orchestras would be overjoyed to run so slightly in the red (or to have a budget that even approaches $50 million,) and San Francisco executives say they aren't overly concerned about it. San Francisco Chronicle 12/10/03

Robertson To St. Louis David Robertson, a 45-year-old American who has been among the rising stars of the conducting world in recent years, has been appointed the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, beginning in fall 2005. The SLSO has been without a chief conductor since last April, when Hans Vonk was forced to step down because of severe health problems. The appointment is something of a public relations coup for the orchestra: the SLSO came close to bankruptcy last year before making a good recovery, and Robertson had been on the reported shortlist of nearly every major orchestra searching for a music director over the last few years. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/09/03

NY Phil Musicians Rallying Behind Maazel When Loren Maazel was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the press groaned openly that the 70-year-old conductor was too boring, didn't fit the Phil's sound well, and would surely be only a stopgap director, given his advanced age. But at a board meeting this week, several Philharmonic musicians were invited to make a presentation, during which they rallied behind Maazel, calling him "brilliant," and asking that the board not rush to replace him when his contract expires in 2006. The musicians clearly enjoy working with Maazel, but their support also appears to have much to do with the dearth of potential candidates to replace him at the moment. The New York Times 12/10/03

Maryinsky Theatre Warehouse Damage More Extensive Than Reported A September fire at the Maryinsky Theatre's warehouse in St. Petersburg, Russia was said to have caused only $225,000 damage. But the cost is evidently much higher. Some 30 productions were affected by the fire, and it will take about $15 million to replace what was damaged. The company's 2003-04 season are imperiled as well as tours to Germany, Japan and the United States. International Herald-Tribune 12/09/03

Iraq Symphony In DC The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra arrives in Washington DC to perform at the Kennedy Center. "Our objective is not (just) to come here and play music, but to play music through our point of view and the way we understand it." CNN.com 12/09/03

The Detroit Symphony's $2 Million Deficit Hot off the opening of a new $60 million home, the Detroit Symphony "will announce an operating deficit of nearly $2 million on a $28-million budget at its annual meeting of members on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the orchestra's finances." Detroit Free Press 12/09/03

Andrew Davis To Pittsburgh? Is Chicago Lyric Opera director Andrew Davis shopping for a new job? "Last weekend, the 59-year-old Davis squeezed Friday night and Sunday afternoon performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony into a schedule that included conducting Wagner's five-hour "Siegfried'' in Chicago Saturday night. Pittsburgh's music director, Mariss Jansons, will be leaving his post at the close of this season after seven years, and last week in an interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper before the concerts, Davis candidly admitted being interested in the position." Chicago Sun-Times 12/09/03

Steve Jobs: Recording Companies Need To Be Educated How did Apple get recording companies to buy in to the iTunes download store? "We told them the music subscription services they were pushing were going to fail. MusicNet was gonna fail, Pressplay was gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45s, then they bought LPs, they bought cassettes, they bought 8-tracks, then they bought CDs. They're going to want to buy downloads. They didn't see it that way. There were people running around -- business-development people -- who kept pointing to AOL as the great model for this and saying, 'No, we want that -- we want a subscription business'." Rolling Stone 12/08/03

Of Thee I Sing (Won't Anybody Listen?) Why is choral music such an outsider in the larger music world? Indeed, choral music has almost as much trouble gaining acceptance as new music. "Could it be that the choral world has too strong a hold on its citizenship? Are the immigration policies too stringent to allow "non-choral composers" inside, and likewise, to allow "choral composers" opportunities to sell their wares to the outside world? Certainly composers such as Arvo Pärt are becoming known in the choral world almost to the point of being appropriated into that 'community,' albeit willingly. On the other hand, many composers find it difficult to break into, but not for lack of desire." NewMusicBox 12/03

SF Opera Posts $3.8 Million Deficit "The San Francisco Opera will close the books on the 2003 fiscal year with an operating deficit of $3.8 million, General Director Pamela Rosenberg said Friday. That deficit on an operating budget of approximately $60 million is a sizable amount, but far less than the previous year's loss of $7.6 million -- not to mention the $9.2 million shortfall that company officials had originally predicted." San Francisco Chronicle 12/08/03

Former NYPhil Trustee Jumps To Lincoln Center A major trustee of the New York Philharmonic, who left the board last month after opposing the orchestra's proposed merger with Carnegie Hall, has joined the board of Lincoln Center. "While Rita Hauser has made donations to Lincoln Center and has served on its board as a representative of the Philharmonic, most of her financial support — millions of dollars — has gone to the orchestra during her 25 years on its board. She said yesterday that she might continue to support the Philharmonic but 'not at the same level'." The New York Times 12/09/03

Interpret Away...(or not) "Unlike sculpture, music is inevitably different in every manifestation," writes David Patrick Stearns. "Whether huge or minute, those differences can be charted, albeit simplistically, on a continuum between two poles: objective to subjective in some parlance, classical to romantic in another. Is the conductor a conduit of the composer? Or a prism? Not everybody falls squarely into one of these camps, and when someone does, it's not an everyday thing. Sometimes, the most freewheeling musician turns out to be anything but." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/07/03

Fenice Rises Again In Venice "Like its namesake, the phoenix, La Fenice has finally risen from the ashes. The whole saga has resembled one of those long, tumultuous operas in which everything turns out more or less all right in the final act. Next Sunday, in the presence of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the Italian president, La Fenice reborn will open its doors. Yet even now, this is a reopening without opera." There will be an opening week of concerts, and then the doors will "close again until Nov. 12, 2004, when Lorin Maazel will conduct a new production of "La Traviata." The New York Times 12/07/03

National Music Museum Planned For DC A National Music Museum in Washington DC has been talked about for 11 years. Now, the group working on the project pledges to open it in five years. "The group has already helped raise $5 million and is now committed to raising $100 million to fund the $200 million project." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) (AP) 12/07/03

In Dallas - The Litton Years Critic Scott Cantrell assesses Andrew Litton's tenure as director of the Dallas Symphony, and ponders what the orchestra might look for in his successor: "Mr. Litton certainly energized the DSO and raised its profile in the community. He took the orchestra on three European tours and conducted it in four concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall. In an era when union contracts largely priced American orchestras out of the recording market, he and the DSO turned out an amazing 23 CDs. As time wore on, musicians, local cognoscenti and critics grumbled about a lack of depth." Dallas Morning News 12/07/03

• Sandow: Let's Tell The Truth - Litton's Not A Good Conductor Greg Sandow wonders why the announcement of Andrew Litton's departure from the Dallas Symphony wasn't rougher on his accomplishments: "So here's the truth. Litton's not thought of as a good conductor. He can make a splashy effect; that's about it. Musicians who've played for him are damning. Administrators at orchestras where he's guest-conducted are equally damning. If Litton were a pop musician, everything I've written here would have been in the press long ago. Everybody would have known it. Dallas would have been abuzz. Which leads me back to something I've said here before. In classical music, there's very little accountability. We have to stop treating classical music as if it were something sacred - or something that needs to be protected - and start describing things the way they really are." Sandow (AJBlogs) 12/06/03

Bidding War For Goodspeed Opera The Goosdspeed Opera House has reliably prospered for 127 years in its present Connecticut home. "But now the theater is considering building a new stage in nearby Middletown, a re-energized small industrial city that has offered the Goodspeed the moon in exchange for a share of its star power. The Goodspeed's leaders were surprised and impressed by the town's offer, which includes a $5 million grant, expedited permitting and free land downtown." Newsday (AP) 12/07/03

Sweeney In The Opera House "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has come to rank with Wozzeck and Peter Grimes in opera's catalogue of 20th-century tragic heroes," writes Rupert Christiansen. And thus "Sweeney Todd" comes to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The dialogue is being miked...er, make that "reinforced." Why? Audiences are lazy today, says the production's conductor. "It's very destructive. I recognise that synthesizers are useful, but they eliminate instruments like the harp or guitar, and we've lost the possibilities of creating a deep string sound. It's a joy at Covent Garden to be playing Sweeney Todd with a 50-piece orchestra." The Telegraph (UK) 12/06/03

This Whole Business Of Encores... "Many concert-goers would agree that there tend to be more bad encores than good. There's nothing worse than an indifferent encore after an indifferent concert, when all one wants is a stiff drink. There's a particular sort of heart-sinking moment when an overkeen recitalist settles back to their instrument, having taken only a single curtain call. The last gesture in a concert is as potent as the last sentence of a book: you take the atmosphere of it out into the world with you, and if the final encore is crass or inappropriate, it can undermine the whole of the rest of the concert." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

La Fenice Rises Again After years of delays, Venice's La Fenice opera house, which was burned down eight years ago, has been rebuilt and reopened. "Standing amid the charred rubble on the morning of January 30 1996, the then mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, pledged that La Fenice would be rebuilt "com'era, dov'era" (as it was, where it was). And, within the bounds of the possible and desirable, that is exactly what has been done." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

• Why La Fenice Is So Beloved "A stunningly beautiful building La Fenice certainly is. Ingeniously wedged into a tiny space surrounded by canals just to the west of St Mark's square, it had only 814 seats, now 990 (compared with La Scala's or Covent Garden's 2,000). With its curves, its rococo decorations and its five levels of blue-and-gold boxes, galleries and its crystal lamps, it radiates a matchless theatrical warmth. But the reason the Venice opera house has a special place in the hearts of opera lovers is also the reason why it burned to the ground in January 1996." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

The Skinny On MP3 Players MP3 players come in all sizes and shapes these days. "For some people, MP3 players represent the physical endgame of music collecting, where there's a vast stockpile of music at hand but no CD towers or groaning shelves of vinyl. In extreme cases, they also mark the end of an old reliable gift-giving strategy; what's the point of buying a CD for someone who snaffles all the tunes they want from the Web?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/06/03

Minnesota Orchestra Posts $2/4 Million Deficit The Minnesota Orchestra posts a $2.4 million deficit, its fifth shortfall in five years. The orchestra says that this season it won't end up in the red. "We put together a budget that was balanced, and we believe in it." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 12/06/03

Beethoven Quartet Sells For $2 Million Beethoven's Opus 127 String Quartet has sold at auction for just over $2 million. "The scherzo manuscript of the quartet is clearly a working document, with smudges, parts crossed out and late alterations added. Prince Galitzin of Russia, who played cello, commissioned Beethoven to write three quartets in 1822, but the composer was inspired to produce five." Baltimore Sun (AP) 12/05/03

A Balanced Grammy Slate No one artist dominates this year's Grammy nominations. "The most nominations any artist received was six, with four performers tying for that amount. Three were from the rap world — Jay-Z, OutKast and Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes — and the fourth was the R&B singer Beyoncé." The New York Times 12/05/03

English National Opera Director Quits Paul Daniel, who has been mujsic director of the English National Opera for eight years, is quitting. The troubled company has just come through a rocky 18 months. "Mr Daniel has been unhappy at ENO since the mid-2002 resignation of Nicholas Payne, its general director. 'It's been hard to square what's happened over the past 18 months. I've been emotionally caught up in this. The change has been pretty distressing." The Guardian (UK) 12/05/03

Klass: Classical Music Needs To Be Hipper (Maybe A Leather Jacket?) Former pop singer Myleene Klass - now trying to make a career in classical music, says classical music has to get hipper, not dumber: "Donning a leather jacket doesn't just suddenly make you accessible, it is the whole package. I think that's what the classical world needs to give. Let's get everything to the same edgy degree that the pop world's got at, because it looks stronger on the television - none of this soft-focus classical nonsense. Let's make it edgy, let's make it current, let's make it exciting." BBC 12/04/03

Met Opera Gets Major Grant For Broadcasts "The Annenberg Foundation has given $3.5 million to the Metropolitan Opera to help keep its treasured Saturday afternoon live radio broadcasts on the air next season, the opera company said yesterday. The money, it said, is the largest gift ever made to the Met's annual-giving fund. The contribution is a response to ChevronTexaco's decision in May to withdraw its support after the 2003-4 season, ending a 63-year relationship that has been the longest continuous commercial sponsorship in broadcast history... But the Annenberg gift takes the Met only halfway there, and for only one year; the broadcasts cost the Met $7 million a year, so another single corporate sponsor is still being sought to replace ChevronTexaco." The New York Times 12/04/03

Bottom Line Falls Victim To... well, you know... The Bottom Line, New York's famous Greenwich Village nightclub, has been ordered to shut its doors by the end of the week, and to pay $190,171 in back rent to New York University. NYU had been seeking to raise the club's rent by more than 100%, a move which club owners fought in court. Previous reports suggested that NYU may convert the space to classrooms or offices. New York Daily News 12/04/03

Litton Stepping Down In Dallas Andrew Litton, who has been music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 1994, has announced that he will leave the post when his current contract expires in 2006. In his time in Texas, Litton has hired nearly 1/3 of the DSO's musicians, and taken the ensemble to national prominence as one of the top American orchestras. Litton says he intends to devote more time to conducting opera and developing children's television programs about music. He will also continue to hold his current conducting positions in Minneapolis and Bergen, Norway. Dallas Morning News 12/04/03

Klezmeriffic Klezmer is big right now, and becoming more popular. "It is now not only respectable, becoming an academic discipline and the beneficiary of generous Lottery funding through the Millennium Commission, it is also a flourishing part of our new, spiritual age." The Telegraph (UK) 12/04/03

Music The Over-40 Wants (Not Just Nostalgia!) So older people are buying more music. But what are they buying? Nostalgia. "Truth is, I can name at least 25 albums released in 2003 that would please any seasoned rock and pop listener who thinks of music as something more than a soundtrack for dinner with undiscerning guests. But most rock fans my age won't find it easy to hear them because the major labels have concluded we're an unadventurous lot and won't bother to try to reach us. Instead of congratulating themselves on finding ways to sell the same old same old, record execs should realize there are thousands, maybe millions, of us who want it rough, raw and risky, brash, bold and beautiful, as exciting as New Year's Eve." OpinionJournal 12/03/03

Banff Gets A New Director The Banff Centre has announced the appointment of David Hoyt as the new artistic director of its Music & Sound programs. Hoyt's background is as a musician, and he has most recently been artistic director and resident conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Banff hosts one of North America's best-known summer music festivals. Calgary Herald 12/03/03

Nashville Breaks Ground On New Hall If ever there were a sign that the current North American orchestral "crisis" does not signal the inevitable demise of the form, the Nashville Symphony is it. As other mid-sized orchestras around the country file for bankruptcy, issue general panic alerts, and beg the public for short-term emergency cash infusions, Nashville has quietly and competently gone about raising $100 million of the $120 million it needs to build a new concert hall in the city's vibrant downtown. Construction begins this week, and the hall, which will seat 1,900 and be owned by the orchestra, is expected to be completed by the beginning of the 2006-07 season. The Tennessean (Nashville) 12/03/03

What Is It About Texans And Iraq? Since the end of major combat in Iraq, the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra has gotten a fair amount of press coverage for its dedication and commitment to continuing to perform, even as the country struggles for the bare essentials of life. Still, while the INSO may be a hard-working bunch, they lack many of the basic necessities of a professional orchestra: most notably, a readable collection of written parts for the players. Hearing of the problem, the orchestral librarians of Dallas and Fort Worth have spent the last few months leading a nationwide movement to supply the Iraqis with sheet music. So far, hundreds of works have been donated, and the librarians aren't done yet. Fort Worth Star-Telegram 12/03/03

Is Cold Weather The Strad Secret? A mini-ice age that gripped Europe from the 15th to the 19th century may just hold the secret to the spectacular sound of the Stradivarius violin. According to a theory being advanced by two American researchers, the cold weather yielded an unusually dense grade of spruce, which serves as a near-perfect sounding board for the instruments crafted by Italian master Antonio Stradivari. Chicago Sun-Times 12/03/03

Sing-along Beethoven "Taking familiar pieces, both classical and popular, Robert Kapilow uses compositional theories and vigorous storytelling to deconstruct melodies, harmonies, themes and motifs into the essence of a work's appeal. Lectures, enlivened by audience participation and generally raucous encouragement from Mr. Kapilow, end with a performance by a soloist or orchestra of the complete work analyzed." The New York Times 12/03/03

Is PR Ruining Classical Music? In pop music "stars are manufactured by TV companies in programmes such as Pop Idol and Fame Academy. But, increasingly, there’s an element of it too in classical music. Not so much from the "talent show" angle - the epitome of which, at least where raw young talent is concerned, is probably the BBC’s serious-minded and professionally engineered Young Musician of the Year competition - as the scurrying efforts by struggling record companies to mould and flog the latest classical superstar." The Scotsman 12/02/03

In Aid Of Hearing (The Concert, That Is) Cell Phones off. Pagers, ditto. But what about those whistling hearing aids? "This is a delicate matter. Users of hearing aids at performances have an unfortunate impairment and are still, to their credit, trying to enjoy live music. Moreover, a person wearing a hearing aid often cannot hear the whistling that his device sometimes produces. It is a pesky sound to track down for others in the hall. Those high-pitched sustained tones throw you off. You could be sitting just seats away from a malfunctioning hearing aid and think that the whistling is coming from somewhere up in the balcony." The New York Times 12/02/03

Why Isn't Contemporary Music More Popular? Charles Rosen laments in his new book about the lack of appreciation for 20th Century music. Denis Dutton argues that Rosen is wrong to blame audiences, and might better look to the music itself. DenisDutton.com 12/01/03

Could Online Music Expand Choices? Could competitive new music downloading stores end up expanding the kinds of music available? "As music labels and retailers compete more aggressively online, they will offer more obscure titles and recordings of live performances that could find a paying audience through downloads but make no financial sense to distribute on CD's." The New York Times 12/01/03