August 23, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | "Fortune favors the prepared mind." --Louis Pasteur |
| Quote of the Week | | "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." --Pablo Picasso |
| | Minnesota Orchestra's 'Last Window of Opportunity' |  The outlook for the future of Minnesota Orchestra looks increasingly bleak. Even Mark Dayton, Governor of Minnesota, instrumental in getting Senator George Mitchell to bring the two sides to the negotiating table (he has yet to succeed), feels that the end is near. He tells the StarTribune that the two are in their "last window of opportunity." The start of the season, yet to be announced, is around the corner; Music Director Osmo Vänskä has said he will resign if the orchestra isn't back at work in time to properly prepare for its November Carnegie Hall appearance, and Bis records cancelled upcoming recording sessions. As if all that wasn't bad enough, an orchestra fan has discovered, quite by accident, that management registered 13 domain names in the "Save our orchestra" vein in May of 2012--five months before the lockout even began. As a result, there is speculation that management was never intending to negotiate in good faith, since it was preparing to head off organized resistance well in advance. The orchestra claims it was simply "protecting the brand."
|
| | NEW YORK -- Marian McPartland, renowned jazz pianist and host of the National Public Radio show Piano Jazz, has died at the age of 95. She died of natural causes at her Port Washington home on Long Island. Over a career that spanned more than six decades, McPartland became a fixture in the jazz world as a talented musician and well-loved radio personality. She recorded more than 50 albums for the Concord Jazz label and played in venues across the country. She also turned her keen ears toward her contemporaries, writing articles and essays that immortalized the people and places of the jazz world in the 1950s and '60s. In one essay: "Once a man stood at the bar watching me intently, and when the set was finished he came over and said with a smile, 'You know, you can't be a respectable woman the way you play piano,'" she wrote. "For some reason or another, this struck me as a great compliment."
|
| | | | National Public Radio Chief to Step Down |  WASHINGTON -- The president and CEO of NPR is stepping down after less than two years to take a similar position at the National Geographic Society, the public radio organization's board of directors announced Monday. Gary Knell spent 11 years as CEO of Sesame Workshop before taking over NPR in December 2011 after a difficult period. He succeeded Vivian Schiller, who resigned under pressure after a former NPR fundraiser was caught on camera calling the Tea Party racist. Knell said the offer to become president and CEO of the National Geographic Society was unsolicited; he had planned to seek a renewal of his NPR contract. During Knell's tenure, NPR improved its digital presence, strengthened relationships with its member stations, and bolstered philanthropic and corporate support. |
Musical America Launches NEW Job Board |  JOB SEEKERS: From instrumentalists to executive directors and administrators, search over 4,000 jobs on MusicalAmerica.com.
Post resumes, create alerts, get hired! EMPLOYERS: Post your jobs for reasonable rates. Special discount packages available. Post a job, find the perfect hire! Visit Job Board |
Nashville, Musicians Reach Preliminary Accord | | 
Where there is good will between musicians and management, compromise is possible. Nashville's two sides have come to a preliminary meeting of the minds. The orchestra will be intact for the start of its 2013-14 season. MA.com subscribers read the full story It's been a rocky summer for the Nashville Symphony, which, in July, almost lost Schermerhorn Center to the highest bidder, thanks to a past due, $85 million Bank of America loan. Former Board Chair Martha Ingram stepped in to save the day, largely by taking out a $20 million mortgage on the hall and allowing the orchestra to liquidate a $35 million promised capital contribution.
Once its home base was secure, the orchestra turned to the musicians' contract, under discussion for months. Two weeks ago, sources reported that the two sides were $1.5 million apart. Clearly, each party gave a little. Minnesota, are you listening? |
| Cleveland O Names General Manager |  Jennifer Barlament is to be the new general manager of the Cleveland Orchestra, starting Sept. 23. She succeeds Gary Ginstling, who in March became CEO of the Indianapolis Symphony. A graduate of the League of American Orchestras' Orchestra Management Fellowship Program, Barlament comes to Cleveland after serving since 2009 as executive director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Previously she was general manager of the Omaha Symphony, from 2002, and before that concert manager of the Baltimore Symphony. She is the 2013 winner of the League's Helen M. Thompson Award for "extraordinary achievement and commitment in the field of orchestra management." Barlament holds a bachelor's degree in music from Emory University and a master's degree in clarinet performance from the Eastman School of Music. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| | | Musical America news can be easily read on your smartphone! |
100 Years Ago...in Musical America: 23 August 1913 | |  THE QUESTION OF PIANO TONE Harold Bauer Maintains that It Depends Entirely Upon the Sequence of Played Notes-Putting Real Life into the Practice of Scales-A Chat in His Unique Paris Studio See the Original Page and Read the Full Story |
| How Does An Unauthorized Arrangement Become Grand Theft Auto? | | To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to  Dear Law and Disorder: Several years ago, our small ensemble hired a composer to arrange and re-orchestrate a work for us to play. The work itself, which is still under copyright, was originally written and arranged for a large orchestra. Recently, we made a video of our group performing the piece, put it on YouTube, and the composer's publisher had it taken down. The publisher also told us that the composer had not authorized any arrangements or re-orchestrations. They also told us we couldn't even perform it live anymore. Is this true? Even though we paid for the re-arrangement ourselves? Even though we have always obtained performance licenses through BMI? We have been performing this arrangement for years and the publisher has never objected before. It doesn't seem fair. We have engagements in 2013/2014 to specifically perform this piece as part of our repertoire. Read the full story |
| Bard's Stravinsky Festival |  From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark A long weekend of festival gluttony left me exhausted but happily so: the first weekend of Bard's Stravinsky deluge (8/9-11), Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival's U.S. premiere of George Benjamin's ecstatically received opera Written on Skin (8/12), and back home for David Lang's the whisper opera at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival (8/13). We drive up the Taconic Parkway along the Hudson River through some of the most beautiful country in the Northeast, in passionate anticipation of what Bard's omni-proselytizer Leon Botstein has to share with us. He and his artistic co-directors, Christopher H. Gibbs and Robert Martin, invariably concoct illuminating musical menus by the primary composer and complementary works by various colleagues. Preconcert talks and panels of experts dot the schedule, reminding us that Bard is a school. Superbly produced, unfailingly literate, and perfectly proofread programs are available to all attendees. One never fails to learn and even be surprised. (Ever hear any music by Mikhail Gnesin, Maximilian Steinberg, or André Souris? I hadn't even heard of the latter.) Two programs this year featured ten composers, and they sometimes run close to three hours counting setups between works. Bard audiences are notable for their sitzfleisch. |
| | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment