Orchestra Management could make a charge on “Misrepresentation of Product/Service”. There is more info at the Untied States Postal Service. https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/investigations/MailFraud/MailFraud.aspx

None of this is high stakes so let’s everyone relax.

It really doesn’t matter if Golijob and Ward-Bergeman agreed to something. Did the commissioning organizations get what they paid for and agreed to? A new piece by Osvaldo Golijov? Whether you look at it as appropriation of “Barbeich” or reconfiguring “Radio” and “Patagonia,” Mr. Golijov took a lot of money from these organizations and didn’t deliver what he promised. If a scientist did that, they’d be compelled to return grant money and have their academic integrity questioned. Why should it be any different for a composer who is a college professor?

As it turns out, Ward-Bergeman knew what was happening. In a subsequent e-mail to Bob Keefer, he wrote, “Osvaldo and I came to an agreement regarding the use of ‘Barbeich’ for ‘Sidereus.’ The terms were clearly understood, and we were both happy to agree. Osvaldo and I have been friends and collaborators for years. I don’t have anything else to say about the matter.” Indeed, Golijov and Ward-Bergeman have worked side by side on various projects, including film scores, and “Barbeich” emerged from one such endeavor. The music has also gone by the name “Patagonia,” and was played by Chicago Symphony musicians in 2010, in a Golijov arrangement. (You can see a video of a rehearsal of “Patagonia” in Madrid last year, with Ward-Bergeman among the musicians and Golijov supervising in the foreground.)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/02/osvaldo-golijov-sidereus.html#ixzz1n32rV0al

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/02/osvaldo-golijov-sidereus.html

Thanks for your comment.

If you accept a commission from 35 organizations, it really doesn’t matter that you have an understanding (which I assume might mean a financial arrangement) with another composer to appropriate his materials. If this was indeed basically a transcription instead of something that transforms the borrowed material, it shouldn’t have been passed off as the work of a single author.

Having listened to both pieces, I think that Mr. Golijov has some explaining to do, to the commissioners, any grant-giving organizations involved, his publisher, and his colleagues at College of the Holy Cross. If the problem is part of a persistent pattern, which is what is beginning to emerge in the media reports I’ve thus far read, there could (and should) be consequences relating to all of the aforementioned parties.

A big tell, to me at least, that there’s some substance to these allegations: they come on the heels of other late and unfinished projects. Even the piece in question was delivered substantially shorter than was agreed upon in the terms of the commission. When you factor in that >50% of it doesn’t appear to be original work, that’s a big problem.

by the way, here’s a more direct link to “Radio”:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/articles/music-hub/2009/dec/31/ethel-robert-glasper-roy-nathanson/

Sidereus by Golijov:
http://www.instantencore.com/work/work.aspx?work=5056243

On listening, it’s actually pretty clear.