FELDMAN'S ARMBUSTER GETS ITS DAY:
"Morton Feldman once described his Second String Quartet as a nightmare. That has certainly seemed to be true from the standpoint of the groups that have played it... The piece is five hours long: 293 minutes, to be exact. If you lift your right arm into the position to hold a violin bow and imagine keeping it there for five hours, you will see the problem." Many groups have declined to perform it after originally agreeing to try, but a new recording attempts to breath life into the work, which can easily be seen as a microcosm of the controversial mid-20th century school of composition. The New York Times 02/17/02

MENOTTI'S GIFT: "In 1936 this Italian composer wrote what has become the most-performed opera in America. He founded the renowned Spoleto music festival and moved to a stately home in Scotland in the 1970s, where his plan for an arts centre for young talent has foundered in the face of indifference." Why can't Gian Carlo Menotti get more respect? The Guardian (UK) 02/16/02

HOW TO SUCCEED IN COMPOSITION BY REALLY TRYING: In an age when even fans of new music generally shun such ear-bending techniques as quarter-tones and minimalist repetition in favor of a new reassertion of melody and theme, a composer who embraces the inaccessible as firmly and unapologetically as Gyorgi Ligeti would seem to be in danger of falling by the wayside. But there is a quality to Ligeti's composition, a dangerous yet inviting subtext, that has kept audiences and musicians alike coming back for more. "New England is in the midst of an unofficial Ligeti festival, as it often is; Ligeti's new works tend to enter the standard repertoire with little delay." Boston Globe 02/17/02

EVOLUTION OF A CONCERT HALL: Laugh at the name if you wish, but reports suggest that Los Angeles's soon-to-rise Walt Disney Concert Hall will be nothing to sneeze at. The hall is coming together thanks to the collaboration of architect Frank Gehry, L.A. Phil music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, and world-renowned acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and the trio believes that the result will be California's first truly world-class concert hall, with a facade that cannot be ignored and acoustics to rival those in Boston, Vienna, and Berlin. Andante 02/15/02

SO IS THIS MUSIC OR ART? OR BOTH? "Sound art" is still a fairly controversial and largely unknown concept, and the fact that it takes place in traditionally silent museums and galleries rather than concert halls probably isn't helping its image. But a new travelling exhibit aims to unravel some of the confusion surounding the medium, and mainstream it as well. "Visitors will witness both the work of artists who create 'instruments' they play during live performances and the work of those who build soundscapes from abstract environments." Wired 02/15/02

COPYCAT FLUTE? Did Mozart plagiarize for one of his most popular operas? There are an awful lot of similarities in characters and music in his Magic Flute to an opera called The Beneficent Dervish, which was composed before Flute and which Mozart almost certainly heard. Slate 02/13/02

ADAMS DEFENDS SELLARS: Composer John Adams is being controversial again. This time he's defending director Peter Sellars and his role in the Adelaide Festival. Late last year the festival fired Sellars after he had revealed his programming for this year's event. Says Adams: "It's hard to believe that the people who hired him didn't know what they were going to get, knowing his history and his political sympathies.'' Adelaide Advertiser 02/13/02

ONE FROM COLUMN A... The music of choice for a new iconic Levi's commercial? A Handel Sarabande. But isn't classical music a sell for older folks? Surely not the 20-somethings Levi is playing to. "In the thick of the biggest technological, demographic and moral upheavals for two centuries, our cultural needs are changing gear. Classical no longer means what it did in the 20th century. It is not the elite preserve of the middle-aged middle classes, nor is it off limits to kids.." The Telegraph (UK) 02/13/02

SILENCING EUROPE'S ORCHESTRAS? A proposed European Union law would limit the amount of noise in the workplace. But under the law, symphony orchestras playing all out would exceed the limits. "The Association of British Orchestras (ABO) is fighting to be exempted. The parliament wants to reduce the decibel limit of noise in the workplace to 83, the point at which workers have to wear hearing protection. A single trumpet is said to play up to 130 decibels and the ABO fears that the directive would effectively silence performances. 'It will stop us playing any loud music whatsoever, affecting almost of all of the pieces played by orchestras'." BBC 02/12/02

ADAMS TO WRITE MEMORIAL: The New York Philharmonic has named composer John Adams to write a memorial piece to the events of September to be performed at the Philharmonic's opening concert next season. The piece will accompany Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a program conducted by music director Lorin Maazel. Andante 02/12/02

PAY-FOR-DOWNLOADS A BUST: A new report says paid music downloading has been a failure so far, despite a $4 billion investment by music businesses. "Legitimate, paid-for music downloads earned only $1 million (£710,000) in the US and UK last year. At the same time, some eight billion tracks were exchanged by users of pirate sites offering free music downloads - and up to 2.7 million people at any one time are logged on to them." BBC 02/10/02

WHERE DID CITY OPERA'S MONEY GO? A benefit for victims of September 11 by New York City Opera sold tickets for as much as $100, and the house was nearly full. The cast and crew donated their services for the occasion. So why did only $18,500 find its way to the September 11 fund? "There has been no accounting - it's all a big mystery," a chorus member said. "We put our hearts into this. Everybody wants to know what came of it." The $18,500 would equal the sale of just 185 of the benefit's $100 tickets, although some tickets sold for $50 and $25." By contrast, the Metropolitan Opera's fundraiser donated $2.6 million to the fund. New York Post 02/10/02

Week of 02/11/02
 

THE MOST EXCITING ORCHESTRA IN AMERICA? In the past seven years, Michael Tilson Thomas has turned the San Francisco Symphony into one of the most talke about orchestras in America. "The charged chemistry among maestro, players and community undoubtedly owes much to the nature and size of the city and the Bay Area, and it may be hard to replicate elsewhere. Still, it becomes all the more striking now that several other major American orchestras have lined up their next music directors. In large part, those orchestras were seeking expertise in contemporary and American programming like that Mr. Thomas has long demonstrated." The New York Times 02/10/02

THE MUSICAL MEMORIAL: The New York Philharmonic is commissioning a piece of music to open next season with a memorial to the World Trade Center. Will this be a significant musical memorial? "The odds, it seems to me, are low that the music will be up to the occasion — that a composer, asked to interpret in tones a calamity mere months after it has happened, will have the clarity and the inner urge to write just the piece we need." Andante.com 02/06/02

FIGHT OVER CD's: CD-maker Philips and the big recording companies are in a fight over copy protection. Recording companies want to embed "errors" into CD's that help prevent them from being copied. Philips, which helped determine technical standards for CD technology, says it won't go along. The fight could "hasten the death" of the 20-year-old format. Wired 02/04/02

BUDGET CRUNCH IN BALTIMORE: "Rising costs, an economy that made grants and donations hard to come by and a stock market that pummeled endowments have all converged to put the [Baltimore Symphony Orchestra] in a tight financial spot. Even though the BSO is making more money than it spends, the tight times ended up squeezing out the symphony's 147-person chorus last month... Wall Street's dismal 2001 took its toll. The symphony's endowment investments lost more than $9 million in value in 2001 compared with an almost $15 million profit from those investments a year earlier." Baltimore Business Journal 02/01/02

NOT JUST ANOTHER OPERA: What's the difference between an opera and a musical? Bruce Springsteen has announced he's writing a "rock opera." "Though one must not prejudge these things, it's surely likely to be more of a musical than an opera, just as in 1968 the Who's Tommy was a musical masquerading as this new-fangled genre, with its vaguely subversive label - the revolutionary language of rock imposing itself on the apparently elitist world of opera." The Guardian (UK) 02/09/02

PROMOTING THE YOUNG: "The historically low percentage of minorities in orchestras is a vexing issue. The lasting effects of racism play a role, say experts, but other factors include cuts in school music programs, the lack of role models and peer-group support and cultural forces that push young blacks and Latinos into pop and vernacular styles rather than classical." The five-year-old Sphinx Competition seeks to identify and encourage young minority musicians. Detroit Free Press 02/06/02

NATIONALISM TO A REGGAE BEAT? Worried that French school children increasingly don't know the French national anthem, the government compiled a CD with dozens of versions of the Marseillaise, and is sending copies to every school in France. Along with traditional versions, there's also a reggae version, an arabic version, and a samba version. "The aim of the project is to make children better understand their history and heritage," says culture minister Jack Lang. The Globe & Mail (Reuters) (Canada) 02/07/02

NAME THAT TUNE: Ah, pity those who cannot carry a tune. Not a happy condition. "There is nothing quite so vulnerable as a person caught up in a lyric impulse. The singing-impaired are forever being brought up short in one. When the singing-impaired chime in, they may notice a sudden strained silence. Or just a sudden loss of afflatus in the music about them. (The singing-impaired can tell.)" The Atlantic 02/82

PARIS - AN OPERA BARGAIN: So you're an opera fan and you live in London where going to see the opera is an expensive proposition. The budget alternative? Take the Eurostar to Paris, catch some first rate productions and stay in a "homey" hotel. The whole trip will cost you less than a ticket for the Royal Opera (and the experience might even be better). Really. Truly. The Times (UK) 02/05/02

TITLE TRADEOFFS: Some call supertitles at the opera one of the biggest advances in the artform in the past 50 years. But there are tradeoffs. "Over the course of more than four hours of dense, nonrepeating dialogue, the compulsive reader at War and Peace will be scanning some 1,000 captions, each conveying a potentially vital piece of information. For each, we sacrifice, say, two seconds' attention to the stage, which adds up through the evening to a whopping 33 minutes. How to sort out the costs and benefits of these constant illuminations and distractions?" The New York Times 02/10/02

STAYING THE NEW MUSIC COURSE: Nearly every American orchestra pays regular lip service to the concept of contemporary music, and occasionally even performs some in public. Very few orchestras, however, ever really make a lasting commitment to advancing the music of living composers. But in Los Angeles, the L.A. Philharmonic's New Music Group is 21 years old and going strong. "The New Music Group has survived changing administrations and budget crises, and in the process it has become part of what defines the feisty spirit of the Philharmonic." Los Angeles Times 01/31/02

THE POWERHOUSE FINNS: What is it about Finland, these days? "Half a century after the death of Jean Sibelius, his tiny Nordic homeland has emerged as a musical superpower of the new millennium. A fierce national commitment to musical culture has made the Finnish scene the envy and the talent reservoir of countries throughout Europe and North America." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/02/02

REINVENTING ST. PAUL: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, which bills itself as "America's Chamber Orchestra," is reinventing itself, making changes in its home concert hall, and planning more tours to large cities. The goal? To be "the beacon for cultural excellence" in the Twin Cities. "Thirty years from now, when people talk about Twin Cities arts groups, we’d like the first thing off their tongues to be the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. It’s no different than what the arch did for the city of St. Louis." St. Paul Pioneer Press 01/31/02

L.A. OPERA LIGHTLY TAPS THE BRAKES: Los Angeles Opera has been ambitiously scaling up its productions, and the company has announced numerous new initiatives and plans in the past few years. Now, with the announcement of next year's season, some of those plans have been scaled back as part of the artsworld's generally sobering reassessment of risks. Los Angeles Times 01/30/02

DOTCOM MUSIC MELTDOWN SPURS BBC: Online e-music ventures have poured millions of dollars into trying to create viable businesses. But GMN.com one of the most established, shut down last week, out of money, and its owners are looking for a buyer. Interestingly, as the dotcom meltdown continues, the BBC has rediscovered a commitment to broadcasting culture. It's about time, writes Norman Lebrecht. The Telegraph (UK) 01/31/02

AND YOU THOUGHT THIS STUFF ONLY HAPPENED IN ALABAMA: The Catholic hierarchy in Naples, Italy is taking a cursory shot at the city's leftist government, denying permits for the use of several of Naples's historic churches for concerts. Among the well-regarded guest musicians who may be left out in the cold is La Scala director Riccardo Muti. The local monsignor is questioning "whether performing artists should be chosen "mainly for their showmanship and social acceptance rather than for their personal commitment in bearing witness to the values of the Gospel." Andante 01/28/02

THE ONLINE ORCHESTRA: "All the evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, suggests that the virtual box office is changing the way orchestras do business." American orchestras are selling more and more of their tickets online - the Chicago Symphony, for one, has seen e-sales double or triple each year in the past four seasons. Andante 01/27/02

REPORTS OF MY DEATH... So some orchestras are struggling in the business of survival of late. And some may even go out of business. But the orchestra is hardly dying as an institution, writes David Patrick Stearns. There is too much evidence to the contrary. Besides, "those orchestras will survive, because the public, more unconsciously than consciously, knows that when its opera company and symphony orchestra go away, the only thing left in many cities will be congested strip roads, plastic burger signs, abandoned bowling alleys and cable TV." Andante 01/27/02

PARALYSIS CAN'T DERAIL CONDUCTOR: Mario Miragliotta was a promising conductor who had recently finished his term as music director of the Santa Barbara Symphony and had been appointed assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, when he got into a car accident last June that left him paralysed, unable to move his hands or legs. Determined to overcome the injuries, he's been working daily to get back on the podium, and he's got a concert coming up... Los Angeles Daily News 01/28/02

THE ALTERNATIVE MUSIC: Miami-area classical music fans were upset when WTMI, the area's only classical music station, changed its format to dance music in January. Now the University of Miami college radio station is taking up some of the slack by programming classical. Miami Herald 01/31/02
 

Week of 01/28-02/04
 

RETHINKING HINDEMITH: Few composers have had their reputations endure harsher cultural mood swings than Paul Hindemith. Rejected by academics in the mid-20th century after he rejected the atonalism of Schönberg, his music has never regained any real traction in the concert hall, even as other "accessible" composers like Shostakovich and Britten have been vindicated and popularized. What is it about Hindemith's music that doesn't interest today's music programmers? Commentary 01/02

ST. LOUIS CUTS SEASON: Musicians of the financially troubled St. Louis Symphony have agreed to take cuts in their season. The agreement "cuts 10 weeks from the playing season but keeps salaries at a level competitive with peer ensembles." What programs the orchestra will cut will be announced later this week. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 01/22/02

SONG RECITALS FOR THE CAPTION-IMPAIRED: Opera companies have used supertitles for several years now, and the captioning of operatic lyrics are popular. So why not use the system for song recitals? As it turns out, there are several reasons... The New York Times 01/23/02

CONTAIN YOUR EXCITEMENT: John Lennon is preparing to release a brand new set of songs. Yeah, we know he's dead. But fortunately, Linda Polley of Fargo, North Dakota is very much alive, and is apparently quite adept at channeling the former Beatle. "Since 1999, Polley claims, John has been stopping by her trailer in Fargo to deliver his latest offering from "the heaven sessions" -- more than 50 songs in all -- so she may record them on her electric keyboard and spread them to the world in an effort to save both the sinful masses and the chaotic 'Afterlife.'" National Post (Canada) 01/22/02

BOHEME ON BROADWAY: The movie Moulin Rouge is a wacky take on a modern musical form. Now the movie's director Baz Luhrmann wants to bring the opera La Boheme to Broadway later this year. "We're bringing it back to the audience for whom it was written. Opera was like the television of the time, created for everyone to experience, from the simple street sweeper to the King of Naples. So it seems a natural for it to play on Broadway. We're bringing it back to its popular roots." New York Post 01/23/02

ROYAL COMEBACK: The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden has been in decline for years, and tales of its mismanagement and often ill-considered offerings offered more drama than what went on the stage. But the Royal Opera appears to be back on track. "Indeed, the year-end London critics' reports last month were, as one the few dissenters put it, 'an epidemic of enthusiasm'." Los Angeles Times 01/25/02

MATTER OF MORALITY? National Post music critic Tamara Bernstein responds to Atom Egoyan's objections of her review of Salome: "The underlying issue here - and it goes beyond Mr. Egoyan's production of Salome - is that it's time the sleepy world of classical music acknowledged that in addition to being beautiful, opera is political - sometimes in very nasty ways. It's time we stopped pretending that just because a work is aesthetically 'great' it is automatically morally neutral - or superior." National Post (Canada) 01/25/02

FIGHT! FIGHT! It's not often these days that a true artistic brawl breaks out on the pages of a North American newspaper. But Canadian critic Tamara Bernstein, never one to pull her punches, picked one with opera director Atom Egoyan recently, and Egoyan has taken the bait, firing off a furious response to Bernstein's charges of anti-Semitism and brutality in his production of Salome. Better yet, the paper is promising a Bernstein response yet to come. National Post (Canada) 01/24/02 

SHOULD SALOME BE SANITIZED? Richard Strauss's Salome has never been an easy-to-swallow opera. It has been panned constantly since its debut nearly a century ago for being vulgar, anti-Semitic, and just generally shocking. A new Canadian production is drawing particularly nasty fire from one local critic: "I left the Hummingbird Centre in a rage after Friday night's opening, feeling violated as both a woman and a Jew." National Post (Canada) 01/21/02

IT IS BETTER TO SOUND GOOD...(BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP THE MARKETING): Magdalena Kozena is 28, and "the blue-eyed, blonde Czech mezzo-soprano is the classical recording industry's latest hot property. But does Kozena owe her success to her looks?" The Guardian (UK) 01/21/02

SOUND BEFORE LOOKS? "A tall and willowy 28-year-old, Kozená is a delightful girl with a crisp sense of humour and - sorry, chaps - a nice new French boyfriend. More important, she is blessed with an impressive vocal technique and a clean, warm and alluring mezzo-soprano that reaches, in the modern style of Anne Sofie von Otter, Ann Murray and Susan Graham, into soprano rather than contralto territory." The Telegraph (UK) 01/21/02
 

Week of 01/21-28/02

SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY GETS ITS $100 MILLION - AND THEN SOME: Qualcomm Inc. founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife, Joan were going to give the San Diego Symphony $100 million, but at the last minute kicked in another $20 million. It's the largest gift ever to a symphony orchestra. "The additional money is to go to the symphony's operating funds - $2 million a year for the next 10 years. Thus, the symphony will get $7 million a year over the next 10 years, with $5 million each year going into an endowment. The Jacobses have also pledged $50 million to be paid upon their deaths." Orange County Register 01/16/02

SOME PEOPLE REALLY ARE TONE DEAF: There's even a technical name for the problem: amusia. Usually, it's the result of head injury, or an illness. But some people are just born that way. All Things Considered (NPR) 01/16/02

UNDERSTANDING PERFECTION: Scientists are trying to determine why some people have perfect pitch - the ability to identify notes without other reference notes. "Based on the evidence so far, most scientists believe that genes do play at least a subtle role, perhaps by keeping a developmental 'window' open wider and longer during early childhood, when note-naming ability generally takes shape. Still, some experts argue the quest for an absolute pitch gene is akin to searching for a gene for speaking French; it doesn't exist." San Francisco Chronicle 01/15/02

IS ALL MUSIC THE SAME? "Especially in post-modern times where categories are being redefined, it is easy for many to assert that a tango, a rock tune, and a Beethoven symphony are all the same except perhaps for the musical parameters that define the style. This can have its positive as well as negative ramifications. The positive perhaps being that all types of music are understood as having similar importance, the negative that everything is considered in many ways as being the same." NewMusicBox 01/02

HISTORY OF A BACKSTAGE FRACAS: Just what the heck is going on in Edmonton, anyway? Since when do fired conductors start their own competing orchestras? And what kind of musicians are prepared to follow such a heretic? The answers are the stuff of bad TV dramas and David Mamet plays. Edmonton Journal 01/20/02

EDMONTON ULTIMATUM: "The lawyer who raised $4 million to form a new orchestra says he will give the money to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra board instead - on one condition." The condition is that if the musicians of the ESO don't like the way the board is spending the money, they will have the right to fire the board members. If the ESO agrees (which seems unlikely,) the arrangement would be unprecedented in the history of North American orchestras. CBC 01/18/02

RIGHT OF WAY: The BBC has made a costly mistake. The corporation filmed an expensive version of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors that was set to air Christmas eve - "until it was found at the last minute that no one had checked who owned the copyright, and the programme had to be pulled." Seems an American company owns the film rights, and the company is not inclined to grant permission for another version. The Observer 01/13/02

WHERE ARE TODAY'S COMPOSERS? Why, at the start of the 21st Century, are our "mainstream musical tastes are still stuck so completely back then, in the 19th century. Not that there's anything wrong with listening to Wagner or Chopin, or even Mendelsson. But it is strange - isn't it? - that an absolute majority of the music performed by all the American symphony orchestras this season will be by just four guys. Four guys who were all composing music during the same hundred-year period that ended more than a hundred years ago: Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. Who are our Brahmses and Tchaikovskys, the historically important composers of this time? Why don't we know their music? Why don't we even know their names?" Public Arts (Studio 360) 01/11/02

TENOR'S NIGHTMARE: It's the kind of scenario that causes performers to wake up screaming at night: for whatever reason, a singer suddenly loses his ability to sing, on stage, with thousands in attendance. It happened this week in Toronto to legendary Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, who was forced to halt a recital halfway through when he could not stop his voice from cracking repeatedly. Toronto Star 01/18/02

GEEK SQUAD 1, WRITER'S CRAMP 0: The worst part of being a composer, hands down, is the endless hours spent scratching out scores and parts for cranky musicians with dubious eyesight who are forever claiming that nothing is legible, or spaced right, or has the page turns in the right place. So what, other than a dungeon full of enslaved copyists, can make the drudgery easier? Why, a couple of British computer geeks, of course! Los Angeles Times 01/19/02

MUSIC TO THE PEOPLE: Digital music and file sharing isn't just about making copies and getting music for free - it is changing the music industry in a fundamental way. "The advent of new and accessible technologies has made the independent route much more possible. The 1960s aesthetic which caused some theatre practitioners to abandon the stage for the street, and visual artists to seek an audience outside formal galleries, has now visited popular music in a much more radical way than it did back then. The possibilities the Internet and related technologies offer to bypass major record labels and give the artist direct access to a potentially mass audience have changed the music industry forever." Irish Times 01/15/02

HOPE FOR THE DYING? Okay, so 2001 was a terrible year for the classical recording industry. The worst, in fact. "Still, if one looks hard enough, some promising signs can be gleaned from the cards dealt to recorded classical music, both in the major and independent sectors. Having survived the Tower debacle — in which the cash-strapped retailer demanded drastically extended payment terms from most of its independent accounts — a distributor like Harmonia Mundi might actually end up stronger, having now culled back its inventory and overhauled its retail sales/stock process. Universal Classics Group — a key industry barometer — finished the year not only with a bevy of crossover hits but also with the highest number of top-selling "straight" classical offerings, according to Billboard." Andante 01/15/02

AMERICA'S GREATEST LIVING COMPOSER? Who is America's greatest living composer? Here's a vote for John Adams: "Adams is the most consistently serious of them all - eclipsing trend-setters such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, edging out older types like Ned Rorem, and dwarfing the semi- tonal postmodernist brigade. An Adams premiere is an international event. Unlike Reich and Glass, he is still evolving. In contrast to retro-Puccinians like Mark Adamo and Jake Heggie, his best works withstand repeated hearing. He has enough ideas - and craftsmanship - to sustain interest from beginning to end: in short forms or long, his music inspires confidence. Most important of all, it remains pleasurable to the senses." Financial Times 01/11/02

SAME OLD TIRED IDEAS: The Toronto Symphony, having just (barely) staved off bankruptcy a few months ago, is trying to broaden its appeal by offering pops concerts. But "two fake palm trees, the billboard-sized words 'Club Swing,' two lounge tables and a dreary raconteur who reels off showbiz names just don't work on this stage in this venue. And asking the TSO to metamorphose into a red-hot swing orchestra is asking for a manned spaceflight to Mars this year. Playing the nostalgia card at this stage cannot be considered wise." Toronto Star 01/08/02

WRONG ABOUT WALTON? It's the 100th anniversary of composer William Walton's birth. There not being a lot of great English composers, Walton is regularly trotted out as one of the very best. "To suggest, as I am about to do, that Walton is not worth the candle of retrospection is to risk the wrath of friends and the scorn of patriots. Walton was a talented composer. He was also, in objective terms, an archetypal English failure whose shortcomings cry out for critical examination. When a king walks down Centenary Lane clad in nothing but local adulation, there must surely be one voice in the throng to draw attention to his immodesty." The Telegraph (UK) 01/09/02

HOW THEATRES GREW UP: A study of Venice's La Fenice Opera House gives some idea of the evolution of theatres adapting to social customs. "During the 18th century, the theater was one of the most important meeting places in public life. In the boxes and the camerini allocated to them - Marcel Proust described these as 'small living rooms minus their fourth walls' - people ate meals, made love and hatched intrigues before, during and after the performances." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/07/02

SAN DIEGO GIFT: The San Diego Symphony, which once went bankrupt and is perpetually in financial difficulty, is in line for a major gift - perhaps the largest-ever individual gift to an American symphony orchestra. "The money - thought by some in San Diego's arts community to be as much as $100 million - eventually could place the organization's endowment near the top 10 of U.S. orchestras and bring unprecedented stability to the 92-year-old institution." San Diego Union 01/09/02

IN PRAISE OF THE WALKOUT: Walking out of a performance is pretty rare these days. Some audience members walked out of a recent Dallas Opera performance of Wozzek. Usually, "audiences are more passive, or at least more polite, than they used to be. It's hard to play a piano concerto anymore and not get a standing ovation. 'I sometimes wish more people would walk out. At least it would show some passion'." Dallas Morning News 01/13/02

ART VERSUS INTERPRETATION: Is an opera production a "work of art?" "Missionaries for opera keep touting it as the greatest art form, simply because it supposedly subsumes so many others. Drama and music and painting, maybe even sculpture and dance: top that, if you can. Actually, the essence of opera, even for Richard Wagner, who dreamed of an 'artwork of the future' based on just this model, remained what it had been since Monteverdi: drama embedded in music. In a classic Platonic sense, this constitutes the work (in more fashionable parlance, 'the text'). On the other hand, a performance, along with its physical trappings, falls under the heading of interpretation, commonly held to be a creative function of the second order, though it does not have to be." The New York Times 01/13/02

FIRED CONDUCTOR STARTS RIVAL ORCHESTRA: Conductor Grzegorz Nowak was told this week that his contract as music director of the Edmonton Symphony wouldn't be renewed. The next day he announced he'd put together a group of supporters and will start a new orchestra in the city. The plans are ambitious: "an immediate 45 per cent increase in concerts, a growth in orchestra size from 56 players to 93, a near-doubling in musicians' salaries over six years, and annual recordings and/or tours beginning in 2002." The new orchestra "would be based on a quite different attitude," says Nowak. "The new orchestra would put musicians' concerns first and would present more concerts with higher-paid musicians." Edmonton Journal 01/10/02

BRITAIN'S TOP SINGERS: Who are Britain's top ten opera singers? A poll of English singers ranks Bryn Terfel on top. The Independent (UK) 01/07/02

THE SELLING OF RENEE: Soprano Renee Fleming is said to have the most beautiful voice on stage today. "Though singing may be a private orgy, it is also a business, and if Fleming has become America's sweetheart it is because, behind her soft smile, she so shrewdly understands the country's values: the need to balance pleasure and profit, self-expression and the ambitious manoeuvrings of a career." The Observer (UK) 01/06/02
 
 

ANOTHER OPERA HOUSE FOR BERLIN? Does Berlin need a fourth opera house? There is a proposal to build one, devoted to music theatre written since 1945. The design is sleek - like a space ship, and the project is creating a sensation. But "there are a few problems. Berlin, which can no longer afford to maintain its three existing opera houses, is probably the European capital least likely to want to pay for another. The national government has already categorically said it will not provide money for the project; Germany already has some 80 opera houses." Andante 01/04/02

A PLEA FOR BACK TO BASICS: Why must opera directors muck up perfectly good classic operas? "The curse of the megalomaniac producer is not confined to Britain. In fact we get off quite lightly. It is now almost impossible to see a classic opera in Germany in a reasonably traditional production. There must be a new 'Konzept', good or bad makes no difference." The Telegraph (UK) 01/05/02

WILL OPERA SURVIVE? Gerard Mortier wonders about the future of opera: "For years now, like vampires, we so-called managers and artistic directors have been sucking fresh blood from film and theater directing to secure a little more eternity for opera. I have taken great delight in doing so. The experience was an important one - it brought about refreshing new interpretations of works. In the meantime, however, this process has itself become clichéd, possibly even a pure publicity reflex. Will it be possible to keep opera from becoming a dead language and gradually disappearing from our so-called educational canon, just as Latin and Greek are vanishing from our classrooms?" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/04/02

CROSSING THE LINE: The problem with crossover music (the blending of classical with popular forms) may be that so much of it uses the moniker of "classical" to reinforce old elitist stereotypes of the superiority of high art music. "But is there any scale on which [Charlotte] Church could possibly be measured a greater, more valuable artist or musician than soul goddess [Aretha] Franklin? And is every Boston Pops concert automatically inferior to any performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra?" Boston Herald 01/03/01

KERNIS AT THE TOP: Composer Aaron Jay Kernis has been winning all the music world's top prizes for composers, including the Grawemeyer and the Pulitzer. He's also getting some of the most prominent commissions by major orchestras. "He's capable of irony and wit, but won't take cover behind those qualities. There's a lot of passion to his writing, and what ties his disparate pieces together are the grand gestures, the way he'll go for a big romantic statement." Christian Science Monitor 01/04/02

A NEW STANDARD OF SUCCESS? It is a strange phenomenon of an uncertain time in the orchestral world that many top ensembles are announcing year-end fiscal numbers that would have been considered horrifying a couple of years ago, but can still be said to place the orchestra well out of the danger zone inhabited by groups in Toronto, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Case in point: the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which ran over $1 million in the red in 2001, but is going ahead with a massive venue expansion plan and shows no signs of making cuts. Detroit Free Press 01/02/02

HOPE FOR HIGHBROW? The San Francisco Opera's new director may be sick and tired of all the fundraising work her job entails (no surprise after the years she spent in Europe, where the arts are publicly subsidized,) but the necessity of catering to the interests of certain wealthy patrons isn't stopping Pamela Rosenberg from mounting challenging new productions. Among the costly and daring projects the SF Opera is planning: the American premiere of a Messaien opera that critics swore up and down would never be heard here. San Jose Mercury News 01/03/02

KEYS TO SUCCESS? Should classical music popularize itself like the visual art industry has? "Classical music doesn't suit that sort of hype. Its sedentary, spiritual quality tends to appeal to older people. Unlike the visual arts, it demands communal concentration - something most young people, raised on a culture of soundbites, are not prepared to do. It can't be sampled at a glance, it's not visually exciting. It also happens to be horribly labour-intensive. Worst of all, classical music is in the throes of an identity crisis, because its principal tools are 18th- and 19th-century creations, with a few 20th-century accretions. The vast majority of orchestras and venues have failed to reinvent themselves in a way that suits modern media." Financial Times 01/01/02

TROUBLE GETTING MUSIC: Many music fans looking for recent classical recordings in stores before Christmas were stymied. Selection in stores is lousy and distribution is limited. So where did all the music go? "It must be said that the downturn in the disc business doesn't herald the end of classical music. Box office figures for live performance remain good to excellent here and elsewhere. Yet veterans of the disc biz say it's rarely been worse." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/01/02

DALLAS POSTPONEMENT: The Dallas Opera has seen ticket sales fall by about 15 percent. One of the company's cost-cutting measures is to postpone the American premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's The Silver Tassie to the 2004-2005 season. The opera is "based on a play by Sean O'Casey, tells the story of an Irish soccer hero who goes off to World War I and returns paralyzed by a battle injury." Dallas Morning News 01/02/02
 
 

PATRIOTIC FOG: "Because of the events of September 11, John Adams finds himself accused of being an 'anti-American' composer, a label with uncomfortable echoes of the McCarthy era of the 1950s." In the New York Times, musicologist Richard Taruskin charged Adams with "romanticising terrorists" in his 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer - and, by implication, with romanticising the perpetrators of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, too. Taruskin's article provides some flavour of the atmosphere in the US today. "If terrorism is to be defeated," he wrote, "world public opinion has to be turned decisively against it." That means "no longer romanticising terrorists as Robin Hoods and no longer idealising their deeds as rough poetic justice". The creators of The Death of Klinghoffer - Adams, librettist Alice Goodman and director Peter Sellers - have done just that, he argued. The opera was "anti-American, anti-semitic and anti-bourgeois. Why should we want to hear this music now?" The Guardian (UK) 12/15/01

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD NEWS? Warner Music UK has announced that, contrary to previous reports which had it scrapping the classical recording business altogether, it will debut a slimmed-down Warner Classics division in January 2002. A Warner official also denied reports that specialty labels Teldec and Erato will cease issuing new releases. Andante 12/13/01

CLASSICS ON A BUDGET: "The American arm of the Naxos label, known for its budget classical catalogue of around 2400 titles, has signed a deal with Liquid Audio to distribute selected recordings via Liquid’s network of retail and music web sites." Gramophone 12/13/01 

BRINGING ART AND TECH TO THE TABLE: "With a glitzy splash, two Montreal universities yesterday launched Hexagram, a research institute that aims to do for song and dance what Silicon Valley did for the computer industry... Hexagram is an attempt to pull together research in the widely expanding field of digital arts with the needs of Quebec's cultural industry." Montreal Gazette 12/11/01

NEW FORM BEGGING: The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is trying out a new way to raise money, saying it urgently needs new funds. The company is asking donors to "sponsor" props for performances - "£150 to pay for Macbeth's gold crown, £250 for Othello's sword, £500 for a wig in the production of Queen of Spades, £750 for a rifle in Il Trovatore, £1,500 for a sedan chair in Don Giovanni and £4,500 for a Madonna in the same opera." The Telegraph (UK) 12/12/01

MR CHRISTMAS CAROL: "In the world of music, John Rutter is Mr Christmas: the most celebrated and commercially successful carol-composer alive. Given the state of world affairs it's hard to predict the supply of peace and goodwill among the nations in the next few weeks, but one thing you can guarantee is that Rutter's choral packaging of those sentiments will be on the lips of countless millions in cathedrals, churches, chapels and mud-hut missions, from Nebraska to Nairobi." The Telegraph (UK) 12/14/01

LAMENTS FROM A BORED CRITIC: It looks like the Toronto Symphony has been bailed out of its life-threatening financial woes. But does it deserve its heroic rescue? "in recent months I've walked out of two TSO concerts because I was so bored and because I was enraged at the apathy radiating from most of the orchestra. The TSO as a whole has what I call bad morale genes - too many whiners who have an outrageous sense of entitlement and seem to bear undying grudges against the administration. Unless there is an outstanding conductor on the podium - and how often does that happen? - the TSO's 'house sauce' is note-perfect but soulless playing, redeemed by expressive solos from that consistent but relatively small group of players." National Post (Canada) 12/14/01

SPANO TAKES ATLANTA: Why conductor Robert Spano decided to take on the Atlanta Symphony: "What I could tell from the search committee was: `Here's this great orchestra, here's this very vital, thriving, growing, exciting city, and the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There's a total disconnect. We're not getting audiences.' That's a challenge that fascinates me. How do you get this credible, viable artistic institution to mean something to the community in which it lives? Because if it doesn't it's going to die." The New York Times 12/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)

CONDUCTING A BID: A 25-year-old from Arizona was browsing on eBay when he spotted an offer to conduct the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in a performance of Handel's Messiah. So he anted up his life savings of $7,500 and won the bidding, which was part of a fund-raiser for the chorus. "The funny thing was, no-one had bid on it when I saw it. So I thought, 'OK, I'm game'. And I won. It was as simple as that." Sydney Morning Herald 12/14/01

MORTIER TO TAKE PARIS OPERA: Outgoing Salzburg Festival director Gerard Mortier has been named director of the Paris National Opera beginning in 2004. "Mortier, 58, earned a reputation at Salzburg both for sponsoring offbeat productions and for clashing noisily with conservative Austrian politicians. The New York Times 12/08/01 (one-time registration required for access)

NOT MUCH TO SING ABOUT: Chorus members rarely - if ever - make money for their work; they get their rewards in other ways. But "a deep gloom has settled over the volunteer sector of the singing world - not the pros who bury Aida nightly at the opera or tweet exquisite Messiaenisms for the 32-strong BBC Singers, but the lawyers, plumbers and home-makers who, from time immemorial, have given up three nights a week for rehearsal, no expenses paid. The choral tradition is in trouble. Money is tight, the music is monotonous and ensembles are turning sloppy." The Telegraph (UK) 12/12/01

WHAT'S IN A PERFORMANCE? The hype surrounding the Philadelphia Orchestra's 2000 premiere of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara's 8th Symphony was at a fever pitch by the time the first performances occurred. Sadly, conductor, musicians, and critics alike were disappointed with the results, and the premiere appeared to be an unusual failure for Rautavaara. But a new recording may be proving that it's all in the interpretation. Philadelphia Inquirer 12/04/01

AVANT GARDE - MISSING IN ACTION: What happened to the opera avant garde? Twenty-five years ago Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach promised to energize and change the world of contemporary opera. But that promise was never fulfilled and today's operas act as if the avant garde never happened. Financial Times 12/05/01

YOUNGEST OPERA COMPOSER? Fifteen-year-old Sophie Serese "is believed to be the youngest person to have written both music and libretto for a full-length opera, although Mozart wrote the music to his first opera when he was 12." Her third opera premieres this week in Melbourne. The Age (Melbourne) 12/05/01

BET THE NY PHIL THINKS THIS IS HILARIOUS: In what may be the strangest development to come out of the current world tensions, renowned French conductor/composer Pierre Boulez was detained by Swiss authorities, and informed that he was on their list of potential terrorists. Apparently, back in his impetuous youth in the 1960s, Boulez publicly declared that opera houses should be blown up. BBC 12/04/01

LOSS LIEDER: "For whatever reason, vocal programs have shot up in number and quality in the past few years. The phenomenon has stemmed in part from an influx of talent: so many compelling baritones, mezzos, and light-voiced tenors have popped up that the names have begun to blur." The New Yorker 12/03/01

WHY THERE'S HOPE FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC: "The 'regression equation' - one of the preferred tools for understanding economies - shows that for classical orchestras, the likelihood of money being spent on orchestral music is linked to consumers’ increasing age, education, and income. Graying of classical music audiences is most often viewed as a serious problem rather than a valuable asset. Economic demographer David Foote offers telling arguments as to why aging baby-boomers are likely to increase the classical music market." La Scena Musicale 12/01/01

STAR SEARCH: Seven conductors in their 20s and 30s have gathered in Indiana to compete in the North American regional round of Alberto Vilar's and Lorin Maazel's worldwide conducting competition. "Following the North American regional round in Bloomington, there will be rounds at Krakow, Poland, in January; London in February; Sao Paulo, Brazil, in April; and Sydney, Australia, in August. One conductor from each round will advance to the finals in September in New York City's Carnegie Hall." Indianapolis Star 12/04/01

MUSIC IN DIFFICULT TIMES: "Do audiences need the continued comfort that familiar art provides, or do they need it to push them and force them confront and understand the world as it is?" This is the question facing programmers in the weeks since September 11. NewMusicBox 12/01

HOW CROSSOVER KILLED CLASSICAL: "This week's top-selling 'classical' album in the US is piano music composed by Billy Joel, a faded rock star. The top two albums in Britain are punched out by Russell Watson, an industrial-strength tenor who assaults football terraces with pop ballads and ice-cream arias in marshmallowy, Mantovani-like settings. These are the core of contemporary classics. Were the charts to be purged of such mongrelisms, there is little doubt that classical sales would fall below one per cent and the business would be shut down." And yet, maybe the efforts gone into promoting such crossovers is killing the legit classical biz. The Telegraph (UK) 12/05/01

EXPERIMENTING WITH THE FUTURE: The Atlanta Symphony has seen its box office sales erode in recent seasons; the orchestra was particularly hurt by a musicians' strike. This season, under new music director Robert Spano, the orchestra has aggressively experimented with its format, introducing light shows and installations to accompany music, and performing more contemporary fare. Some patrons object, complaining that the additions are distracting from the music. And yet, attendance is beginning to climb... Atlanta Journal-Constitution 12/07/01

BIG FIVE BEHIND NEW TWO: America's Big Five orchestras haven't been so big for a long time. That's not to say there aren't plenty of good performances or that these orchestras aren't relevant anymore. But as they enter a new era - most of them with new leadership - they will neeed to reinvent. And for a model - why not look to the New Two - the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony? Los Angeles Times 12/09/01

THE POTENT FORCE OF MUSIC: So the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan. "Musicians caught in the act were beaten with their instruments and imprisoned for as many as 40 days." But throughout history, those in power have often sought to control music." Why? Because of "the all but irresistible kinesthetic response that music evokes that makes it such a potent influence on behavior, thence on morals and belief." The New York Times 12/09/01 (one-time registration required for access)

LISTENING TO THE PHILLY'S NEW CONCERT HALL: The Philadelphia Orchestra has being trying to build a new home since about 1908. Next week it moves into the new $263 million Kimmel Center. This week the orchestra got its first chance to try out the acoustics: "The first impression is an overwhelming one, a wonderful one," says music director Wolfgang Sawallisch. "The musicians can hear each other. I can hear each section - individually and in ensemble. Of course, this will take time. You cannot do it in 15 minutes." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/07/01

WORDS OVER MUSIC: Supertitles at the opera have transformed the artform. Some believe it is the main reason why opera attendance has soared in recent years. But many stage directors and artists deplore them. "I have a terrible feeling that when you go to the opera now, reading the titles becomes the primary experience, followed by the music, followed by the visual [element], followed by the performance. Because words have an appearance of exact meaning, your mind gravitates to the specificity.... The opera becomes like text with background music." OperaNews 12/01

MUSIC AS KEY TO THE UNIVERSE: "The very idea of a 'key to the universe' today seems as quaint as the belief that the Earth is flat. We are more familiar with concepts such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or chaos theory, or irrational numbers that can be calculated to an infinite and patternless number of decimal places. Even if a key to the universe could be discovered, the lock that it fits long ago disappeared. But for thousands of years, from the ancient Greeks to the Church fathers to the Enlightenment, the existence of such a key was not a fantasy but a premise of intellectual life, and the key was situated at the intersection of music, science, and religion." The New Republic 12/04/01
 
 

YOUTH ISN'T EVERYTHING: European orchestras have recently gone on a binge of hiring young conductors, unproven conductors in their 20s and 30s. "Youth can, however, flatter to deceive. Many a bright new baton has been broken by orchestral intransigence or premature promotion. The sudden rush of young bloods is no proof of a podium renaissance. Europe's neophilia is but a reverse symptom of America's sclerosis, indicating that musical organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have simply forgotten how to pick 'em." The Telegraph (UK) 11/28/01

KERNIS WINS PRIZE: Composer Aaron Jay Kernis has won the high-honor award. Now he's also won one with some money attached - the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition prize. Andante 11/27/01

NEW ZEALAND'S NEW MUSIC: New Zealand is not a place that springs to mind when thinking of classical music. "In the field of classical music, evidence of vibrant indigenous creativity was, until recent years, embarrassingly scant. Those seeking high-profile careers had to leave their native shores and head for more established musical climes." A new festival in Scotland makes the case that "an exciting younger generation of composers is emerging." The Scotsman 11/25/01

CRITICAL REVIEW: "Music criticism in a postmodern age has only two options: to become more fractured, or more inclusive. Different kinds of music have different purposes, and need to be attended to in different ways. An attitude that works at a stadium rock show may fail in a dance club. A newspaper critic who promotes rock or classical against every other kind of music is missing most of the picture. As Marshall McLuhan said, 'Point of view is failure to achieve structural awareness'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/27/01

A FLORIDA HATCHET JOB: The Florida Philharmonic has big money problems. Are those to blame for the callous way conductor James Judd was forced from his job last week? He was provoked into resigning by musicians who thought his nods at programming new music "turned off subscribers." The players "made it a condition of their agreement last week to take pay cuts that Judd, the music director, no longer control programs. Naturally, he resigned." Miami Herald 11/25/01

YOUTH ISN'T EVERYTHING: European orchestras have recently gone on a binge of hiring young conductors, unproven conductors in their 20s and 30s. "Youth can, however, flatter to deceive. Many a bright new baton has been broken by orchestral intransigence or premature promotion. The sudden rush of young bloods is no proof of a podium renaissance. Europe's neophilia is but a reverse symptom of America's sclerosis, indicating that musical organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have simply forgotten how to pick 'em." The Telegraph (UK) 11/28/01 

KERNIS WINS PRIZE: Composer Aaron Jay Kernis has won the high-honor award. Now he's also won one with some money attached - the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition prize. Andante 11/27/01 

NEW ZEALAND'S NEW MUSIC: New Zealand is not a place that springs to mind when thinking of classical music. "In the field of classical music, evidence of vibrant indigenous creativity was, until recent years, embarrassingly scant. Those seeking high-profile careers had to leave their native shores and head for more established musical climes." A new festival in Scotland makes the case that "an exciting younger generation of composers is emerging." The Scotsman 11/25/01 

CRITICAL REVIEW: "Music criticism in a postmodern age has only two options: to become more fractured, or more inclusive. Different kinds of music have different purposes, and need to be attended to in different ways. An attitude that works at a stadium rock show may fail in a dance club. A newspaper critic who promotes rock or classical against every other kind of music is missing most of the picture. As Marshall McLuhan said, 'Point of view is failure to achieve structural awareness'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/27/01 

A FLORIDA HATCHET JOB: The Florida Philharmonic has big money problems. Are those to blame for the callous way conductor James Judd was forced from his job last week? He was provoked into resigning by musicians who thought his nods at programming new music "turned off subscribers." The players "made it a condition of their agreement last week to take pay cuts that Judd, the music director, no longer control programs. Naturally, he resigned." Miami Herald 11/25/01 

NOW THAT'S CROSSOVER MUSIC: "What is perhaps the most ambitious musical venture on the internet culminates in a live 48-hour interactive web broadcast this weekend... From midnight GMT on Saturday December 1, the webcast consists of both acoustic and computer music, live concerts and events from associated sites in New York, Boston, Atlanta, San Diego, Oakland, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Krakow, Amsterdam and Rome, involving well over 200 performer-participants." Gramophone 11/28/01 

DEFENDING THE BSO: The Boston Symphony has endured a firestorm of criticism since announcing that it would replace John Adams's controversial "Death of Klinghoffer" with a Copland symphony on a November concert program. But one prominent Boston critic is defending the decision, saying the BSO did what was best for its audience, even if it wasn't the most courageous path to take. Boston Herald 11/30/01 

REACHING OUT: Detroit's Michigan Opera Theatre mounts a new production of Armen Tigranian's Anoush, the Armenian national opera, in its original language. So what? So what because the company used the opera as a way to reach out to a part of its community in Detroit that now feels connected to the company. Toronto Star 11/24/01 

BUILDING A BETTER ORCHESTRA: Why do some orchestras flounder along - some even going out of business - while others always seem to thrive? Sure there's something to quality and repertoire and having enough money. But "the most important factor is the one that most audience members are probably least aware of: the board and its leadership. San Francisco Chronicle 12/02/01 

HOW THE DEAF HEAR MUSIC: "Although music has been an important part of deaf culture for centuries, no one has known how the brains of deaf people experience sounds. Now a study of magnetic resonance images shows how brains "rewire" so they can use sound vibration to sense music using the same brain region that is used for hearing." National Post 11/28/01 

STAR STRUCK: Six years ago 23-year-old Vladimir Jurowski's career as a conductor was "launched at one of those one-in-a thousand evenings when a young unknown steps up onto the stage and it's immediately obvious - a star en debut." Now he's Glyndebourne's new music director, and ready to do big things. The Telegraph (UK) 11/29/01 
 
 

NEW LOOK AT NEW: The venerable Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival has a glamorous 32-year-old in charge, with some new ideas about presenting new music. "This is an extremely interesting time. There's a less rigid way of looking at the world of music, less distance between the experimental end of pop and some classical music. All this interests me, and I want us to be at the forefront of representing that." The Guardian (UK) 11/23/01

WHEN ART IS UNCOMFORTABLE: Should artists remove their work from public view if it might make people uncomfortable? The Boston Symphony evidently thinks so in canceling this weekend's performances of choruses from John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer. "But how patronizing for the orchestra's directors to presume what audiences will or will not find offensive. Of course, art can provide solace and comfort. Yet art can also incense and challenge us, make us squirm, make us think. The Boston Symphony missed an opportunity to present an acutely relevant work." The New York Times 11/25/01 (one-time registration required for access)

PLAYING IT SAFE: Composer John Adams, reflecting on the Boston Symphony's canceling one of his pieces, thinks one of the reasons classical music has lost its way is its wariness about taking risks: "I was concerned about what the reasons given for the cancellation had to say about classical music. I do think that symphonies and opera companies are very skittish in this country, and I'm sorry that they are, because it confirms the distressing image of symphony-goers as fragile and easily frightened. That's really a shame, because I want to think of symphonic concerts as every bit as challenging as going to MOCA or to see 'Angels in America'." Los Angeles Times 11/20/01

SOMETHING ABOUT FINLAND: In the past decade Finnish conductors and performers have become prominent on the world stage - prominent out of all scale to the country's tiny size and population. But as for composers, Finland has still been considered a one-composer country - and Sibelius stopped composing 50 years ago. Now a new generation of Finnish composers looks to emerge just as performers did in the 90s. The Telegraph (UK) 11/22/01

DEADER THAN DEAD: As arts organizations begin to scale back to reflect shrinking ticket sales and donations, some casualties: "The Houston Grand Opera recently decided against two productions for the 2003 season, including Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's Dead Man Walking, commissioned by the San Francisco Opera and a big hit last year." But the production is expensive and... San Francisco Chronicle 11/21/01

WHERE'S THE BUZZ? Just as the Tate Modern helped make contemporary art cool, so must classical music find a way to reinvent itself and acquire some buzz, warns the head of Britain's BBC Radio 3. "Standing still is not an option. Simply because organisations... have existed for a number of years does not mean that they have a right to continue as they have since they were founded, their work unchallenged." The Independent (UK) 11/22/01

THE SOUND OF MUSIC: Is sound art music? "If there's such a thing as sound art then it's certainly sound art as well. Sound is the consequence of an idea, and maybe that's sound art; and if you take that sound and make something else of it then maybe that's music." The Guardian (UK) 11/18/01

THE SKY IS FALLING...ISN'T IT? Sure the classical music world's got troubles. Most businesses do these days. But why are so many people running around predicting the end of classical music? "Perhaps classical leaders are so pessimistic because they feel they are guarding something more important than the kind of commercialism that guides their pop-music counterparts. After all, if the execs at MTV need to goose up revenues, they figure out what's selling, develop product, and send it to South Beach in a bikini. Classical leaders don't have that much flexibility, and, more important, they feel the weight of being flame-keepers of an important body of culture." Philadelphia Inquire 11/20/01

YE OLDE CURIOSITY SHOPPE: This year's rage in the concert world is to dig up forgotten or newly-discovered pieces of music by long-dead masters like Beethoven or Handel or Mozart and trot them out on stage, paraded for their curiosity value. "But, before you dash up to the attic in search of the six-bar autograph Granny got from Grieg that can surely be extended into a new piano concerto, a word of caution:" None of these has legs beyond their immediate promotional value. The Telegraph (UK) 11/21/01

CRACKING BACH'S CODES: A new cd that tries to unravel the compositional codes Bach used in writing his famous Partita in D Minor, has become a hit on the music charts. "As presented in Morimur, Bach was musically inspired, like Elgar, but went for symbolism, like Shostakovich. With chorale and partita movements set side by side, the listener must crack open all preconceived notions about the partita to hear references between the two. Close, repeated listening is needed. And something this heady is now so hot on the charts?" Philadelphia Inquirer 11/25/01
 
 

TAKIN' IT TO THE PEOPLE: "What do a gamelan orchestra, a St. Louis beer vendor and a Mississippi railroad have in common? They're all part of a project called 'Continental Harmony,' the largest music-commissioning undertaking in American history, according to its sponsor, the service organization American Composers Forum, headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The idea was to match new music to the new millennium by linking composers and communities in all 50 states to create work that would reflect the history, culture and ambitions of their residents." Los Angeles Times 11/18/01

CUT-RATE 50TH: The Wexford Festival exists to showcase operas that once were famous but no longer are. But this year's edition - the 50th - was the worst ever. "The artistic director since 1995, Luigi Ferrari, has internationalised the whole affair (scarcely an Irish singer to be heard). The chorus (cheap) now comes from Prague. There was a dispute with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, who were replaced by the not very good (but cheap) National Philharmonic of Belârus — for the 50th festival of all things." The Times (UK) 11/13/01

BOSTON V. ADAMS, CONTINUED: So exactly what did the Boston Symphony Orchestra do wrong when it substituted a Copland symphony for a potentially discomforting work by John Adams? Well, for one thing, art is supposed to reflect life, and life is a discomforting thing at the moment. For another, the BSO hasn't cancelled other non-soothing music on its schedule. Says one of Boston's lead critics, "The orchestra made a defensible decision for an indefensible reason." Boston Globe 11/16/01

THE POLITICS OF CANCELING: When the Boston Symphony canceled a performance of excerpts from John Adams' opera The Death of Klinghoffer because of sensitivities over its terrorism subject matter, Adams protested vehemently. But the orchestra is defending its decision: "John is angry, and I feel terrible that this has hurt him. I'm a big supporter of his music. I perform it all the time, and I will continue to, and I'm sorry he took offense. But I don't agree with him that we did the wrong thing." The New York Times 11/14/01 (one-time registration required for access) 

ONE MAN, ONE OPERA, ONE CHECK: Dr. Douglas Mitchell is an opera lover, a breed known for their single-mindedness and unfailing devotion to the medium. He is also very rich. Opera Australia is glad for both of these facts, since they have now twice been the beneficiary of highly unusual gifts from Dr. Mitchell. Far more than a contributor, Mitchell is a literal provider, writing out checks for A$200,000 to pay for an entire opera's production. The Age (courtesy Andante) 11/18/01

IMG DOWNSIZES: In an unexpected move, IMG Artists, one of North America's largest talent agencies representing classical musicians, has laid off five relatively high-ranking staff members. The layoffs are being attributed to the economic downturn, as well as the general decline in interest in the arts since September 11. Andante 11/18/01

PROMO INSTEAD OF PAY: Microsoft's new video games contain music by numerous band. But in most cases MS isn't paying for use of the music. Instead, the company got musicians to give them music as a way to "promote" themselves with game players. Some bands aren't so happy with the arrangement, even though they went along. The New York Times 11/15/01 (one-time registration required for access)

FOR POP MUSIC THAT ISN'T POPULAR YET? Australia's Victoria government has decided to give $1.8 million to the state's pop musicians. "Fifty emerging artists will each receive $1000 to assist in producing quality demo recordings of original songs, finding gigs or getting songs played on radio. Unsigned artists will receive $15,000 to record and release CDs." The Age (Melbourne) 11/15/01

WHY PROFESSIONALS DO IT BETTER: "The brain waves of professional musicians respond to music in a way that suggests they have an intuitive sense of the notes that amateurs don't have. The research offers insight into the inner workings of the brain and shows that musicians' brains are uniquely wired for sound." Nando Times (AP) 11/15/01

TUNED IN: To many ears, 12-tone music sounds difficult and confusing. But maybe it's not the listener's fault, writes critic Greg Sandow. Tuning atonal chords the way they're supposed to sound requires lots of practice, and how many ensembles have that much rehearsal time? Andante 11/08/01
 
 

ADAMS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE: John Adams has faced resistance, complaining, and outright hostility towards his music on his way to becoming one of this era's most popular and successful composers. On the heels of the Boston Symphony's cancellation, for reasons of subject matter, of Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, the composer remains convinced that audiences are more adventurous, intelligent, and willing to be challenged than they are usually given credit for. Andante 11/07/01

SF CRITIC - BOSTON SCREWED UP: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will now soothe you with its rendition of 'Kitten on the Keys,' performed on kazoos. It hasn't quite come to that, but it just might, given the orchestra's ridiculous decision last week to cancel performances of "Choruses From 'The Death of Klinghoffer' by Bay Area composer John Adams." San Francisco Chronicle 11/07/01

SONY CHAIRMAN COLLAPSES CONDUCTING CONCERT: "Norio Ohga, 71, the chairman of Sony Corporation, was conducting the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra at the Beijing Music Festival last night when he collapsed during the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. He is currently recuperating, in a stable condition, at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing." Gramophone 11/08/01

UNDER-PERFORMERS: For all the operas that have been written in the last few hundred years, the standard repertory is quite small. Opera Magazine asks a couple dozen music critics, artists and opera administrators which operas they'd like to see more often performed. La Wally? Really? Opera News 11/01

STUCK IN THE PAST: Why are North American orchestras in danger? "No other industry has been so resistant to renewal. Orchestras play much the same menu, at the same time, in the same venues, for the same duration and wearing the same waiters' uniforms as they did when Roosevelt was president. Experiment is ruled out by archaic rules. The culture is governed by compromise and fear." The Telegraph (UK) 11/07/01

THE SKY IS FALLING: Why are orchestras in so much trouble now? "Orchestras are in trouble because they are losing patrons and sponsors. Technological advances in audio over the last 20 years mean classical music lovers can hear a world-class symphony on CD in their living room. Audiences are aging and it has been difficult to attract young patrons, especially considering the multitude of attractions that orchestras compete with for the arts dollar. Top that off with an economic downturn and it's a formula for disaster." Calgary Herald (CP) 11/05/01

THE PROBLEM WITH ORCHESTRAS: "Ironically, overall attendance at symphony concerts rose in the 1990s by 18 per cent, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League. And yet, about 10 orchestras have had to declare bankruptcy or undertake major restructuring within the last decade and a half. The good news is that all but one of those orchestras have since returned to the stage. The bad news is that their problems have been recycled by other orchestras. Why this roller coaster between solvency and panic? Because our orchestras lack financial security. They are so inconsistently funded that they lurch from crisis to resolution and back to crisis again with frightening ease." Toronto Star 11/03/01

WHITHER STOCKHAUSEN? It's now been over a month since the composer's ill-timed comments calling the NYC attacks the world's greatest work of art. What has the controversy done to the cult of personality that has always surrounded the iconoclastic Stockhausen? Um, strengthened it, actually. But at what price? Andante 10/06/01

CLASSIC BILLY JOEL: "Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter announces the death of the age of irony, just as Billy Joel releases his first album of 'classical music'? Puleeze." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/11/01

ST. MARTIN'S IN THE DOLDRUMS: The Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields is one of the most-recorded orchestras on the planet - its recording in the 60s and 70s were ubiquitous. But "does the orchestra fill any useful niche today? The period-instruments movement has produced groups that play the classical repertoire with more fire in the belly and more precision; and for those who refuse to abandon the old ways, there's a revival of interest in the big, puffed-up, imperial approach to the 18th century that flourished before the Second World War. Which leaves the Academy in no man's land, neither authentic nor truly retro. It's left trying to make a case for music that is merely pretty." Washington Post 11/05/01
 
 

FORFEITING ART TO EGO: This year's Salzburg Festival production of Die Fledermaus took a few, um, liberties with the original libretto. Nazi gangs, endless puns, and questionable added dialogue sent many critics shrieking for the nearest artistic high ground. "First and foremost, though, the Salzburg Fledermaus is but another installment in the great humiliation of music that has been going on for years in those opera houses, particularly in Europe, which have forfeited all power to the director at the expense of the conductor and the singers." Andante 10/14/01

BOOSEY & HAWKES FACES TAKEOVER: Music publishers tend to be companies steeped in history and rich in tradition. England's Boosey & Hawkes is one of the most venerable, with 200 years of publishing under its belt. But B&H has been in financial trouble lately, and now faces a takeover bid from an unnamed company. BBC 10/08/01

BRINGING DEMOCRACY TO NEW MUSIC: John McLaren's 'Masterprize' competition is a unique beast in the normally predictable world of classical music. Composers from all over the world are invited to compete for a large cash prize, with finalists' works to be performed by one of the world's finest orchestras. But unlike most such competitions, the winner will be determined by a unique mix of votes from celebrities, orchestra members, and members of the global listening public. The Times (UK) 10/09/01

AGE OF THE DIRECTOR: If singers were the stars of yesteryear opera, today "for better or worse, we have come to the age of the director. In many ways, the play has become the thing. Apart from three senior-citizen tenors, bigger-than-life singers aren't as big as they used to be. Divas have lost their cults. Hardly any larynges inspire box-office stampedes. Bona-fide individuality of timbre and interpretive approach are becoming rarities. The stars just don't shine all that brightly." Andante 10/06/01

THE EVOLVING ORCHESTRA: "The sound of a symphony orchestra is less traditional than most of us think. Even in the romantic period, conductor Phillipe Herreweghe says, instruments were evolving. Gut strings, as different from modern metal strings as a harpsichord is from a piano, were not superseded until about 1920. The antique woodwinds are softer. A modern orchestra is, he says, at least twice as loud as its turn-of-the-century counterpart. Styles of playing have changed even more. A Wagner opera lasted an hour less in his time than now. But the whole spirit, even of Debussy, has changed." The Age (Melbourne) 10/08/01

COMPOSER AT THE END OF THE LINE: Is Karlheinz Stockhausen a great artist, a great composer? "Stockhausen, like many other late modernists, is an artist at the end of a great experiment that failed. Modernism did not find a new answer to the problem of expression, it did not create a new tradition. It delineated the terms of the expressive crisis all too accurately, and in doing so, made it impossible to continue down the same radical road." Sunday Times (UK) 10/07/01

SILENCING MUSIC'S POTENTIAL: Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have banned many things since coming to power five years ago. Some of the bans, like education for women and shaving for men, had an immediately visible impact. But when the hard-liners banned music, they may have taken away one of the most powerful forces for national unity. Music unites, as patriotic anthems the world over show. But can lack of music actually divide a people? The Guardian 10/13/01

MUSIC AND THE TALIBAN: "[W]hen Can You Stop the Birds Singing?, a report into the censorship of music in Afghanistan was published in June, there was little interest. The report's publishers, Freemuse, are a Danish-based human rights organisation dedicated to campaigning against music censorship. Now that Afghanistan and its brutal Taliban regime dominate the headlines, this report resonates even more loudly." The Daily Telegraph (UK) 10/11/01

AMERICAN COMPOSER WINS MASTERPRIZE: Pierre Jalbert, a professor at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music in Houston, has won the £30,000 Masterprize, beating out four other finalists. The award was determined by a complex voting system that included massive amounts of public input through technological means. BBC 10/11/01

ONLY IN NEW YORK: A strolling violinist in a gold loincloth and very little else would cause the denizens of most cities to call the police, or at least cross the street. But in New York, such a man can become a minor celebrity, especially when he gains a reputation as the most talented street musician in the city. "In his soloperas, Thoth, a classically trained musician, is the composer, orchestra, singers and dancers. His music has elements of classical, overlaid with primal rhythms, but it defies categorization." New York Post 10/14/01

TWO VIEWS OF TORONTO: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is on the verge of bankruptcy, and is asking its musicians to bear the brunt of the massive cuts to come. Some observers predict artistic doom for the TSO if such cuts come to pass, since lower salaries and fewer perks would drive yet more of Canada's top musicians south of the border to high-paying American bands. But others blame the unionized musicians for pushing the financial limits of Canadian orchestras far past what was reasonably possible with their contract demands. Toronto Star & National Post (Canada) 10/13/01

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE MONEY: "The TSO is also divided from the city in which it lives, and becoming more so all the time... [It] has scarcely begun to react to changing demographic patterns in the city, where in the past decade 80 per cent of new immigrants came from countries with little or no tradition of European-style orchestral music. Capturing their interest is a long-term task, more likely to be served by education and outreach programs than by clever advertising." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/13/01
 
 

INSIDE THE TERRORISTIC MIND: John Adams's opera, 'The Death of Klinghoffer' has never been an easy concertgoing experience, but in the wake of September 11, the grim story of a man killed quite publicly by terrorists has become even more controversial and fascinating than at its premiere. "Opera is often called the most irrational art form. It places us directly inside its characters' minds and hearts through compelling music, often causing us to enjoy the company of characters we might normally dislike. Adams' opera requires that we think the unthinkable." Los Angeles Times 10/07/01 

THINKING TOO HARD: Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had a reputation for having been a dense intellectual, a philosopher to struggle through. So why is composer Anthony Powers setting some of his thorniest writing to music? "Powers - whose BBC-commissioned Tractatus setting, A Picture of the World, is being broadcast on Radio 3 on Saturday - believes that the great Austrian philosopher has been thoroughly misunderstood. 'There's this idea of Wittgenstein as the most fearsome intellectual when in fact he was saying that most intellectualising is a waste of time." The Guardian (UK) 10/04/01

A FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH STOCKHAUSEN: A music novice goes in hunt of Stockhausen, wondering what the difficult composer's music sounds like. Finally locating a disc in a store, he takes a listen with a clerk. "This is what I've been waiting for - a new beginning. He's as excited as I am. I give him the thumbs up. He gives me a Masonic nod. It's ghastly. Truly bloody awful. Rats scurrying across a blackboard, a washing machine turning somersaults, a car horn hooting in temper. And when it's not quite so ghastly, it turns into a Monty Python sketch - a choir of cheeks being pulled at speed. The blow-job sonata perhaps?" The Guardian (UK) 10/06/01

THE CLASSICAL MUSIC PROBLEM: Who killed classical music? Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Yes the death rattle seems to be louder these days, and yes, almost every part of the "industry" you look at is in difficulty. From bad management, changing economics, overbuilding, and general malaise, classical music is suffering. On the other hand, people aren't just going to stop listening to music... LA Weekly [cover story] 10/04/01

CHICAGO SYMPHONY TO CUT BACK: It's been 15 years of good financial news for the Chicago Symphony. But it's come to an end. "At its annual meeting Wednesday night in Symphony Center, CSO board officers announced a $1.3 million deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30, and projected a $2 million deficit for the coming year. The deficit for fiscal 2001 is the orchestra's first since 1992 and only its second since 1986. Moving to cut costs, the CSO will shutter ECHO, its $3.7 million, state-of-the-art education center, which it opened in 1998." Chicago Sun-Times 10/04/01 

WHY THE ST. LOUIS SYMPHONY SUFFERS: The St. Louis Symphony is in crisis. "If $29 million is not pledged to the symphony by the end of this year (with the money in hand by next summer), the SLSO will be facing bankruptcy." The orchestra has a small endowment compared to other orchestras of its accomplishment. "The sting of "elitism" sent the SLSO into a number of 'good works' projects, becoming more involved with school, church and other community organizations, as well as creating its own (costly) music school, in response to the loss of music education throughout the city school system. The SLSO made nice, became an exemplary orchestra, and ran up debts." Andante 10/04/01 

VANCOUVER SYMPHONY DEFICIT: "After seven debt-free years, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is now struggling with a deficit of more than $900,000. A four-month transit strike kept some of the audience away." CBC 10/05/01

ATLANTA'S HIGH EXPECTATIONS: Robert Spano makes his debut as music director of the Atlanta Symphony and expectations are high. Spano has work to do, reports one New York critic. "These are evidently good musicians, and they play the right notes at just about the right time. But there is little unanimity of thought. String players seem each to have private and minutely different opinions on the shape of a dotted rhythm or the point of an attack. Wind players are not in themselves out of tune but sound unaware of pitch placements around them." The New York Times 10/04/01 (one-time registration required)

WRONG NUMBER: Two "sound artists" have copyrighted 100 million combinations of your telephone tones. So "next time you make a phone call, chances are you'll be in breach of international copyright law. If business can claim ownership over the elemental building blocks of human life, the composers say it's only fitting that artists lay claim to the 'DNA' of business and are paid for it." The Age (Melbourne) 10/04/01

RECORDING CARNAGE: "Over four years of classical tailspin, every corporate label has slashed its rosters, plunging dozens of artists, eminent and emergent, into a black hole of hopelessness. Very few get a second chance. The suits that rule the classical summits are investing only in novelties - such as the 14-year-old violinist Chloe and an eight-piece fusion band, the Planets, put together by Wombles songwriter Mike Batt on much the same 'personality' lines as Big Brother applied to its contestants." The Telegraph (UK) 10/03/01

FAMILIAR DIET: Why do the UK's opera companies play the same small number of operas over and over again? "Companies have been given the subliminal message that if they don’t play to full houses then they are failing in their task. Whether or not the task of publicly funded bodies should be endlessly to serve up box-office attractions rather than broaden the public’s operatic experience is another matter — but then art, or education in the broadest sense, has long ceased to be the primary concern of our Arts Councils." The Times (UK) 10/01/02

MUSIC WITHOUT THE NAME: So who says that a piece of music with a designer label on it - Beethoven, Mozart or some other - is superior to music without the name? Perhaps we listen too mindlessly to the greats and too easily dismiss worthy efforts by those composers we've forgotten. Orange County Register 09/30/01
 
 

SMITHSONIAN HIT HARD: The world's most-visited musuem complex has been crippled by the September 11 events. "Some days Smithsonian-wide attendance has dropped almost three-quarters from the same day last year. For example, last Sunday only 22,000 people visited the Smithsonian's museums on the Mall, compared with 75,000 on the same Sunday a year ago." Washington Post 09/28/01

THREAT OF SLOWDOWN: Generally, the New York terrorist attacks won't have a big impact on the art and antiques business. "The big problem will be the economic slowdown. Some dealers are already doing less business, and finding it harder to extract payment on antiques sold. Fairs will also suffer. The first victim was this week's new 20th-century art fair organised by the indefatigable London dealers Brian and Anna Haughton in New York." Financial Times 09/28/01

WHAT IS POSSIBLE: "What was possible in Berlin in 1995 after decades of preparation was no longer thinkable today. The euphoria has faded, disillusionment and skepticism have taken over. Also, discourse in art has struck more solemn notes in recent years. The gestures and services known as "social action" are preferred to singular, monumental works." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 09/27/01

IS VAN GOGH ACTUALLY A GAUGUIN? Is a sunflower painting thought to be by Van Gogh really by Gauguin? "After examining letters between the two artists and other correspondence" a respected Italian art magazine says the painting "was copied by Gauguin from a genuine Van Gogh." National Post (Canada) 09/26/01

ART(ISTS) IN THE WTC: Few people knew that there were artists working in the World Trade Center. "For the last few years the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council had rented out floors to artists a few months at a time. There was always the occasional empty space in the towers because they were normally leased for 10 years at a time rather then piecemeal." At least one artist is thought to have died in the tower attack. The Art Newspaper 09/24/01

TO POSTPONE OR NOT TO POSTPONE: The Canadian Museum of Civilization scheduled an exhibition featuring the work of 25 Arab-Canadian artists, then decided to postpone it. One of the artists complained that the museum had "missed an opportunity to promote understanding of Arab culture at a time Arabs need it most." In Parliament, an opposition MP and the Prime Minister both agreed. The next move is up to the museum, which has so far been reluctant to comment. CBC 09/27/01

THE ON-LINE HERMITAGE: With 3 million items spread over 14 square kilometers, Russia's Hermitage Museum is one of the largest - and least-fully-explored - art treasuries in the world. Many of its prized pieces from each period are now on display on-line, along with views of the inside of the museum itself. The Moscow Times 09/26/01

POWER OF IMAGE: Looking at photographs of the World Trade Center destruction "I know that I am not the only person who is uneasy about the magnetic pull of these photographs, about the hold they have on us, about the need we seem to have to keep looking at them. What, I ask after a while, is the point of looking at such pictures, at least the point of looking at them so much? Perhaps some insight can be gained by thinking about the need that the English had to make a visual record of the calamities raining down on them, of the urge they had to record the weird horrific beauty of the Blitz." The New Republic 09/18/01

ENSURING ADDED COST: A new Australian law mandates that Aussie museums start getting commercial insurance for exhibitions. "The outsourced insurance policy supersedes a Commonwealth- managed, self-funded insurance program, Art Indemnity Australia, which for 20 years operated with internationally recognised success at almost no cost." The new commercial alternative will cost $1.5 million a year." Sydney Morning Herald 09/26/01

SCROLLING ON BY: The Dead Sea Scrolls were supposed to be put on display in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics. But concerns over travel and the precious documents' security have forced cancellation. BBC 09/25/01

THE GREAT AUCTION FRAUD: Now it can be revealed that a glittering art auction held 11 years ago, involving work by Picasso, Modigliani, Dubuffet, Derain and Miró and netting £49 million, involved a tangled story of embezzlement, paper companies, and "the exploitation of two elderly art lovers who entrusted their collection's disposal" to the respected Drouot auction house. The Observer (UK) 09/23/01

WHY HER? What is it about the Mona Lisa that has made it such a cultural icon? "The renown and meanings of the Mona Lisa have been the product of a long history of political and geographical accidents, fantasies conjured up, connections made, and images manufactured. There is no single explanation for the origins and development of the global craze surrounding this painting." New Statesman 09/24/01

NIELSEN AWARDS: Three Danish musical artists have received Nielsen awards. The awards, worth DKr500,000 ($62,000) each, were given to composers Tage Nielsen and Per Nørgård, and violinist Nikolaj Znaider, in a ceremony at the Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Gramophone 09/21/01

ZINMAN DEPARTS BALTIMORE IN A HUFF: "In a move that has startled Baltimore Symphony Orchestra m