Category: music

An updated  “Messiah for the Millennium” is a bust. “…the dreadful Roger Daltrey” butchered everything. “Chaka Khan was all over the place. Gladys Knight was just not equipped to sing this music. All this was peppered with the offensively ambiguous double-speak of narrator Aidan Quinn’s pointless role. Was he scorning or supporting Handel’s Messiah story? Who could tell?” – Irish Times

John Adams is ranked the most popular and most performed living American composer, and one of the top 5 of all time. – Miami Herald

One critic’s nomination for the ten best classical recordings of 1999. – Chicago Tribune

– died Thursday in Annapolis. – Baltimore Sun

Publisher opens portal site that will make sheet music available for downloading on the net. Buy just one song/buy the whole concerto. Is it the end of sheet music stores? – Wired

By most accounts, musicians are handing over their tunes for free to new MP3 sites in record numbers. Is anyone getting rich? In August, MP3.com sold 15,600 CDs on behalf of 26,700 artists listed in its online database. New digital format may be cheaper, but it’s not exactly turning up a whole new generation of stars. – Salon

Chicago-area soprano sings a little courtroom Verdi to delighted judge and escapes speeding ticket. – CBC

Appointment of ex-Mobil treasurer brings some serious for-profit expertise to the non-profit Washington DC opera company at a time of potential expansion. – Washington Post

Six years ago scientists reported that listening to Mozart made people smarter. But last summer a new study failed to reproduce the results from the first, disappointing waves of music fans. A closer look, though, “shows that Mozart’s music does have a profound effect on the brain, though no one knows why. Rats raised on Mozart run through mazes faster and more accurately. People with Alzheimer’s disease function more normally if they listen to Mozart; the music even reduces the severity of epileptic seizures.” – Toronto Globe and Mail

The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia’s tour of the UK wasn’t going well and the budget was busted. Musicians quarreled with the conductor, then took matters into their own hands – they hit the street to play for money. Compassionate Swansea shoppers helped save them. – BBC