Tag: 04.09.03

Clear Channel Cuts Tied With Paid Promoters

Clear Channel Communications, the biggest radio company in the US, “said it would cut ties with music promoters who are paid by record labels to trumpet songs to radio stations, saying the long-standing practice gives the appearance of ‘pay for play’.” The company has been widely criticized for the practice. “We have zero tolerance for “pay for play,’ but want to avoid even the suggestion that such a practice takes place within our company.”

Is Orchestra Touring Disappearing?

Recently, musicians from a Dutch orchestra arrived in London to play a concert only to discover it had been cancelled for lack of ticket sales. This kind of thing is happening more frequently, writes Norman Lebrecht. “An awareness is dawning across the musical world that the age of orchestral touring is over, leaving gaping holes in the concert calendar and another economic nightmare. The Philharmonia Orchestra has just totted up a two-thirds drop in touring revenues over the past year. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields which has, for four decades, spent more time abroad than within sight of Nelson’s Column, has ( players tell me) great white gaps in its diary.”

The UK’s Favorite Book? Let’s Try To Vote Legit

The BBC is conducting a public search for the UK’s most-loved book. But the broadcaster wants to avoid attempted manipulation of the voting, as happened last year with the public vote that named Winston Churchill the country’s Favorite Briton. “The Churchill bandwagon beat off a well-orchestrated campaign for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, headed by students at Brunel University, who voted en-masse on the internet for the man who gave their institution its name. Bookmakers were so convinced the students’ campaign would work that they stopped taking bets, and the episode led to allegations that the BBC had fixed the poll by deliberately placing the Churchill documentary last in the series so he would be freshest in the viewers’ memory.”

Hemingway Letters Head For Boston

“A collection of intimate letters written by Ernest Hemingway to actress Marlene Dietrich has been donated to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. The collection includes 30 letters, telegrams and a Christmas card that were written between 1949 and 1959, as well as early drafts of several Hemingway poems and stories. Under the terms of the gift, donated by Dietrich’s daughter, Maria Riva, the correspondence can’t be opened to the public until 2007. Deborah Leff, director of the library, said Monday she had seen the letters and they were ‘breathtaking.'”

Will Dance For Money

Auditioning for a job at one of America’s major ballet companies is a grueling experience combining the harshest aspects of a Hollywood screen test, an Olympic floor routine, and the judges’ table at American Idol. Dancers at these auditions must perform extremely difficult maneuvers en masse, and are dismissed casually and without explanation if they don’t meet one of the dozens of physical, artistic, and athletic criteria of the people judging them. Thousands of dancers graduate from top schools every year – only a few will land full-time jobs. When you come right down to it, dance is one of the most competitive job markets in the arts world.

Jump On The Military Exploitation Bandwagon!

How long will it take television to start churning out military-inspired fiction based on the current American actions in the Persian Gulf? Actually, such shows could be hitting your screen any day now. HBO has already ordered one such show into production, and NBC is known to be retooling an existing show to tie into the Iraq war, and is considering starting a new one as well.

Deborah Card Named To Head Chicago Symphony

Seattle Symphony executive director Deborah Card has been named president of the Chicago Symphony, replacing Henry Fogel. Card had a good 11-year run in Seattle. When she arrived from Los Angeles in 1992, at age 36, the “symphony had a $2.5 million accumulated deficit and was struggling to make its payroll every two weeks. Six years later, the symphony was debt-free, its endowment fund significantly increased and Benaroya Concert hall built.”

This All Looks Familiar, Somehow

John van Rhein says that Deborah Card’s appointment as the new head of the CSO “suggests certain parallels with the 1985 hiring of [her predecessor, Henry Fogel,] who will step down after 18 years as CSO executive director to become president of the American Symphony Orchestra League, the New York-based service organization. In both cases, the CSO board, responding to internal financial challenges, turned to an executive from a second-tier orchestra with proven money-management and leadership skills who could turn things around quickly.”

Canadian TV Faces Program Cuts

In Canada, the government subsidizes the production of many of the nation’s most popular television programs. Producers must apply to the government for the funding, and any program which is not granted funding is much less likely ever to make it to the small screen. Now, a new round of budget cuts may mean that several popular existing TV shows may wind up unfunded in the next year, seriously jeopardizing future production. Thought to be on the hypothetical chopping block are such programs as the biting satire This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and rural send-up The Red Green Show, which has also found a large audience in the U.S.