It seems the more conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt likes a piece of music, the less he’s inclined to perform it. He’s a sworn enemy of routine. This and his thoughts on Bach, Bruckner and Beethoven. – The Independent (UK)
Tag: 07.10.00
THE LARGEST CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD
The Ottawa Chamber Music Festival presents 98 concerts in two weeks with some of the world’s best chamber music groups and attracts 45,000 people. What’s the secret? – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
THE SINGERS OF SUMMER
“Only if you’ve ignored the growth of opera over the past 15 years would you be so foolish to think that opera isn’t as popular, American and indissolubly linked to summer as baseball. In fact, opera is booming, in no small part because of the experience offered by adventurous summer companies like Glimmerglass.” – Washington Post
ODE TO MALE
Iran holds it first big music festival, but a proposed performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is scrubbed. “We will not perform the Ninth, because it calls for women’s voices and that is banned under Islamic law.” – BBC Music Magazine
DANCE SOLIDARITY
Dancers of the now-disbanded Martha Graham Company will release a letter today asking that “any dance company currently licensed to perform the choreographer’s work refrain from doing so until the Graham dancers themselves have come to a workable agreement with the Martha Graham Trust and director Ron Protas and are able to resume their own performance of Graham’s pieces.” – Chicago Sun-Times
THOSE REVISIONIST YANKS
The movie “Patriot” hasn’t even opened in Britain yet but the English are boiling about the revisionist way the movie interprets them historically. “Hollywood has a habit of taking away the character of notable English people and demonizing them. With their own record of killing 12 million American Indians and supporting slavery for four decades after the British abolished it, Americans wish to project their historical guilt onto someone else.” – Dallas Morning News (AP) 07/10/00
BLOOD SPILLS AT BBC
The BBC will ax 900 jobs over the next three years. The corporation says the move will result in “a flatter, more coherent and more co-operative BBC. Overall we are now confident that these new changes…will give us a great deal more money to spend on our programmes and services over the next five or six years, something like £750 million over the period.” – BBC 07/10/00
RADIO FROM THE SKY
The first satellite radio broadcaster is in orbit. “The satellite is one of three that Sirius will use to broadcast its 100 CD-quality music, news, sports, and talk radio channels for a monthly charge of $9.95.” Will it kill conventional radio as we know it? – Wired 07/10/00
ALL THINGS CULTURAL
Chicago’s WTTW public broadcaster reinvents as a multi-media local portal, putting its emphasis on local cultural programming and throwing out a challenge to other public broadcasters. – Chicago Tribune 07/10/00
FEATHERWEIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
The surprise 1997 hit movie “The Full Monty” is set to open on Broadway this fall as a full-fledged musical comedy, which has some observers wondering whether Broadway really needs one more “musicalized” version of a slight tale. “There’s nothing new in Broadway musicals adapting featherweight entertainment. Back in the ’50s, shows like ‘Damn Yankees’ or ‘The Pajama Game’ were based on light novels. Today, those light novels are more likely to be TV shows or movies.” – Salon