NYC Opera Names General Manager
After its public rift with Gerard Mortier, the New York City Opera recently appointed conductor and impresario George Steel as its new manager and artistic director. Steel says he can work with the budget that Mortier found wanting, reports the New York Times.
Steel takes over what was once a vital company that reflected the energy of its dynamic city. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia founded NYCO in 1943. It was the people’s opera, offering less expensive productions featuring young American singers whose artistry intrigued thousands of opera lovers.
This season the company has been practically dormant, but with a new director and some creative innovation, NYCO may eventually return to its former glory.
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/arts/music/15oper.html_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22new%20york%20city%20opera%22%20%22general%20manager%22&st=cse
pressroom.nycopera.com/pr/nycopera/news/george-steel-press-release.aspx
www.variety.com/article/VR1117998548.html?categoryid=15
The Arts Support Six Million U.S. Jobs, Says Non-Profit Group
Non-profit arts groups and the audiences they draw generate 166 billion dollars in economic activity every year in the United States, according to a 2007 study. Americans for the Arts, a non-profit national group headed by Bob Lynch, also says that the arts support some six million U.S. jobs.
Typically, arts organizations receive 50 percent of their funding from ticket sales, 40 percent from donations and 10 percent from government grants, according to the group. All of these sources have been hit hard by the current economic situation. Lynch says he has never seen anything like what is happening now. Close to 10 percent of arts organizations have either shut down or are about to do so, the group says. The casualties include Baltimore Opera, Opera Pacific, and Connecticut Opera.
Most opera companies seem to be cutting back next season even though they are operating normally at the moment, Lynch added.
jobbank.artsusa.org/
washington.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/related_content.html?topic= Americans%20for%20the%20Arts
www.artsusa.org/news/press/2008/2008_01_28.asp
Newborns Have Rhythm, Says Study
A 2009 Dutch study found that 2- to 3-day-old babies can detect a missing downbeat in a rhythmic sequence, reported ABC News. Scientists do not know if the ability is innate or if the fetus learns it listening to the mother’s heartbeat, but that early ability to perceive rhythm may be at the core of basic musicality. It may also relate to young children’s ability to learn language, but the relationship to music is more easily seen, said the report.
The study played more than 300 rhythmic sequences for 14 sleeping babies monitored by scalp electrodes. Ten of the sequences lacked a downbeat and the babies’ reacted to each of them. Scientists at the University of Toronto at Mississauga are in the process of replicating the study.
www.abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=6740379&page=1
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1059815/Babies-sense-rhythm-used-help- develop.html
www.independent.co.uk/news/science/babbling-babies-have-natural-rhythm-668297.html
Austin Texas Redresses a Wrong
Mezzo-soprano Barbara Smith Conrad attended the University of Texas at a time when African-American students were not allowed to eat in the cafeteria and generally braved a great deal of intimidation, reports the Austin Chronicle. In 1956 the music department awarded Conrad the role of Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She rehearsed the part for some time before the school decided it could not allow her to go on stage and took it away from her. Conrad continued her education in Austin and graduated in 1959. Since then she has sung in major opera houses all over the world, including the Vienna State Opera.
This winter the school invited Conrad back to Austin to sing a solo recital, give masterclasses, and speak at the University’s Carver Museum. This won’t right the wrongs of years past completely, but today’s music students will at least have an opportunity to show her their admiration.
txtell.lib.utexas.edu/stories/c0006-short.html
www.harlemoperatheater.org/members/1254708/uploaded/findinghervoice.doc
www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A732835
Unpublished Mendelssohn Music Comes to Light
When Felix Mendelssohn died in 1847, he was a popular composer. Unfortunately, three years later German composer and anti-Semite Richard Wagner wrote an essay titled Judaism in Music that belittled the late composer’s genius and denigrated his accomplishments. Some of the Mendelssohn works that had not been published during his lifetime were set aside. Many of these works have never been played in public and one third of them have never been published.
On the recent 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City presented a well-received concert at which bass Kevin Deas and mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims sang a few of these more than 200 unperformed works. Needless to say, many more new Mendelssohn pieces still await their first hearing.
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/arts/music/30mend.html
www.mjhnyc.org/safrahall/visit_safra_21.htm
www.huliq.com/13/76675/museum-jewish-heritage-presents-works-felix-mendelssohn
More than 90 Percent of Music Downloads Are Not Legal, Claims Study
A new study by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) purports that almost 95 percent of all music downloaded onto personal computers is illegal, according to the British newspaper the Guardian. Despite the growth of commercial digital music websites such as iTunes, most people do not pay for downloaded music. The 2008 study conducted research in 16 countries and found that computer users shared 40 billion tracks but paid for less than 3 billion.
hothardware.com/News/95-of-Music-Downloads-are-Illegal-IFPI/
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/technology-gadgets/95-of-music-downloads-are-illegal-14145599.html
drownedinsound.com/news/4136081
