Conducting Business
By WQXR Radio
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Podcast Description
WQXR looks deeper into the issues affecting the classical music landscape.
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1 |
You Paid How Much for That Ticket? | → Subscribe here to the Conducting Business Podcast On June 4, Lincoln Center will open a new 112-seat theater that will feature work by emerging playwrights and directors and will do so at $20 a seat. The Claire Tow Theater, a branch of Lincoln Center | 5/20/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Judging Music by the Rules of Sport: Can Competitions Identify New Talent? | "Competitions are for horses, not musicians," Béla Bartók famously sneered. Many classical musicians would agree. But even the most high-minded of us find something compelling about these talent contests, which now number more than 700 worldwide. The | 4/28/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Freelance Musicians See Jobs Dwindle. Will Audiences Notice? | Freelance musicians once provided the backbone of New York's classical music scene. Work was abundant for the top players and the lifestyle never routine. But faced with changing tastes and new technology, many of the regional orchestras, Broadway pits a | 4/14/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Attraction or Annoyance? Orchestras Invite Audiences to Use Their Smartphones | The San Francisco Symphony is to become the latest orchestra to set aside "tweet seats" in its concert hall. Patrons seated in the balcony for its summer concerts will be invited to turn on their phones and dish out 140-character missives about the perfo | 3/28/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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A Composer is Accused of 'Theft.' But Did Originality Ever Really Exist? | Osvaldo Golijov, one of today’s most successful composers, is facing accusations of plagiarism. Sidereus, a nine-minute piece commissioned by a group of 35 orchestras, contains a significant chunk of music from a 2009 work by Michael Ward-Bergeman, a c | 3/6/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
An Uncertain Song for New York's Cabaret Scene | They're considered New York's prime spots to hear the American Songbook in an up-close-and-personal setting. But in recent years the city's hotel lounges and bars have come under threat. The Oak Room, a vital part of New York City's jazz and cabaret scen | 2/22/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
Why Old, Expensive Violins Are Not Always Best | Concert audiences may never know if a violinist is playing on a rare instrument from 18th-century Italy or a modern one that sells for the cost of a used sedan. But don't tell that to the owner of the "Lady Blunt," a 1721 Stradivarius violin that sold fo | 2/2/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Hitting the Right Note in China: The Arts and Censorship | Given China's demonstrated thirst for Western classical music -- witnessed in its dozens of new concert halls and millions of kids studying the piano -- it's no surprise that major American arts organizations are clamoring to get a toehold there. The New | 1/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Evancho Raises Stark Questions about Child Stars and Their Parents | Child prodigies are nothing new. Mozart began composing at age five, Chopin was performing at seven and Mendelssohn created masterpieces at 16. More recently, Jackie Evancho, an 11 year-old contender in the TV show "America’s Got Talent" topped the US | 1/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Puccini with Popcorn: Arts Organizations Battle for the Big Screen | Growing numbers of arts organizations are seeking to build their audiences through high-definition broadcasts. The latest entrant into the field is New York City Ballet, whose December 13 performance of "The Nutcracker" will be transmitted to more than 5 | 12/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
Voices From On High: Countertenors to Coldplay | Men who sing in the stratosphere always hold a certain fascination over music fans, whether it’s the Bee Gees, Michael Jackson or countertenors. Here in New York, countertenors -- men who sing above the tenor range -- are having a banner season, being | 11/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Wagner's Ring of Anti-Semitism: Can the Artist Be Separated From His Art? | When the Los Angeles Opera staged its first production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in 2009, there were protests outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and local politicians called on the company to cancel the production. Here in New York, the Metropolitan O | 11/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Occupy the Concert Hall? How Arts Donations Ignore Poor, Ethnically Diverse | As Occupy Wall Street protests spread over the perceived inequities between the very wealthy and the "other 99 percent" a new study on American arts funding makes a similar point. Its finds that billions of dollars in arts funding serve a mostly wealthy, | 10/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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For Conductors, Is Tyranny a Thing of the Past? | The notion of the conductor as autocrat, bent on achieving perfection by any means necessary, can seem like a throwback to another era. It was Arturo Toscanini whose famously broke batons, berated musicians and even threw a score at his orchestra during | 10/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
What's a Performing Arts Executive Worth? | As orchestras, opera companies and presenters wrestle with declines in funding and ticket sales, some have cut back on the number of full-time musicians they employ, others have reduced salaries. With those measures come questions of wage parity. How muc | 9/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
Artists' Concert Attire: Can Sexy Be Serious Too? | Read through the fall brochures and web sites of many American symphony orchestras and concert halls and one common theme soon grabs the eye: Youth and sex appeal are the order of the day, especially for female soloists. It’s not necessarily a new phen | 8/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
The Death of Borders and the Future of Classical Retail | The demise of Borders, America's second largest book retailer, and the U.S. launch of the online music service Spotify signaled the latest turning point in the way people buy recorded music. For classical music fans, this double whammy signaled that onli | 7/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
Rating City Opera's Plan For Survival | Calling it a "bold plan to deliver world-class productions within reach of more New Yorkers," the financially-strapped New York City Opera announced its 2011-12 season on Tuesday at the Guggenheim Museum, in which it will move out of its longtime Lincoln | 7/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
The State of Pops Concerts: Where Light Meets Lite | It once meant Tchaikovsky, Sousa and Doc Severinsen. Today it also spans video-game scores, Cuban mambo bands and the Lord of the Rings Symphony. Yes, it’s high season for pops concerts. And at a time when orchestras are facing deficits, bankruptcies, | 6/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
New York City Opera: Where Does It Go From Here? | New York City Opera's decision to move out of Lincoln Center, cut staff across the board and scale back its performance schedule has prompted a range of reactions. The 68-year-old company plans to stage five operas in undetermined venues around New York | 5/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
American Orchestras Face the Music | The Detroit Symphony Orchestra's season-long strike has been the starkest reminder of the challenging times facing many of America's 1,800 orchestras and their musicians. The Louisville Orchestra, the biggest in Kentucky, filed for bankruptcy in December | 3/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
Confronting the System | The classical music arena has a reputation for being a color-blind meritocracy. But the numbers tell a different story. Just about two percent of the nation's orchestra musicians are black, according to the latest data. Those numbers aren’t significant | 3/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
Black Classical Musicians Rewriting the Odds | The numbers tell it all: African-Americans comprise less than three percent of musicians in U.S. orchestras. Those numbers aren't significantly different when it comes to the country’s opera companies or chamber-music ensembles. Lack of supportive role | 2/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
Ten Greatest Composers: Beyond the Usual Suspects | Except for the occasional outlier, lists of the greatest composers usually end up touting the same critical favorites you've been hearing about for years. Not that we don't like Beethoven or Brahms, but it can get a little boring. For this special podcas | 1/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 24 Episodes |
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