Playing with Webshop

Update!
http://www.dgwebshop.com/

I spent some more time with DG Webshop last night, from downloading albums to searching the site. It's easy, logical and great quality. Downloads were speedy, whether it was a single track, album covers (I captured an Anne-Sophie Mutter cover electronically that I already have on cd), or the java-based useful and easy download manager for whole albums.
Especially nice is a comprehensive tour schedule, and extensive artist information and links. All in all, DG Webshop is well thought out. It is exciting to have such a classical music resource. Get thee to http://www.dgwebshop.com/ - I'll quote a friend who sent me a news item about it yesterday who knew I would be interested, "I always knew DG was a cool company."

Just in time for the holidaze

Great news for music fans!
http://www.dgwebshop.com/


Deutsche Grammophon will launch its DG Web Shop tomorrow, November 28th, enabling consumers in 40 countries to download music at the highest technical and artistic standards. This global penetration includes markets where the major e-business retailers, such as iTunes, are not yet available: Southeast Asia including China, India, Latin America, South Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe including Russia.

Michael Lang, President of Deutsche Grammophon, stated: “Our company was founded over 110 years ago, and since then, it has stood for innovation and quality. During the development of our new web shop, we remained true to these principles as we continue to expand the digital music marketplace with our range of download services.”
Almost 2,500 DG albums will be available for download in maximum MP3 quality at a transfer bit-rate of 320 kilobits per second (kbps) – an audio-level that experts agree is indistinguishable from CD quality audio; and which exceeds the usual industry download-standard of 128-192 kbps (as well as EMI’s 256 kbps on iTunes).


I'm stunned at some of the available tracks out of print, including one of my favorite Orpheus Chamber Orchestra recordings of Mozart.


The press stuff is way fun too:

Les Six, Drugs and Baroque & Realized Figured Bass

There's a new viewpoint up on New Music Box about Classical Music "Doping."
Don't forget, though, this past humor...classical druggies!

I thought I'd share these other "real" connections to the new article...
Weight lifters, who are classical pianists:
Tzimon Barto and Leon Bates!







And who could ever forget violinists Michael Rabin or Eugene Fodor?

Is that a bow? or are you happy to see me?

Great news for musicians who travel frequently:

Exemption Approved for Travel with Bows
June 15, 2007, Washington, D.C. – Orchestras and individual musicians touring internationally may continue to travel with their bows, after winning an exemption during negotiations at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The international community met over the past two weeks to determine whether to include the Brazilian pernambuco tree on the endangered species list. Most fine bows used by string musicians are made from pernambuco wood. Negotiators settled on adding the tree to the endangered species list, but applying the listing only to “logs, sawn wood, veneer sheets…,” specifying that finished bows that are transported internationally would not be subject to cumbersome CITES permit and certification requirements.

At the newsstand

Be sure to pick up a copy of June 2007 Classical Guitar Magazine and learn more about my friend Ernesto Tamayo!

You can also see myself and colleagues in the June 2007 Central PA Magazine, and read about the 89.5 Classix countdown.

Congrats

Congratulations to Andrew Constantine, who is the new conductor of the Reading Symphony Orchestra!

Constantine succeeds Maestro Sidney Rothstein, who retired last year after 30 years of inspired leadership of the orchestra. During his tenure, Rothstein conducted more than 200 performances, helped establish RSO’s reputation as a first-class regional orchestra, and introduced the audience to a broad spectrum of repertoire.
The appointment of Andrew Constantine concludes an intensive three-year process, as the Search Committee, chaired by Penny Proserpi, evaluated more than 275 applicants from several dozen states and eight or more foreign countries. Eight finalists performed as guest conductors during the 2006-2007 RSO season.
“Maestro Constantine emerged as the best of an outstanding group of candidates,” Proserpi said. “The Committee created a profile at the beginning of the search in May of 2004. It identified all of the attributes, both musical and off the podium, that we felt would raise the quality of the Symphony to an even higher level of excellence. Those talents include artistic, administrative, and community leadership skills. Throughout this season, the Committee sought the input of its musicians, audiences and leaders in both the arts and business community to help evaluate each conductor. Constantine best met all of these criteria.”
Asked to comment on his appointment, Andrew Constantine replied, “I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity of working and establishing a relationship with the Reading Symphony Orchestra. It was exciting to find, at our first rehearsal, that here was an orchestra of real skill and terrific musicality, which possessed both the willingness and the capacity to help me shape my ideas. When added to a support and management team that is also both enterprising and forward thinking it proved a pretty irresistible combination for me.
Together we will meet the exciting challenges that are ahead of us and continue the great and lengthy tradition of the Reading Symphony to perform music which is both entertaining, engaging and thought provoking.”
The Reading Symphony Orchestra, the 12th oldest symphony in the United States, has been giving concerts in Reading since 1913 and consists of 81 professional musicians

Just in

It's official!

Read the article here: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/50221.html

Make your voice heard now and vote in another radio poll...Vote for your favorites now at WITF's 89.5 Classix! (Might I suggest to write in Jennifer Higdon, Augusta Read Thomas, Walter Mays, Joan Tower, Steven Stucky or Paul Moravec?)

Five Things about Chris Thile

I caught the second of "In Your Ear Redux" concerts at Zankel Hall with The Tensions Mountain Boys Saturday night, and I was happy I did!
1. Chris Thile (mandolin, voice and composer) is clearly a masterful musician. His new group The Tensions Mountain Boys (Chris Eldridge, guitar/vocals; Greg Garrison, Bass; Noam Pikelny, Banjo; Gabe Witcher, violin (nee fiddle)/vocals; and Thile) is a perfect match. They all connect with astounding playing abilities and a certain nonchalance on stage. Thile was downright comedic in his delivery: "You're all so kind to come here tonight, but why are you in your underwear? We dressed up!" and as the lighting changed for the evening's featured work, "Yeah, Blue! - uhm, of course, it's Bluegrass!"
2. The concert started with a few short selections before The Blind Leaving the Blind. It allowed the group to warm up, check things and was a delightful introduction. Thile has a "voice sweetly bland" and performs with a certain integrity and distinction.
3. The main work (really why I was at the concert in the first place) was The Blind Leaving the Blind. Terry Teachout* in his notes describes it as a "40 minute suite" and perhaps as a "cantata." Thile announced that there would be three definite stops, with tuning in between and that it might be considered in six sections.
It is a beautiful journey, with sometimes angular melodies (such as the second movement) and for me, the emotional pinnacle was the lengthy third movement. The finale is aptly virtuosic, but not as engaging as the middle movements.
I don't think this will translate well for others, the way Bach does or even the way Glass or Reich does in the hands of say Alarm Will Sound, but it is great music. I just believe this ensemble fits like a glove to the music and would not fit others - but I'm happy to be wrong on this point.
Suffice it to say, The Blind Leaving the Blind isn't a typical bluegrass jam or a stuffy cantata, rather a blend of genres and talents that only a virtuoso like Thile & company could pull off.
(*Small aside, I think Teachout was sitting just a row ahead of me at the concert - and John Adams was on the right side boxes - I even spied Dawn Upshaw as I was upstairs before the concert)
4. The concert had a certain flow and good feeling. The group jammed to a point of ebullience, and certainly communicated both musically and verbally this joy in performing. The audience was certainly into the groove as well, I don't know that I've felt such a vibe in a long time.
5. Thile announced that The Tensions Mountain Boys was the new group and they would continue on after tonight. They also came back and did encores for the ecstatic crowd, including a very fun blues tune which started completely a capella for all five. Even after this, the audience wanted more, but the house lights finally faded up with the realization that the magical night had come to a close.
[photos used by permission by Jennifer Taylor]

Boss Hogwood?

Hmmm - an odd one:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/16921011.htm

The car had a confederate flag, okay - but the actors were just doing that, acting...wierd world we live in.