This from a press release:

New York, NY–Thursday, July 31, 2014–During Met Opera negotiations on Wednesday, July 30, Met Opera management offered the option of bringing in a federal mediator to work toward an agreement. This, after months of stalling tactics on their part had pushed negotiations to just days before the current contract deadline. Last week, before negotiations even began, Gelb sent a letter to employees telling them to prepare to be locked out and receive no pay or benefits after their contract expires on August 1.

Said Associated Musicians of Greater New York Local 802 president Tino Gagliardi, “Management proposed federal mediation to Local 802. We are considering it, and we believe it would have a much greater chance of success if Peter Gelb would back off his lockout threats and extend the current contract.”

The musicians had hoped to pursue good-faith negotiations with opera management. Unfortunately, Gelb has pursued a calculated strategy to lock out his artists and craftspeople and put the upcoming Met Opera season in jeopardy. For months Gelb has purposely refused to provide essential financial information that would have allowed substantive, good faith negotiations to proceed, instead making erroneous claims in the press in the run-up to a long-planned lockout.

While labor costs have remained flat during Gelb’s tenure, the MET Opera budget has increased by nearly 50% ($105 Million), in large part due to overspending on unpopular new productions, poor scheduling, ineffective marketing and management waste. The MET Orchestra, which has won three consecutive Grammys and is considered the best opera orchestra in the world, is absolutely in favor of new and artistically daring productions. They believe that with well-chosen productions and expert management, the Met can live within its budget and present innovative grand opera while also offering competitive compensation to attract and retain the best musicians in the world.

- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2014/07/met-latest-musicians-say-drop-the-lockout-threat-and-well-go-to-mediation/#sthash.zXPPy5RK.dpuf

The venerable Metropolitan Opera has fallen on some difficult times in recent years.

I remember when Peter Gelb came to the Met, and everyone thought he was the organization's savior.  Now?  Not so much.

Interesting article in the Guardian can be found here.

If there’s anyone who has an understanding of how we educate classical musicians in this country, it’s Robert Freeman.  In addition to spending many years as a teacher, Dr. Freeman’s experience spans thirty-four years as the head of three of America’s leading music schools, including twenty-four years as director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. 

Dr. Freeman has just written the book that I wish I’d read before going to music school—and that I wish my teachers and professors had read as well.  In The Crisis of Classical Music in America: Lessons from a Life in the Education of Musicians, Freeman ably points out the problems with classical music education today, which include the training of far more musicians than could possibly be needed to fill available positions in the marketplace, while failing to train music students in the ability to communicate, to think critically, and to think entrepreneurially—all skills that are very much necessary for success in the 21st century.

As someone who attended a university school of music, I either experienced or witnessed all the pitfalls that Dr. Freeman describes, and then some: professors who expect nothing but practice from their students, focusing solely on their narrow area; faculty more concerned with their reputation than the education of their students; teachers who groom some students to be competition winners, while giving short shrift to the rest of their load.  As a result, I saw many students give up music after graduating—some with advanced degrees—with no tangible result from years of dedicated practice and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.  A few, like myself, found work in related fields.  But a large number are employed in totally unrelated fields, most having to return to school to become trained in some other area in order to survive.  Had the school I attended operated the way recommended in this book, the outcome might well have been much different for these individuals.

Part memoir and part nuts-and–bolts manual for everyone involved in music education--from students and parents to Presidents and Provosts of institutions of higher learning—Freeman’s book is a mandate to rethink what we’re doing and what we expect from a music school education.  While he at times writes stylistically as someone from the ivory tower, this volume is full of down-to-earth ideas for broadening the scope of  higher education in music today.  The day of the musician who knows nothing other than his instrument is over.  Today’s musician must be prepared for today’s world, understanding that the likelihood of making a living as a performer is extremely small.  The contemporary musician who makes a living from performing will likely also serve as their own agent, publicist, and business manager.  The individual who intends to make a living by performing will have to think creatively, and will have a willingness to get involved in areas of music they might never have planned. 

Freeman makes a strong case that music students ought to have double majors: music and pre-med, music and business, etc.  Recognizing that most graduates will never make their living as performing musicians, he encourages students to keep their options open.  There may not be a position in an orchestra, for example, but there might be an opportunity to work in administration.  The Boston Symphony has more people working administratively that it does playing in the orchestra—and this is not an uncommon state of affairs.  Many music school graduates go on to careers in arts administration, teaching, or may even go on to professional school to become doctors or lawyers. Freeman encourages students to think about all the possibilities rather than limiting themselves.

If you’re planning on going to music school or if you’re the parent of a child who is thinking of majoring in music, I’d highly suggest reading this book.  And if you’re on the faculty or in administration at a music school, I strongly recommend that you read this book.  Changes in the way we do things need to be made, and Dr. Freeman’s recommendations would be a great place to start.

Are music competitions rigged?  Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to think so.

BBC News reports that Webber stated in an interview on Radio 4 that winning competitions has nothing to do with ability, and that to win you must know someone on the jury.  He goes on to suggest that many who enter competitions are gullible, obviously not knowing that the fix is in.

"I entered one once when I was 21" he said. "It was the so-called Munich International Cello Competition and I was knocked out in the first round with the only other cellist who went on to do anything internationally."

The BBC report indicates that Webber didn't single out any particular competition, but in a separate interview as reported in The Telegraph, he pulled no punches.  The Telegraph reports that Lloyd Webber said corruption was rife in Britain and abroad, singling out the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, held every four years and open to musicians between the ages of 16 and 30, as the most prestigious example of unscrupulous judging.

I might mention here that the General Director of the Tchaikovsky competition is Richard Rodzinski, former director of the Cliburn competition in Fort Worth.  I met Rodzinski a few years ago when attempting to work on a project with him and the Cliburn organization.  And in all fairness to the Tchaikovsky, the Telegraph reports that since the last time the competitions was held in 2011 reforms have been introduced, including in the jury – now made up of well-known international performers and artists to ensure the competition is skewed less in favor of native (Russian) musicians. In the piano category, only one non-Russian has won since 1990.

As Ivan Hewitt points out in a separate commentary in the Telegraph, many young musicians are avoiding competitions altogether, finding other more creative ways to launch their careers.  In my humble view, theirs is the better idea.  Making your own way and finding your own audience to me seems

Crime certainly doesn't pay when you steal a musical instrument such as a Stradivarius violin worth millions of dollars.  Such an incident happened when Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony was attacked in January with a stun gun, and had the Stradivarius he plays stolen. 

The culprits were quickly apprehended and the violin recovered.  Two men were involved, and the first has been sentenced.

You can read the whole story here.

All of us in the arts are concerned about reaching the next generation in the hope that they will become lovers of the arts as well.  But how do we reach them?  I was having a conversation recently with the outreach director of an opera company and the discussion turned to the different ways directors sometimes recast works into more modern settings for the purpose of attracting or appealing to a new/younger audience.  The person with whom I was speaking had either been involved in or had seen both operas and plays treated in such a manner, and was frankly a little distressed by it all.

I have to say that the individual raised some legitimate points worth considering.

Why is it that we think that if we do Madame Butterfly or Hamlet in a twenty-first century setting that it suddenly becomes more relevant to a new audience?  The music, the pathos, the whatever-it-is that has made this work stand the test of time remains the same.  Why would an audience of any age care whether the setting is traditional, or whether it's performed as though the surroundings on the stage are current?  Does your potential audience even know this before they make the decision to attend, and what difference does it really make to them?  Do we honestly think this is what it takes to get people into our opera houses and theaters?

If I've never been to an opera before and make the decision to attend, it's likely that I have some basic expectation of what's to come.  If I dress up for a night at the opera (or even if I go in casual clothes), I'm likely going for the spectacle of it all, and might just walk away disappointed if it doesn't meet those expectations.  I'm either going to like it or not, and whether it appears to be the year 2014 or 1714 isn't going to be the deciding factor.

Before we start tampering with the classics, might we not be well advised to actually seek out the point of view of the audience we're trying to reach?  Perhaps our preconceived notions of what will appeal to them are incorrect, rooted in our own perspective but not connected with theirs.  Opera, theater, and classical music all have intrinsic value.  Why can't we reach new consumers by selling them on that which is timeless?

Radio Ink is reporting that K-Mozart will be airing a tribute to the late Gary Hollis.  The program will focus on his love for classical music as well as his appearances as a character actor.

The show will air twice on Sunday, at noon and at 5 p.m., and again on Monday at 9 a.m.

OK, so you've got to have certain gifts to be a Beethoven, but Business Insider thinks they can offer some tips as to how to be more creative by following Beethoven's model.

Click here to go to the full story.

Conductor Lorin Maazel has passed away at the age of 84.

Rather than try to reinvent the wheel with anything I could compose about him, I'll simply post this link to the New York Times article on him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/arts/music/lorin-maazel-brilliant-intense-and-enigmatic-conductor-dies-at-84.html

Musical America is reporting that at least some American orchestra musicians are doing quite well--and evidently all are faring well in comparison to their English counterparts.

According to their report, Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, is making over $500,000 annually.  And average salaries for orchestral musicians in cities like St. Louis and Detroit are over $80,000.

By contrast, according to the story, musicians in the salaried English orchestras average around $50,000, but a large number are paid an hourly rate of roughly in American dollars