Would You Buy an Instant-Recording While Walking Out of a Concert?

LiveHereNow is a company that specialized on Instant-Recordings This idea is intriguing. You go to a concert and at the end of the show, while you walk out of the hall, a freshly produced instant-recording of the concert is already up for sale at the merchandise stand at the exit doors. Think of this CD […]

What’s wrong with the Petition against the German Music Collecting Society GEMA

The online petition at the German parliament against the German music collection society, GEMA, is a good thing, but it misses one of the most problematic aspects: that all music collecting societies are forcing customers to buy comprehensive licenses for websites even though they need only a license for one, two, or a few works.

Hockey Night at the Symphony: the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal at the Bell Centre

Kent Nagano and Guy Lafleur For those of you who think that classical music is dead, or that classical music cannot appeal to a mass audience, or even that the funding of classical music organizations is doomed to be perennially on the brink, you clearly did not attend the Montreal Symphony‘s presentation at the Bell […]

A Conversation with Erik Spangler and Brian Sacawa from Mobtown Modern

Matthias Röder speaks with the founders of mobtown modern, saxophonist Brian Sacawa and composer Erik Spangler, about recliners and drinks at New Music concerts, how alternative listening environments and video projections create remixes of well-known repertories, and what’s coming up next in Baltimore’s most innovative New Music series.

The first live internet broadcast of the Berlin Philharmonic

It felt vaguely ironic to be sitting before our computer in Germantown, New York, watching the first live internet broadcast from the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting Dvorák’s G minor Slavonic Dance and Brahms’s First Symphony.

How the Classical Music Industry will (likely) survive

I believe that digital media offers many opportunities for the classical music industry to reach out to new audiences, interact better with those who are interested in their music, and ultimately find new customers.

Here are three aspects that need to be addressed by the classical music industry:

Interview with Alessandro Simonetto, Founder of OnClassical – The e-label for Audiophiles

OnClassical is a new e-label that sells music solely via the web. Unlike itunes, emusic, rhapsody, and amazon, OnClassical offers only high-quality downloads that sound exactly like a traditional CD. Zeitschichten.com spoke to the label’s busy founder, Alessandro Simonetto, about music in the age of the internet, OnClassical’s business philosophy, as well as their upcoming projects (they will soon license music for commercial uses)

The Future of Music Making

Surfing the web today, I came across a very interesting talk by our music colleagues from the MIT Media Lab. In this video talk Tod Machover, Adam Boulanger, and Dan Ellsey give a quick overview on their work on new musical instruments and the impact that their research has on society. What I find most […]

A Flowering Tree in Berlin

For those of you who live in Berlin: rush over to the Berliner Philharmoniker website and buy a ticket for today’s (December 22) performance of John Adams’ newest opera “A flowering tree”. For those of you who cannot make it in time: read on …

Munich Opera House

Last night, Seda and I went to the Munich Opera House where we saw the Bayerisches Staatsballett with a very interesting program featuring Century Rolls (Davide Bombana, John Adams), In the Country of Last Things (Michael Simon, Heiner Goebbels), and Elemental (Jacopo Godani, 48nord). A couple of weeks ago I read an illuminating article in […]

What Rhapsody is lacking

Real Rhapsody is a music subscription service that I have been using for quite a while now. It features millions of pop songs, jazz tunes, and classical works. The catalogue is pretty amazing, rarely do they not have what I am looking for. All it takes to listen to days of music is a broadband […]

Arditti Quartet Plays Webern, Berg, and Harvey

What a great program! Anton Webern Fünf Sätze für Streichquartett op. 5, Alban Berg Lyrische Suite für Streichquartett, and then, after a short intermission, Jonathan Harvey’s String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics. The Arditti Quartet gave yet another memorable concert and again the hall was half empty. This is something I just cannot understand. […]

Trio Wanderer and Gérard Caussé: Mozart and Schedl

Today at twenty past seven my girlfriend got a call from a festival manager in Salzburg: “Can you be here in 10 minutes to turn pages in a chamber music concert?” She could … and she took me along, too. We had no idea what was on the program, nor did we know who actually […]

Ästhetik des Performativen

Imagine a world in which there is no way to record music. Imagine a world in which there is no possibility to broadcast sound. A world without CDs, radio, cell phones that play mp3s, websites that stream music. A world in which music sounds only in live performances. Most people would find this world terribly […]

Music for the Masses

Last night the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Maxim Vengerov, and Hakan Hardenberger gave an open air concert at the Brandenburger Tor. “Nice!”, some of you may think, “what a cool place to have a concert!” Right. Alas, as those of you who follow the world cup will know, the place in front of the Brandenburger […]