February 3, 2008

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world.  I’m Randy Kinkel.

In Buena Park, California, musical instrument giant Yamaha has opened an Artists’ Instrument Service and Repair Center that employs actual medical and automotive manufacturing technology.  The 5,000 square-foot facility has the look and feel of a small industrial plant; it’s the second one that Yamaha has built, and this one employs state-of-the-art techniques to refine and fine tune instruments.  For example: a component could be shaved by 50 millionths of an inch; a French horn might be plunged into liquid nitrogen, freezing it to 300 degrees below zero to enhance its sound; fiber-optic endoscopes allow detailed looks inside tubular instruments like never before; another machine will be able to exactly copy a prized mouthpiece.  The center will offer free services to top artists; others will have to pay.  Brass instrument expert Bob Malone, who was hired by Yamaha in 2001, says, “our development strategy is to focus on one highly regarded player, then to through the process of developing an instruments that the player is 100 percent happy with.”

There was good news and bad news recently at the St. Louis Symphony’s annual meeting.  The good news: the orchestra’s new Family Concerts and Classical Detours series, a number of physical improvements to Powell Symphony Hall, an increase in the subscriber renewal rate to 82 percent from 77 percent, and the quick, painless negotiation of a two-year contract extension with the musicians’ union.  The bad news: well, the bad news in on the financial side.  The orchestra had a $3,397,000 loss, a little better than the loss in 2006, but still a real problem.  And although ticket revenue was up, the number of tickets sold was down by more than 9,000 on the core classical side, a total of 6.5 percent for the symphony’s basic business.  Music director David Robertson remained optimistic about the future; “nothing that is worthwhile happens quickly” he said.  “It takes a long time to formulate trust.”

Moscow’s historic Bolshoi Theater is slated to reopen next year after extensive renovations pushed the opening night back a year.  The venerable opera and ballet theater was in bad shape when it closed in 2005; its façade was crumbling, columns were cracking, and the foundations had shifted dangerously; more that 1,000 workers have toiled ‘round the clock to make the 1825building stable.  Barring unforeseen circumstance, the Bolshoi will open November 1, 2009 with the ballet Ruslan and Ludmilla.”

For more information on these and other items and events, go to our website, kbaq.org; be listening every week at this time for another update; and join me at noon every weekday for The Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries.  I’m Randy Kinkel for KBAQ’s This Week in Classical Music on 89-five KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.