This Week in Classical Music

April 12, 2009

Sir Charles Mackerras

( Phoenix, AZ )
•MacKerras wins Awards
•Schirmer to put scores online
•Abbado: If you plant them, I will come!

This Week in Classical Music 4/12/09

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

Conductor Sir Charles MacKerras has won two BBC Music Magazine awards. His recording of Mozart’s Symphonies 38-41with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra won both Best orchestral Recording award and Disc of the year. Award Nominees are chosen by music experts, and then voted on by the public on the magazine’s website. The 83-year-old MacKerras responded: I am absolutely delighted... I've spent my whole life trying to get these four symphonies right!" Another veteran Conductor, John Eliot Gardiner, won best Choral recording for Bach Cantatas with the Monteverdi Choir and soloists.

G. Schirmer Inc. /Associated Music Publishers Inc. has announced a new service: SchirmerOnDemand, an online resource that lets registered users to view, and in some cases to print, selected musical scores from the catalogues of over 50 composers. The Focus of the service is mainly on 20th and 21st Century composers on the company’s roster, but Schirmer said its entire catalogue of 5,000 works by 300 composers will be online within the next few years. The Company stressed it is not an online store; if people see a score they want to purchase, they will still have to buy it through traditional channels; but they say they hope the service will help customers in making programming decisions by allowing immediate access to scores of interest.

Conductor Claudio Abbado struck a deal with the venerable Italian Opera House La Scala, which has been trying to lure him back to its stage ever since he stormed off it 23 years ago. Did he ask for a large sum of money? No. Total artistic control? Not specifically. He said, “I’ll come back if you plant 90,000 trees”. The City of Milan immediately set plans in place to create “Intercity Woodlands” and a tree-lined path in between the city’s Cathedral and castle.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update; and join me every weekday at noon for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel for “This Week in Classical Music” on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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