To do so, it needs no permissions from publishers, producers, broadcasters or rights collection societies. Since the music is free to the public, it does not even have to pay the musicians. The CLF may well pay fees, but other such free ventures do not.

So here’s the paradox. Why is it possible to perform live music for free, but contentious to offer it as a free download? The whole question of rights ownership is in chaos. 

If we can hear music for free and live in public places and recorded on the radio, why does it become a legal minefield when it is offered as a free download? And why is the BBC banned by its trustees from continuing such worthwhile schemes?

Your thoughts, please, my learned friends.

—————————————————————————————————–

Free
Winter Concert series listings

19
January – 30 March 2011

 

This
series is part of the City of London Corporation’s ongoing celebration of arts
in the City. Enjoy Tuesday and Wednesday free lunchtime concerts with the City
of London Festival, City Music Society and City of London Sinfonia.

 

All concerts 1.05 – 1.55pm and free of charge

For more information please visit www.colf.org

 

19 January, St Mary
Aldermary, Watling Street, EC2, Sam
Carter ‘The finest English-style fingerpicking guitarist of his generation’
Jon Boden

 

25 January, St Botolph’s
Bishopsgate, EC2, David Owen Norris (piano),
Haydn Sonata in E flat H.XVI.28, Beethoven Sonata in C sharp minor Op 27 No 2 Moonlight, Mendelssohn Songs without Words

 

2 February, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Robert Salter (director), Sibelius Suite Champêtre, Haydn Symphony No 59 Fire, Grainger Folk Songs: Molly on the Shore, Irish
Tune from County Derry, Country
Gardens

 

9 February, St Bride’s,
Fleet Street, EC4, Helen Sherman mezzo (soprano), James Baillieu (piano), Clara
Schumann Songs Op 12: Er ist gekommen; Liebst
du um Schonheit; Warum willst du andre fragen?, Duparc L’invitation au Voyage; Chanson Triste; Au paye ou se fait la guerre;
Schreker Zwei Lieder Op 2, Brahms Zigeunerlieder Op 103, Grainger British
folk song settings: Died for Love; The
Sprig of Thyme; The Pretty Maid Milkin’ her Cow; The British Waterside

 

15 February, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, Duo Dorado, Hazel Brooks (baroque violin), David
Pollock (harpsichord), A Celebration of
Bach

 

23 February, St Anne
& St Agnes, Gresham Street, EC2, The City Musick

 

2 March, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Jonathan Morton (director),

Arensky Variations
on a theme by Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky
Serenade for Strings

 

8 March, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, juice (vocal ensemble)

 

16 March, St
Lawrence Jewry, Gresham Street, EC2, Guildhall Alumni Jazz Ensemble

 

22 March, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, Navarra String Quartet, Bartholomew LaFollette (cello),
Schubert Quintet in C D956 Op posth 163

 

30 March, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Dominic Wheeler (conductor), Michelle
Todd (soprano), Mozart Divertimento in D,
Delius Air and Dance, Stephen McNeff The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, Vaughan
Williams Fantasia on Greensleeves       

 

All information correct at time of printing.

 

For further information and images please contact:

 

Emily Caket

Marketing Manager

emily.caket@colf.org

To do so, it needs no permissions from publishers, producers, broadcasters or rights collection societies. Since the music is free to the public, it does not even have to pay the musicians. The CLF may well pay fees, but other such free ventures do not.

So here’s the paradox. Why is it possible to perform live music for free, but contentious to offer it as a free download? The whole question of rights ownership is in chaos. 

If we can hear music for free and live in public places and recorded on the radio, why does it become a legal minefield when it is offered as a free download? And why is the BBC banned by its trustees from continuing such worthwhile schemes?

Your thoughts, please, my learned friends.

—————————————————————————————————–

Free
Winter Concert series listings

19
January – 30 March 2011

 

This
series is part of the City of London Corporation’s ongoing celebration of arts
in the City. Enjoy Tuesday and Wednesday free lunchtime concerts with the City
of London Festival, City Music Society and City of London Sinfonia.

 

All concerts 1.05 – 1.55pm and free of charge

For more information please visit www.colf.org

 

19 January, St Mary
Aldermary, Watling Street, EC2, Sam
Carter ‘The finest English-style fingerpicking guitarist of his generation’
Jon Boden

 

25 January, St Botolph’s
Bishopsgate, EC2, David Owen Norris (piano),
Haydn Sonata in E flat H.XVI.28, Beethoven Sonata in C sharp minor Op 27 No 2 Moonlight, Mendelssohn Songs without Words

 

2 February, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Robert Salter (director), Sibelius Suite Champêtre, Haydn Symphony No 59 Fire, Grainger Folk Songs: Molly on the Shore, Irish
Tune from County Derry, Country
Gardens

 

9 February, St Bride’s,
Fleet Street, EC4, Helen Sherman mezzo (soprano), James Baillieu (piano), Clara
Schumann Songs Op 12: Er ist gekommen; Liebst
du um Schonheit; Warum willst du andre fragen?, Duparc L’invitation au Voyage; Chanson Triste; Au paye ou se fait la guerre;
Schreker Zwei Lieder Op 2, Brahms Zigeunerlieder Op 103, Grainger British
folk song settings: Died for Love; The
Sprig of Thyme; The Pretty Maid Milkin’ her Cow; The British Waterside

 

15 February, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, Duo Dorado, Hazel Brooks (baroque violin), David
Pollock (harpsichord), A Celebration of
Bach

 

23 February, St Anne
& St Agnes, Gresham Street, EC2, The City Musick

 

2 March, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Jonathan Morton (director),

Arensky Variations
on a theme by Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky
Serenade for Strings

 

8 March, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, juice (vocal ensemble)

 

16 March, St
Lawrence Jewry, Gresham Street, EC2, Guildhall Alumni Jazz Ensemble

 

22 March, St
Botolph’s Bishopsgate, EC2, Navarra String Quartet, Bartholomew LaFollette (cello),
Schubert Quintet in C D956 Op posth 163

 

30 March, St Andrew,
Holborn, EC4, City of London Sinfonia, Dominic Wheeler (conductor), Michelle
Todd (soprano), Mozart Divertimento in D,
Delius Air and Dance, Stephen McNeff The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, Vaughan
Williams Fantasia on Greensleeves       

 

All information correct at time of printing.

 

For further information and images please contact:

 

Emily Caket

Marketing Manager

emily.caket@colf.org

Between one and two thousand readers clicked daily onto the pages, at the quietest period of the year, far more attention than small labels would normally get.

It has been impossible to get exact download numbers but the most encouraging response was to the new music that I offered. As of this moment, 143 people have downloaded the Lontano section of the tenth string quartet by David Matthews, making it one of the year’s most popular new pieces of chamber music – along with Milo, by Mark Anthony Turnage.

Also high in the running was some weird stuff for accordion and saxophone. If you click back on the series on Slipped Disc, you may find that some of the downloads are still live and available, even thought the experiment was for a limited time.

The first conclusion, then, is that there is a substantial untapped interest for esoteric music which is not served by major labels.

The second is that this is a venture worth repeating.

Next time, though, I will do it with the participation of a few radio stations who have expressed interest in breaking down barriers.

Between one and two thousand readers clicked daily onto the pages, at the quietest period of the year, far more attention than small labels would normally get.

It has been impossible to get exact download numbers but the most encouraging response was to the new music that I offered. As of this moment, 143 people have downloaded the Lontano section of the tenth string quartet by David Matthews, making it one of the year’s most popular new pieces of chamber music – along with Milo, by Mark Anthony Turnage.

Also high in the running was some weird stuff for accordion and saxophone. If you click back on the series on Slipped Disc, you may find that some of the downloads are still live and available, even thought the experiment was for a limited time.

The first conclusion, then, is that there is a substantial untapped interest for esoteric music which is not served by major labels.

The second is that this is a venture worth repeating.

Next time, though, I will do it with the participation of a few radio stations who have expressed interest in breaking down barriers.

Among the major singers he has introduced is Danielle de Niese, now chatelaine at Glyndebourne. 

Over the weekend I had an email from Ed Smith saying he was going back to Mersey roots, and before I could digest that momentous news it has been outed in a press release (below).

Ed was the young manager of the Merseyside Youth Orchestra who groomed a kid percussionist called Simon Rattle. A few years later, as manager of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra he gave Rattle, 25, his first grown-up job … and the rest is music history.

After Birmingham, Ed managed the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Gothenburg Symphony, where he hired a kid conductor called Gustavo Dudamel.

And now he’s back, part-time, as artistic advisor to his alma mater, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which is riding high with Vasily Petrenko as conductor.

It’s good for Ed, great for Liverpool, and very heart-warming for those who like to believe that what comes round, comes round.

The vacancy he moves into was left by Andrew Cornall, who has joined EMI as A&R chief.

                                photo: www.hopestreet.co.uk

For many musicians, the turmoil was profound and unpleasant. I know of several cases where defecting artists are being sued for back commissions and of one where a performer, displaced in her agent’s favours by a new star, is being pursued by lawyers with a dubious claim. If it ever comes to the crunch, this space will name names.

It is, therefore, a relief to announce two new ventures that are breaking with past decay and creating new models for the classical music industry.

Peters Edition – publishers of Bach, Beethoven and many fine composers down to Brian Ferneyhough – have set up an agency division to represent vocal groups. Such a good idea. Choirs have been made hot by several French films and by British animateur Gareth Malone. 

Everyone wants to hear a good choir, so Peters have recruited former Kings Singer Robin Tyson to represent them. His starting list consists of Grammy-nominated Tenebrae, Cantabile, Gallicantus and a slice of the controversial organist, Cameron Carpenter. Robin can be reached at Robin Tyson robin.tyson@editionpeters.com.

More modestly, the former singer Barbara Maria Rathbone has set up a ‘collaborative’ management service, Musica Universalis, for artist who are fed up with being pushed around by big agencies. This way, she says, a soloist regains control of his or her career and is no longer pushed into mind-numbing runs of the Mendelssohn violin concerto or Dvorak’s cello concerto.

Among the participating artists are the former BBC Young Musician of the Year Guy Johnston, violinist Priya Mitchell and the oboist-turned conductor, Nicholas Daniel. It’s a venture that deserves to succeed. I shall report back in a few months.

For many musicians, the turmoil was profound and unpleasant. I know of several cases where defecting artists are being sued for back commissions and of one where a performer, displaced in her agent’s favours by a new star, is being pursued by lawyers with a dubious claim. If it ever comes to the crunch, this space will name names.

It is, therefore, a relief to announce two new ventures that are breaking with past decay and creating new models for the classical music industry.

Peters Edition – publishers of Bach, Beethoven and many fine composers down to Brian Ferneyhough – have set up an agency division to represent vocal groups. Such a good idea. Choirs have been made hot by several French films and by British animateur Gareth Malone. 

Everyone wants to hear a good choir, so Peters have recruited former Kings Singer Robin Tyson to represent them. His starting list consists of Grammy-nominated Tenebrae, Cantabile, Gallicantus and a slice of the controversial organist, Cameron Carpenter. Robin can be reached at Robin Tyson robin.tyson@editionpeters.com.

More modestly, the former singer Barbara Maria Rathbone has set up a ‘collaborative’ management service, Musica Universalis, for artist who are fed up with being pushed around by big agencies. This way, she says, a soloist regains control of his or her career and is no longer pushed into mind-numbing runs of the Mendelssohn violin concerto or Dvorak’s cello concerto.

Among the participating artists are the former BBC Young Musician of the Year Guy Johnston, violinist Priya Mitchell and the oboist-turned conductor, Nicholas Daniel. It’s a venture that deserves to succeed. I shall report back in a few months.

I wonder if those ever-so nice folk at Sony will be creaming off 12 percent of her stage fees, as they try to do with all new signings. What’s ‘pound of flesh’ in Georgian?

I wonder if those ever-so nice folk at Sony will be creaming off 12 percent of her stage fees, as they try to do with all new signings. What’s ‘pound of flesh’ in Georgian?

Good career move? Not on paper. Iceland is flat broke and its orchestra is not famous. Why, then? Maybe Ilan knows something we don’t.

Good career move? Not on paper. Iceland is flat broke and its orchestra is not famous. Why, then? Maybe Ilan knows something we don’t.