After an extended self-exile in Thailand, the former Sony Classical chief Chris Craker is bouncing back into the record business with a joint venture proposition for young artists.
Craker, still only 52, is one of the most experienced label operators. A clarinettist in the London orchestras, he became a freelance producers and turned out more than 400 CDs before setting up his own label, Black Box, with finance from two Conservative peers. A second label,
Onyx, continues to thrive.
Then he went to Sony with a plan to revitalise the dying enterprise with young artists, signed on the cheap. Lisa Batiashvili, Elizabeth Watts and Jack Liebeck were his quick picks.
With his executive payoff – no-one lasts long at Sony Classical – he set up a ‘luxury residential studio’ in Thailand called
Karma. Jamiroquai and classical guitarist John Williams are among the first to work there.
Now Chris is starting Karma Classics to help young artists get onto record. ‘The old model is dead,’ he tells me, ‘but new talent still needs nurturing and
guiding. I’ve always loved
helping new talent to shine through and with 25 years experience at the front
line of the business, and considerable experience in innovative marketing
strategies incorporating all the new model social networking I feel I can make a
difference and assist the genuine stars of the future… Karma Studios in
Thailand is a creative utopia from where to base this initiative.’
He launches next month and you can reach him through the website.
Make your record here:
By popular demand – which is to say, her own insistence – the chair of Arts Council England will appear tomorrow before the House of Commons Culture Committee to rebut testimony by previous witnesses (myself among them) whom she regards as hostile.
The committee, in due fairness, has agreed to give her organisation a second hearing and Liz Forgan, if I know her, will appear formidably well prepared.
In equal fairness, let me offer the committee four good questions to set her off:
1 Why has the ACE, after being criticised by the Government for excessive bureaucracy, launched the biggest and least necessary bureaucratic exercise in its history, requiring every arts organisation in the country to reapply for its subsidy?
2 By what authority did the ACE unilaterally decide that arts merit should not be the chief criterion for granting public support? Other fulfiments required by the ACE include diversity, education, integration and equality. When and by which act of Parliament was the ACE authorised to act as an instrument of social engineering rather than a promoter of arts excellence?
3 Why was the ACE chief executive Alan Davey – a man who could barely remember his own name when asked by committee – awarded a 16 percent pay rise?
4 Who would Dame Liz like to nominate as successors to herself and Mr Davey?
By popular demand – which is to say, her own insistence – the chair of Arts Council England will appear tomorrow before the House of Commons Culture Committee to rebut testimony by previous witnesses (myself among them) whom she regards as hostile.
The committee, in due fairness, has agreed to give her organisation a second hearing and Liz Forgan, if I know her, will appear formidably well prepared.
In equal fairness, let me offer the committee four good questions to set her off:
1 Why has the ACE, after being criticised by the Government for excessive bureaucracy, launched the biggest and least necessary bureaucratic exercise in its history, requiring every arts organisation in the country to reapply for its subsidy?
2 By what authority did the ACE unilaterally decide that arts merit should not be the chief criterion for granting public support? Other fulfiments required by the ACE include diversity, education, integration and equality. When and by which act of Parliament was the ACE authorised to act as an instrument of social engineering rather than a promoter of arts excellence?
3 Why was the ACE chief executive Alan Davey – a man who could barely remember his own name when asked by committee – awarded a 16 percent pay rise?
4 Who would Dame Liz like to nominate as successors to herself and Mr Davey?
The Royal Shakespeare’s Company’s run of five plays at the Roundhouse is a showcase of ensemble playing, absolutely not to be missed. While Derek Jacobi earns raves as the man with three daughters across town at the Donmar Warehouse, the RSC’s production by David Farr is wilfully low-key – few raised voices, no extravagant gestures. The poignant setting, in the middle of the First World War, reminds us that war is never far away in our lives.
Greg Hicks is dangerously young as Lear, his frustrations all the more furious and empathetic. He is never so much a king as a team player who, deprived by Goneril and Regan of his entourage, becomes a lonely ex-ruler, living out his time on the speaking circuit.
He is Tony Blair, answering for his Iraq conduct before Parliament, Bill Clinton on the meaning of ‘is’, Silvio Berlusconi as the ‘victim’ of vindictive women.
Tunji Kasim’s clean-cut Edmund is the eternal, self-serving courtier – Alistair Campbell to Blair, rewriting history as he goes in his own favour. Geoffrey Freshwater’s Earl of Gloucester, poignant to a fault, is a loyal administrator in a nest of vultures, a man concerned with human decencies and the smooth running of government, even when eyeless and cast out. Kelly Hunter, Kelly Stephens and Sophie Russell are the daughters. This is team play at its best – and most elusive.
Forgo star appeal. This, in the round, is the Lear of the moment.
photo: RSC/Manuel Harlan
The Royal Shakespeare’s Company’s run of five plays at the Roundhouse is a showcase of ensemble playing, absolutely not to be missed. While Derek Jacobi earns raves as the man with three daughters across town at the Donmar Warehouse, the RSC’s production by David Farr is wilfully low-key – few raised voices, no extravagant gestures. The poignant setting, in the middle of the First World War, reminds us that war is never far away in our lives.
Greg Hicks is dangerously young as Lear, his frustrations all the more furious and empathetic. He is never so much a king as a team player who, deprived by Goneril and Regan of his entourage, becomes a lonely ex-ruler, living out his time on the speaking circuit.
He is Tony Blair, answering for his Iraq conduct before Parliament, Bill Clinton on the meaning of ‘is’, Silvio Berlusconi as the ‘victim’ of vindictive women.
Tunji Kasim’s clean-cut Edmund is the eternal, self-serving courtier – Alistair Campbell to Blair, rewriting history as he goes in his own favour. Geoffrey Freshwater’s Earl of Gloucester, poignant to a fault, is a loyal administrator in a nest of vultures, a man concerned with human decencies and the smooth running of government, even when eyeless and cast out. Kelly Hunter, Kelly Stephens and Sophie Russell are the daughters. This is team play at its best – and most elusive.
Forgo star appeal. This, in the round, is the Lear of the moment.
photo: RSC/Manuel Harlan
Washington could not have got its timing worse.
Hours before the great tenor began celebrating what is commonly reckoned to be his 70th birthday, the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser announced that he is
taking over the Washington National Opera that Domingo has headed for the past decade.
Kaiser, who has experience of running the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, would never be so impolite as to shaft a singer for whom he has great respect and affection. But the content of his message – that the opera is $12 million in the red and leaderless in every way – left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Domingo’s absentee management has been a complete disaster.
The Kaiser’s move is not surprising; I
predicted it in an interview months ago. The timing, however, is unfortunate, to say the least. The company must have been coming down in flames for Kennedy to take it over on the eve of PD’s birthday.
Now I don’t want to spoil the party, but the question everyone’s asking is what happens to Los Angeles? If Placido was an admitted disaster in Washington, what’s to be done about the mighty deficit he has built up on the West Coast, with precious little to show for it in artistic substance? Domingo’s record as a great singer is secure. But his ambition to be the boss of opera houses is falling steadily to pieces.
Washington could not have got its timing worse.
Hours before the great tenor began celebrating what is commonly reckoned to be his 70th birthday, the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser announced that he is
taking over the Washington National Opera that Domingo has headed for the past decade.
Kaiser, who has experience of running the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, would never be so impolite as to shaft a singer for whom he has great respect and affection. But the content of his message – that the opera is $12 million in the red and leaderless in every way – left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Domingo’s absentee management has been a complete disaster.
The Kaiser’s move is not surprising; I
predicted it in an interview months ago. The timing, however, is unfortunate, to say the least. The company must have been coming down in flames for Kennedy to take it over on the eve of PD’s birthday.
Now I don’t want to spoil the party, but the question everyone’s asking is what happens to Los Angeles? If Placido was an admitted disaster in Washington, what’s to be done about the mighty deficit he has built up on the West Coast, with precious little to show for it in artistic substance? Domingo’s record as a great singer is secure. But his ambition to be the boss of opera houses is falling steadily to pieces.
The Venezuelan conductor Natalia Luisa-Bassa, who made such a strong impression on John Bridcut’s Elgar film, has hit a sticky patch in Yorkshire. Various correspondents have informed me that she walked out on her orchestra during a rehearsal in Huddersfield three months ago and has yet to return. It’s a question of respect, she says. She has it, the musicians don’t.
It sounds to me like something that got lost in translation. Up in Yorkshire, they don’t walk away from the crease. ‘Don’t give up yer wicket,’ bellows Sir Geoffrey every time an England batsman gets himself out at the cricket with a silly shot or a misjudged run. Good advice for conductors everywhere: don’t walk out til you’ve got a better place to go.
Come on, Natalia, strap on your pads. Get back in there.
The Venezuelan conductor Natalia Luisa-Bassa, who made such a strong impression on John Bridcut’s Elgar film, has hit a sticky patch in Yorkshire. Various correspondents have informed me that she walked out on her orchestra during a rehearsal in Huddersfield three months ago and has yet to return. It’s a question of respect, she says. She has it, the musicians don’t.
It sounds to me like something that got lost in translation. Up in Yorkshire, they don’t walk away from the crease. ‘Don’t give up yer wicket,’ bellows Sir Geoffrey every time an England batsman gets himself out at the cricket with a silly shot or a misjudged run. Good advice for conductors everywhere: don’t walk out til you’ve got a better place to go.
Come on, Natalia, strap on your pads. Get back in there.
In a weekend piece today in the Wall Street Journal, I show how Gustav Mahler created the subscription series, thematic programming and orchestral touring – all fixtures of musical life in the United States to the present day. Ahead of his time? Very much a man of ours, I would say.
There were two final paragraphs that I was planning to append to the piece on how the cities Mahler visited are marking his centennial year. I had to drop the coda for reasons of space. You can read the article
here.
And these are the two extras pars:
Visiting several of the cities that Mahler toured, I found a
mixed legacy of hope and decay. In Syracuse, the orchestra cancelled a concert
of Mahler’s fifth symphony for want of funds, but a music lover, Hamilton
Armstrong, erected a memorial on the site where Mahler conducted and a radio
producer, Marie Lamb, passes by every day to sweep off the snow. In Buffalo, conductor
Jo-Ann Falleta launched the Mahler centennial with a Resurrection concert.
Pittsburgh is doing a Mahler heritage weekend in May.
It would have been fitting had the New York Philharmonic
given a repeat on February 21, 2011 of the last concert of Mahler’s life, but
that opportunity went begging. It is the Israel Philharmonic, under Riccardo
Muti, that took up the program this week (Jan 17, 19) in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, a distant salute. New York, in Mahler’s day as in ours, does not go in much for musical sentiment.
NL
(watch amazon.co.uk for limited-period special offer)
In a weekend piece today in the Wall Street Journal, I show how Gustav Mahler created the subscription series, thematic programming and orchestral touring – all fixtures of musical life in the United States to the present day. Ahead of his time? Very much a man of ours, I would say.
There were two final paragraphs that I was planning to append to the piece on how the cities Mahler visited are marking his centennial year. I had to drop the coda for reasons of space. You can read the article
here.
And these are the two extras pars:
Visiting several of the cities that Mahler toured, I found a
mixed legacy of hope and decay. In Syracuse, the orchestra cancelled a concert
of Mahler’s fifth symphony for want of funds, but a music lover, Hamilton
Armstrong, erected a memorial on the site where Mahler conducted and a radio
producer, Marie Lamb, passes by every day to sweep off the snow. In Buffalo, conductor
Jo-Ann Falleta launched the Mahler centennial with a Resurrection concert.
Pittsburgh is doing a Mahler heritage weekend in May.
It would have been fitting had the New York Philharmonic
given a repeat on February 21, 2011 of the last concert of Mahler’s life, but
that opportunity went begging. It is the Israel Philharmonic, under Riccardo
Muti, that took up the program this week (Jan 17, 19) in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, a distant salute. New York, in Mahler’s day as in ours, does not go in much for musical sentiment.
NL
(watch amazon.co.uk for limited-period special offer)
Die Drei Pintos, Mahler’s completion of a work by Carl Maria von Weber, is coming up for a rare performance at University College Opera in London (details below). Its significance in Mahler’s life lies in him falling in love while working on the score with the wife of Weber’s grandson – a passion that prompted him to start writing the first symphony.
I have heard Pintos on record and in concert performance, never staged. Should be interesting.
Amazon.uk, by the way, have a short-term special offer on
Why Mahler?
