The Russian composer Nikita Suhih, a musician at the Bolshoi Theatre, put in for a competition organised by the Australian label, Ablaze. The winner’s prize was to get his work recorded.

Nikita came top of a field of 27 international composers, he was told.

Then he was informed he would have to pay $19,000 ‘towards the cost of the recording’.

He is ever so slightly conflicted….

Well, what would you do?

The latest stats from Klaus Heymann, founder of the budget classical label:

‘CD sales are not holding,’ Heymann said. ‘In 2015, we had seven new releases that sold more than 10,000. In 2016, not a single release sold more than 5000. There’s still a stable market that buys 2000–4000 of everything. I am confident there will be CDs for another 5 or maybe 10 years. But the times of substantial sales are gone.

‘I also think that downloading will shrink or shrivel. Our iTunes figures went down 30% from the year before. Streaming is making good money for people with vast catalogs who can build playlists, but it’s not doing anything for album sales. People aren’t listening to albums as much as single tracks.’

Read the full stereophile.com interview here.

See also: Naxos stops streaming.

 

The extraordinary Svend Asmussen died today.

A stalwart of the swing era, the Danish violinist played with Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli.

Known as the Fiddling Viking, he gave concerts up to the age of 94.

Our pals at ZealNYC have dug up a slice of stage history:

 

Donald Trump, 23, thought he would like to be a Broadway producer. He met with David Black, a successful producer … and they joined together—Black providing the experience and know-how and Trump putting up a sizeable chunk of the money—for a new comedy, Paris Is Out, slated for the 1969-70 season.

The play starred Molly Picon, who in 1962 received a Tony nomination for her appearance in the Jerry Herman musical, Milk and Honey and was a popular performer who began her career in the Yiddish theatre, and Sam Levene, a Broadway veteran, the original Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls…

Read what happened to them all here.

 

If you need space for a Harlem grand, this could be yours for $2.25 million.

One careful owner: Inon Barnatan.

He paid $1.182 million for the space in 2007.

More facts and pics here.

 

Happy 85th birthday to the most successful film composer of all time.

I have not always been an unqualified admirer. Fifteen years ago, I attacked him for eclecticism.

But beside many of today’s film composers he sounds like a classic.

Read my original assessment here.

When they get it wrong up north, they go right off the radar.

First the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to a songwriter, Bob Dylan.

Today, the Polar Music Prize was given to the British rock musician Sting and the American jazz musician Wayne Shorter.

The rules of the million-crown ($120,000) prize, founded by Abba’s Stig Anderson in 1989, is that one half goes to a contemporary musician the other to a classical personality. Last year’s winners were Max Martin and Cecilia Bartoli.

This year, Sting wins the classical slot. ‘As a composer, Sting has combined classic pop with virtuoso musicianship and an openness to all genres and sounds from around the world,’ said the prize committee.

Off the radar.


Sting, with a classical acquaintance

When we announced the birth of a child yesterday to Joana Carneiro, music director of the Berkeley Symphony, we erred on the side of understatement.

The orchestra has tweeted that Joana gave birth to triplets.

We understand that they are two girls and a boy. Their names are:

José Joaquim; Maria de Conceição; and Maria do Rosário.

Our best wishes to them all.