“The Problem”

…is not so much with music downloading, it’s with the math. Let’s look at this piece from yesterday’s Star, shall we? THE PROBLEM Sales of CDs are down 20 per cent worldwide and 35 per cent in Canada, compared to 2006. An estimated 1.6 billion music files are downloaded in Canada each year on “grey-market”continue reading

String Quartets

An interesting piece on string quartets  and the psychological dynamics thereof, in the Times of London. It marks the disbanding of the Alban Berg Quartet after nearly 40 years. (Kind of reminds me of Vickram Seth’s An Equal Music, a book I remember being inexplicably fond of when I read it some years ago.)

Better without Zucker

One of the first things we did in setting up our calendar for Ottawa to get season’s tickets for the National Arts Centre Orchestra. I used to go with my Mom ages and ages ago when I was in high school, and my parents now share two tickets with another couple down the street (usuallycontinue reading

The Lives of Others

Although I suspect it won’t be here for much longer, contrary to what I told TB yesterday it looks like The Lives of Others is going to be in the theatres at least for the weekend. We finally got around to seeing this movie after J. saw the Globe review maybe two months ago. It’scontinue reading

Luisa Miller

While I’m at it, by comparison Luisa Miller isn’t half bad. The production suffers from indifferent (and occasionally bizarre) sets and costumes, but whatever, all these things cost big money and we don’t seem to have that kind of money around here. (By far the best sets this year were Lady MacBeth, and those werecontinue reading

Travestiata

We went to the COC Traviata this evening with a sense of foreboding, since Kenneth Winters wrote a thoroughly negative review in the Globe a few days ago. Unfortunately I have to agree with him. There’s really nothing whatsoever wrong with the music–the singers are all quite good, the orchestra plays very well etc.–but thecontinue reading

The Signal

I tried. But after 15 minutes I started yelling at my cat so I turned off the radio. Laurie Brown sounds like a high-school girl with half a brain, and the music sounds like something a high-school girl who thinks she is cool would play on her iPod. We don’t need state funding for suchcontinue reading