Still, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t freak out. Want to guarantee jobs for a whole bunch of musicians, conductors and composers? Start building your audience from scratch. Program in novel ways. Play in new places. Give your recordings away for free. Make your case for why people should listen.
Otherwise, wolf-criers like Vanhoenacker may someday be right. And who the hell wants that?
Fox 6 Now Milwaukee is reporting that Milwaukee Symphony concertmaster Frank Almond was tased Monday by two hoodlums, who then made off with his Lipinski Stradivarius. Ouch.
It’s amazing more instruments aren’t stolen. Most musicians aren’t built like the Ultimate Warrior, and the upside of a successful theft could be tens of thousands, minus the obvious residual bad karma.
Maybe it’s time we start looking at cheaper schemes for getting our classical kicks — like instruments made from uh, bike parts?
The old school video game composers knew how to write a tune.
It just so happens that when you take video game music out of the console, flesh out the harmonies and spread the parts across an entire orchestra, amazing things start happening.
Technology limitations fall away. Bass lines get deeper, textures richer, melodies more soaring and beautiful. Here are a few of the most irresistible.
‘Final Fantasy VII’
Hironobu Sakagachi’s “Final Fantasy VII” put the music front-and-center, offering Nobuo Uematsu’s in-game soundtrack in a simultaneous, four-CD release. It’s MIDI-tastic, but in the hands of an able symphony classical atheists can have a conversion experience.
‘The Legend of Zelda’
Koji Kondo was the mastermind behind the original theme for “The Legend of Zelda.” The game first appeared in 1986 and went on to sell 6.5 million copies. Safe to say people got pretty damn familiar with the Zelda theme, but they never heard it like this.
Kondo didn’t just pen the big themes for Legenda of Zelda. He also influenced game design by having players play a recorder (warning: very nerdy, detailed tab right there) to access secret levels.
‘Chrono Trigger’
Yasunori Mitsuda presided over this one, although Mitsuda was so driven to finish the orchestration of “Chrono Trigger” that he made himself gravely ill.
Mitsuda’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed. The game’s music has been remixed hundreds of times — it’s as irresistible as a James Brown drum break is for rap producers.
First one’s for free
Composers aren’t the only ones vibing to 8-bit ballads. Berklee College of Music enjoys sell-out shows for its Video Game Orchestra. (That’s their “Chrono Trigger” remix above.) Audiences are twisting up J’s while staid orchestras give over their programming to video game music.
Play it for your friends, bump it in your car and on the subway. Video games will rope unsuspecting listeners into loving classical music. Heaven help our children.
—Primetime TV doesn’t care about classical music except when Metallica’s involved. (Shouts Kirk Hammett’s Lou Reed “Destroyer” tshirt.)
—Newly ascendant Minnesota Orchestra got tons of love, and deservedly so. You can dial up their Sibelius records on Spotify, for free ninety-nine. They’re back and better than ever.
—Dawn Upshaw and Maria Schneider walked away with hardware for Winter Morning Walks. The album was crowd-funded, and it’s good to know people are willing to drop coin for classical projects.
—You’re forgiven if you watched the Royal Rumble last night instead of the three-and-a-half-hour Grammys.
—Best non-classical performance last night obviously Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons. Debate over.
Super Bowl XLVIII pits Peyton Manning’s thumb-shaped head against Richard Sherman’s postgame interview excellence. At halftime, the millions (and millions) watching at home will be treated to a performance by Bruno Mars, with the corpses of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as special guests/props.
Before any of that happens, though, the star-spangled flame-spitter, Renée Fleming, will sing the National Anthem.
The stakes are high. Fleming is the first opera singer to ever sing at the Super Bowl, and The Star-Spangled Banner ain’t a breeze to sing.
But have faith — consummate professionals, like Fleming, always come through:
“My first wife is American, and my second wife is Italian—but her father is from Sri Lanka, which makes it more of a mixed salad.” His wife, Evelyn, who comes from Italy’s Alto Adige region, speaks German to their two young sons, who will easily pick up Italian, he says, because they know French. “And that’s not the end of my cosmopolitan story,” Mr. Maisky adds. “I play an Italian cello with French and German bows. I use Austrian strings. I drive a Japanese car. I have an Israeli passport. I wear a Swiss watch and an Indian necklace, and my four children were born in four different countries.”
Classical Dark Arts 