Mark Likes Music

It's hard to imagine losing 40% of your income in one fell swoop, but that's what might happen to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra musicians, who are negotiating a contract with management . Drew McManus gives an overview here , and argues that the big problem is a lack of administrative leadership . (It's not that they're leadership is weak or ineffective: they have no CEO and no VP of Development.) The current contract expires September 3. The San Antonio Symphony has been working under an extension of its 2007-11 contract, and its expiring today. The musicians asked its board for talks back on August 14 ; in April, when the musicians last requested talks, management said they weren't ready. Things aren't so great for either Minneapolis-area orchestras, either. No news in Atlanta , though. Update (Saturday, September 1) John Clare of Texas Public Radio in San Antonio let me know that you can find the letter here , as well as an interview with the...

The recently approved "millage"  that would provide $23 million a year over the next 10 years to the Detroit Institue of Arts was met with praise by Terry Teachout , who sees the small property tax as a creative and responsible way for an arts organization to raise funds: To begin with, the DIA showed it was serious about money by slashing every thimbleful of fat out of its budget. It simultaneously showed itself to be responsive to the wishes of its patrons by undertaking an imaginative resinstallation of the museum's permanent collection that was both user-friendly and artistically responsible. Then, when the DIA asked for public funding, it sweetened the pill with an equally imaginative free-admission plan that targeted not just Detroiters but local suburbanites.  Not so fast, says  Mark Stryker of the Detroit Press. He points out that the resulting givebacks to the community--free admission for Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland county residents, and extended museum hour...

The administration-imposed deadline to settle a deal with the the musicians union in Atlanta has passed, but according to statements on both sides, they're still negotiating. Read about it here .

Debussy's 150th birthday was Wednesday ; now's as good a time as any to get to know more about him. Last week, WQXR broadcast a series of programs dedicated to Debussy's music for the piano, and you can hear them all on its website. Also on WQXR.org is an interview with Pierre-Laurent Aimard.  On his Telegraph blog, Stephen Hough discusses just how different Debussy and Ravel are. Oxford University Press posted a biographical essay on its blog . Gramophone magazine has i ts own page devoted to Debussy , complete with a top-ten recordings list. In October, Eastman School of Music hosts a month-long Debussy festival , and the Rochester Philharmonic performs the composer's Petite suite and Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra with Matthias Bamert and pianist Stefan Arnold.

Boy, you think you know a person. Her New York Times obituary notes that throughout the 1970s, Phyllis Diller performed as Dame Illya Dillya with over 100 orchestras.  Janelle Gelfand, on the Cincinnati Enquirer website, recounted a 1972 appearance with the Pops and Erich Kunzel that included not just performances of Bach and Beethoven, but also Diller singing "The Ladies Who Lunch." In 1969, she played harpsichord with Liberace:  Here she is playing saxophone on the Muppet Show: If you can't read, here's NPR's report on her death .

Phyllis Diller , Gong Show co-host ( among other things ), died this week. So did  Jerry Nelson , the voice of Count von Count who also had a role in Robocop 2. (Buzzfeed tribute with videos and GIFs here .) Colony Music , housed in Times Square's famous Brill building, will close in September, the same month that  The Office   starts its final season. And hippie-dippy weirdo label New Albion is going out of business too .

According to Adaptistration and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,  the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has set midnight this Saturday as the deadline for when its musicians must reach agreement with them on a new contract. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players Association released a statement claiming that the ASO's negotiator, Don Fox, wrote: "unless an agreement is reached by midnight, August 25th, we have no authority to continue income for Musicians, either pay or benefits, beyond that date." The musicians, as reported in the Journal-Constitution , are willing to take an 11% cut in pay (base salary is $88,400) if staff also takes a hit. Orchestra president Stanley Romanstein claims that the administration has already seen its remuneration decrease by 1.7% since 2006, while the musicians have said that staff salaries have increased by 50% over the same period. (I'm not sure what accounts for the hugely divergent numbers.) The ASO is facing an accumulated debt of...

Is it really the worst ever ?   More national anthem disasters here .

Pointing out the lack of attention paid to Debussy's 150th birthday (which is today),  Anthony Tommasini thinks we take him for granted: We like to think we know and admire Debussy. Ah, Debussy the great Impressionist! For painting there is Monet. For music, Debussy. "La Mer," how gorgeous. There are the inventive piano pieces, with their watery textures and evocative titles like "Estampes" and "Images." And of coures the diaphanous orchestral beauties of "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun."  Pierre-Laurant Aimard, who has a recording of Debussy's Preludes coming out in October, thinks we don't really know him at all--and probably never will : We don't always know what it (Debussy's music) is about .... because things are mixed, they are also not completely said. Things remain hidden. Case in point for Aimard is Jeux : Debussy wrote Jeux on commission from the Ballets Russes; audiences didn't take to Nijinsky...