Just the facts …


Message received today - That e-mail exchange with Norman is amusing, seeing as there was never a point when funding for the cycle was in question. Like many American orchestras, we are paid for recordings by our own organization, and under our contract, we receive a certain amount of guaranteed media pay regardless of whether CDs and broadcasts occur or not, so it's always in our management's best interest to record and broadcast. BIS picks up the cost of production and engineering, and everybody's happy.

Sorry to disappoint Norman, but as usual, he's talking nonsense with no real knowledge of the situation. As far as I know, I'm the only member of the Minnesota Orchestra (above) that he's met, and I suspect that his animosity came from an old grudge against our CEO at the time, who once penned a highly unfavorable review of a Lebrecht book...

Sam Bergman, viola Minnesota Orchestra

Now it would be nice to hear the facts about those BBC choral evensong tapes which Norman reported were “erased”.
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Comments

Daniel Wolf said…
It's amusing and prescient to find, in your link to the Lebrecht column, that Lebrecht was already pimping in November for the ArtsJournal blogs. AJ is, of course, the place where old dead-tree critics go to blog. Lebrecht humself joined AJ in mid-March. Signs of the times.
1:04 pm
Pliable said…
Email received

hi -- have you seen this new article on Lebrecht?:

http://www.nysun.com/article/52835
9:12 am
Konrad von Swalwagner said…
Having read (in translation, some years ago), and enjoyed to a certain extent, Lebrecht's "The Maestro Myth," I wonder if he has always been as incompetent a musical critic and writer as he seems to be nowadays, or if he is suffering from dementia or some other form of degenerative disease.

What the hell is an "organic contralto," after all? Can you buy one at Whole Foods?
2:58 pm
Pliable said…
Konrad, I think you make a good point. I heard Norman on BBC Radio 3 Music Matters last weekend.

I think some help and understanding may be needed.

Meanwhile I will try to move the path on to more positive subjects.
3:34 pm
Cursed Tea said…
On a positive subject:

Great pic of the Minesota bass section - Peter Lloyd and co. There instruments are gorgeous!!

Thanks
7:37 pm
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