Beethoven and Mendelssohn’s Scribbles for the Ages Enhance Juilliard Trove

"The Juilliard School has finished the construction of a secure archival storage space for its collection of valuable music manuscripts, and you have to hope that the designers left a little extra room in the shoulders and hips. For at a concert-lecture event celebrating its completion — and with it, the completion of the school’s three-year, $200 million renovation and expansion — at Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday evening, Juilliard is to announce the acquisition of two additional manuscripts, and there appear to be more to come."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Composers in Cyberspace

"It's a bit different nowadays. A 'composer-in-residence' for an orchestra will have to sign a proper contract, obliging him/her to produce a big piece or two per year, while juggling lots of other commitments to supplement the far-from-munificent fee. It also involves chatting to the audience, who will probably have a lingering fascination for 'genius' and want to see what a real live composer actually looks like."

For the full story, please see the Telegraph.

Where Bernstein Left Off: Teaching The Classical Audience

"Latest in the never-ending series of orchestras' educational endeavors: the Boston Symphony Orchestra has launched an on-line "Classical Companion" to Beethoven's nine symphonies, with videos, lectures and a "Beethoven Music Lab" that allows you to create your own development section to three of the symphonies. It's all very nice: Jan Swafford's brief video introductions to the individual symphonies are pleasant but too short to be of real use, particularly without telling musical examples."

For the full story, please see the Washington Post.

Making Search More Musical

"Every day we get millions of search queries about music. You want to know more about your favorite artists, find that new album or iconic song or figure out the name of that tune stuck in your head. In fact, according to Insights for Search, two of the top 10 queries in the U.S. are music-related. But often, if your answer is in a song, it can take a while to get there. We call this "time to result" — and we're always looking for ways to reduce it."

For the full article please see Google's Blog.

Composers consider unionization

"The Society of Composers & Lyricists was scheduled to announce at its annual membership meeting Tuesday night that an "informational meeting" about the possibility of affiliating with Teamsters Local 399 will be held Nov. 16 at the Pickwick Gardens Conference Center in Burbank, Calif."

For the full article, please see Variety.

The Cellphone Symphony

"A musician and his team have trained 1,000 cellphones to deliver 2,000 text messages in about 40 seconds that sound like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture – complete with bass drums and crashing cymbals at the end."

For the full story, please see thestar.com.

Torture songs spur a protest most vocal

"Was the theme to "Sesame Street" really played to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo and other detention camps? What about Don McLean's "American Pie"? Or the Meow Mix jingle? Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."?"

For the full story, please see the Wall Street Journal.