The Musicians’ Union is facing a long, cold winter IT has been clear for some while that all is not well at the Musicians’ Union. Four years ago, we reported that the union was being sued by about 200 of its members over a huge royalties fund – as much as £67 million, by some accounts – that it was supposed to be distributing among former players in recording bands. The union refused to divulge how the money was divvied up, and to whom. Many of the musicians concerned were needy; some died before receiving payments they believed were due…

The changing tides in artist management FAMILIARITY can breed many things, none more pernicious than passive acceptance of power. For 70 years, America’s classical music business has been dominated by a huge management agency, Columbia Artists (CAMI), whose head office is menacingly situated opposite Carnegie Hall. For the past 30 years, CAMI’s president, Ronald Wilford, has effectively monopolised the conductor market. The shadowy Wilford, known as the Silver Fox, has more than 100 batons on his books – as well as 800 singers and 300 instrumentalists. He has made millionaires of maestros by slashing the time they spend with orchestras,…

Three American maestros are about to inherit the world’s richest orchestras THE Great American Maestro Chase has reached its climax amid scenes of wild indifference and dismay. Three of the world’s finest orchestras have spent the past two years seeking new music directors who might lead them into the new Millennium. Since these are also the world’s richest three orchestras, they had the field to themselves. Every upwardly mobile conductor from Roberto Abbado to David Zinman awaited an audition call for what should have been a searching test of talent in a haze of high excitement. Instead, the process has…

The standards of one of the world’s most respected works of musical reference are slipping. THE past two decades have not been an era of blazing musical progress. No comet has risen to replace Britten and Shostakovich, let alone fill the void left by Igor Stravinsky in 1971. Among pop ephemeralities, there has been no creative phenomenon to match the Beatles or Bob Dylan. The epoch’s advances amount, on the serious side, to minimalism and, on the commercial, to rap, dance and techno. It is, therefore, hard to see how the editors of the world’s most substantial work of musical…