IMC MUSIC WORLD NEWS     The weekly music news bulletin of the International Music Council Produced by the International Music Council with the collaboration of the Music Council of Australia   Music World News is emailed to subscribers every week free of charge. It reaches more than 70 countries on all five continents. TO REGISTER, click here. To get access to the news stories, you must complete a very simple registration process. TO UNREGISTER, please click on the "reply" button with the words "unsubscribe" written on the top of the BODY TEXT. TO SUBMIT A NEWS STORY, click here. TO VIEW LAST WEEKS MUSIC WORLD NEWS, click here. SELECT YOUR PREFERRED LANGUAGE by clicking on the appropriate flag. All text available in that language will appear in that language. All text not available in that language will show in English or the language in which received. TO READ FULL DETAILS OF ANY STORY BELOW. To the side of each title, flags show the language in which the story is available. Click on your flag of choice. You will be taken to the story or to a hyperlink that takes you to the story. This bulletin can be read at any time by visiting http://www.mca.org.au/mwn_bulletin.php. CONTENTS. Music World News is divided into these sections. Scroll through or, if you wish, click on one of the sections to be taken straight to those stories. Music the artform and artists Music the industry Policy, research and politics Music education Technologies and media The rest

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

The Creole Choir of Cuba: the a cappella aid agency

The Creole Choir of Cuba are such a potent force of positivity, their government dispatched them to Haiti to help out after the earthquake.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Carthage fete lights up the North

The Carthage International Festival in Tunis, which attracts big acts from across the world and goes on for one month, is one event that has launched several international careers. Every artiste's dream is to find some space there.

Source: Africa Review

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Osibisa: The group that took African music global

Some people do have the knack to predict the course of their lives. When Mac Tontoh sang the song: “We are going.......Heaven knows where we are going, we know we will.....” little did he know that he would one day go on the journey of no return and only Heaven could tell where he was going... he died on August 16.

Source: Africa Review

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Brand new European-Arab youth music centre to be launched

Jeunnesses Musicales International has signed a tri-lateral agreement with the Cultural Movement EPILOGI of Limassol and the Arab Academy of Music (League of Arab States) for the establishment of a Euro-Arab Youth Music Centre in Limassol, Cyprus.

Source: Jeunnesses Musicales International

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

The true face of African defiance

Even in death, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who, alongside Bob Marley and James Brown, electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music, is still making waves. This August marks the 12th anniversary of the death of a musician, activist, rebel, and political maverick.

Source: Africa Review

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Preserving the musical heritage of the Muslim world

Musicologists funded by Abu Dhabi are roaming Islamic countries in search of lullabies and children’s songs, one of the first projects of a centre that aims to preserve the musical heritage of the Muslim world. The Al Ain Centre for Music in the World of Islam seeks to document, digitise and sustain the musical traditions of Muslim countries and Islamic communities anywhere in the world. It also plans to help preserve the music of non-Islamic minorities in Muslim countries. The institution will “research and document the musical practices, traditions, and heritages of the world of Islam,” said Sami al-Masri, the vice-director of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, which launched the centre. It also aims “to acquire items related to musical heritage, such as studies, documents, publications, and ancient musical instruments” in a bid to “save and sustain” this heritage, he added. By digitising the endangered musical treasures the centre will protect the musical heritage for generations to come, Masri said.

Source: Egyptian Gazette

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Season ends on a high note in Cairo

In the closing ceremony of the 51st season of Cairo Symphony Orchestra, recently held in the Main Hall of the Cairo Opera House, conductor Marcello Mottadelli and his troupe, with the help of the Opera's superstars, treated the audience to something magnificent, made more magnificent by the fact that many of the works they played rarely get presented.

Source: www.egyptiangazette.net/news-11630-Season%20ends%20on%20a%20high%20note.html

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic music director to launch the 169th season of the New York Philharmonic

Alan Gilbert will begin his second season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic when he conducts the Orchestra's Opening Night Gala, presented by Breguet. The concert, which ushers in the Philharmonic's 169th season, will feature the U.S. Premiere of Wynton Marsalis's Symphony No. 3, Swing Symphony, a New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with the Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and The Barbican, performed jointly by the New York Philharmonic and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Also on the program: R. Strauss's Don Juan and Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Are conductors really necessary?

Having someone on the podium in front of 100 musicians does matter. Just ask Leonard Slatkin, Colin Davis, Lionel Bringuier and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Source: The L.A. Times

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Museum acquires storied trove of performances by Jazz Greats

For decades jazz cognoscenti have talked reverently of “the Savory Collection.” Recorded from radio broadcasts in the late 1930s by an audio engineer named William Savory, it was known to include extended live performances by some of the most honored names in jazz — but only a handful of people had ever heard even the smallest fraction of that music, adding to its mystique.

Source: The New York Times

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Jimi Hendrix experience at Handel museum

Not only is it a smart address – Brook Street, Mayfair – but for Jimi Hendrix it was extremely convenient for the cat-about-town fashion shops of Carnaby Street, the sleazy bars of Soho and, just as importantly, John Lewis. The reassuring revelation that Hendrix shopped at John Lewis was made at the launch today of an exhibition at London's Handel House Museum marking the 40th anniversary of Hendrix's death. Composer George Frideric Handel lived and died in 25 Brook Street while, 200 years later, Hendrix lived and died next door in number 23, now used as administrative offices for the museum.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Is dancehall music dying?

The recent reports about artistes and the state of the dancehall music is not good. Recently it was reported that four deejays and one selector had their visas, both visiting and working, to the United States of America cancelled. This follows after reports also surfaced that a deejay popularly known to be flossing was held after allegedly illegally trying to enter the United States in a boat.

Source: The Gleaner

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

International Soca Awards come to Trinidad

Trinidad and Tobago’s National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) welcomes the International Soca Awards (iSA). Reflect on calypso classics like Margie, Drunk and Disorderly, Tempo, Soca Baptist, Soucouyant, Hot Hot Hot, Bahia Girl and Fire in D Backseat. Only in the Caribbean could gems like these be created by natives. These are just a few titles to some of the Road March hits, Calypso Monarch songs and party favourites of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

Sacred music festival - can music transform society?

This is my first visit to Morocco and the city of Fes. It's an easy place to fall in love with. I'd never seen a purple flowering tree before and so the Jacarandas were the first things to catch my eye. Thousands of swifts fly about the old city walls of the Medina at dusk adding to the dream like quality of the city. At night the streets are packed with families, couples and friends hanging out together. It's not surprising some of the international visitors I've spoken to have been coming back for years. I'm at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, set up after the first Gulf war to create cultural bridges between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Source: Moroccon Newsline

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the artform and artists

The battle for Bayreuth

Wotan, father of the gods, has just kissed his daughter, Brünnhilde, to sleep and left her to burn alive. Katharina Wagner raises her eyebrows as she smacks her lips around an ice-cream, and looks on in satisfaction at the sea of 20,000 people who have gathered on Bayreuth's carnival ground to watch a live transmission of The Valkyrie on a huge screen. "I think we've pulled it off," she says.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the industry

DEAG and Sony Music Germany set up joint venture in the German Schlager/MOR Music segment

DEAG Deutsche Entertainment AG and Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH have set up a joint venture for German Schlager/MOR music. It bears the name of "GOLD Entertainment GmbH" and is to stage live events in this genre and acquire shareholdings in event organizers. The target markets are Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The two partners each hold 50 percent of the shares in the joint venture. The agreement has still to be approved by the cartel authorities.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the industry

New skool rules: the biggest international Hip Hop and R&B conference returns in 2011 in Holland

The international urban music industry will yet again be making major breakthroughs in 2011. New Skool Rules, the biggest international Hip Hop and R&B conference in the world will be back next year. The global scene will yet again be represented and once more make way for music professionals seeking to "network and exchange" in an absolutely unique setting and format.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the industry

Pop is still king of the world's music genres

New research published by Music & Copyright reveals that Pop ended last year as the world’s favorite music genre, just ahead of Rock. In contrast, Rap/Hip Hop has seen global sales fall faster than any other genre during the last 10 years, slipping from third place in 2000 to seventh in 2009.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 25-08-2010 Music the industry

HMV pulls plug on flagship outlet in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo

HMV Japan K.K. has closed its flagship music store in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, an establishment that once attracted huge numbers of music fans in the course of its 21-year run. While the firm said it shut the doors on the outlet Sunday night under its management policy, it is believed HMV Shibuya fell on hard times because consumers have turned to downloading music from the Internet. HMV Japan now has 47 outlets.

Source: Japan Times

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music the industry

South African Music Rights Organisation denies allegations

The Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) is concerned about recent media statements attributed to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

Source: Music Industry Online

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

Artists don't do it for the money

The Australia Council for the Arts has released a torrent of statistics and analyses put together by two university research teams, all of which add up to one stark fact: you would be mad to become an artist for the money.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/artists-dont-do-it-for-the-money/story-e6frg8n6-1225906073257

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

World Orchestra for Peace to promote UNESCO’s message through music

The United Nations cultural agency has selected the World Orchestra for Peace, an ensemble of musicians from more than 40 countries, to help promote its message and programmes and raise public awareness of its work on key issues. The orchestra “symbolizes so well the multicultural and ethnically diverse world that we live in today,” Director-General Irina Bokova stated in a letter announcing the designation of the group as an Artist for Peace for the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Source: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35515&Cr=UNESCO&Cr1=#

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

Police deplore Chipata piracy levels

The Zambia Police Service has bemoaned the high number of pirated musical products that have flooded markets in Chipata from the neigbouring Malawi. Deputy commissioner in charge of information and communication technologies, Solomon Jere who was recently in Chipata expressed shock at the high levels of counterfeit products being sold openly at the markets.

Source: The Times of Zambia

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

$10m grants for new works in Australia

Artists will benefit from a $10 million boost for new works and fellowships, and the role of the Australia Council will be expanded.

Source: The Australian

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

Coalition sees culture on the main stage in Australia

One of the most important functions of a national government is the facilitation of a nation's cultural identity. How we see ourselves as a people, how others perceive us as a nation: these are jewels cradled in the hands of our national creative framework. The strength of that framework and the sense of national ownership are, largely, dictated by the policy of government as an embodiment of the people's will.

Source: The Australian

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

Music royalty talks consider cell phone mandate

A long-running dispute between radio broadcasters and the recording industry over music royalties has taken an unexpected turn with a proposed settlement that threatens to drag the mobile phone industry into the ring. The compromise under discussion by radio broadcasters, recording labels and recording artists could include a federal mandate that all new cell phones come with a built-in FM radio chip. While a deal is far from final, the prospect that the government could dictate a key design decision for such a ubiquitous consumer device has alarmed electronics manufacturers and wireless providers.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

1-In-5 U.S. teenagers has slight hearing loss

A stunning one in five teens has lost a little bit of hearing, and the problem has increased substantially in recent years, a new national study has found.

Source: The Huffington Post

Posted: 23-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

Muzzled musicians, meet your match

'I hope one day I come to see you because, every day here, it's worse and worse." The young man's guarded, disconsolate voice comes distantly from Iran on a bad Skype line. He's a well-known figure in that country's burgeoning but relentlessly suppressed underground rock music scene. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently declared music to be "incompatible" with the values of the Islamic Republic—a declaration that effectively carries the force of a decree throughout the country. For the young Iranian caller, alias "Natch," the implications are clear, particularly for his kind of Western-style rock with lyrics in English. He has already been jailed for his musical enthusiasms and is looking to get out of Iran.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Posted: 24-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

World's a stage for culture

A Chinese company bought the White House? No, it's not in Washington DC, but in Branson, Missouri. Last December the Beijing-based China Heaven Creation International Performing Arts Company purchased the White House Theater in Branson, a small town in the US Midwest and a popular destination for American vacationers.

Source: China Daily

Posted: 24-08-2010 Policy, Research and Politics

NAMM Foundation supports music research through sponsorship of 11th international conference on music perception and cognition

The NAMM Foundation announced that it will sponsor the 11th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC)at the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington.

Source: NAMM

Posted: 23-08-2010 Music education

Schools music festival winners in Kenya to perform before Kibaki

Twenty four winners of the just-ended Kenya Schools and Colleges National Music Festival in Kakamega will entertain President Kibaki and his guests during a State concert.

Source: Daily Nation

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

Fans suspect X Factor of enhancing singers' pitch with Auto-Tune

For six years, The X Factor has been Saturday night TV's ratings powerhouse, courting controversy and criticism with each new series. Accusations of miming, unfair editing and shabby treatment meted out to hopefuls have all been lobbed at the programme. So it is no surprise that after it launched its seventh series, ITV's karaoke-style contest finds itself embroiled in another row as hundreds of viewers took to social networking sites to accuse the programme's makers of "autotuning" the voices of contestants the judges favour to make them sound better than those set to be dropped.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

Changing tune as wood disappears

Raw materials used to make traditional music instruments are now scarce, even unavailable in some cases. To keep the traditional sounds somewhat alive, some traditional instrument makers are switching to alternate materials. “Use of alternative materials is gradually changing the tune of African music. The traditional tone and sound has significantly been lost,” John Katana observes. He is a Kenyan musician.

Source: Africa Review

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

Streming leads to increased music consumption

A survey conducted by Norstat on behalf of Aspiro Music shows that the use of streaming services make people listen to more music. The survey also concludes that the range of music listened to increases, while users discover more artists and bands than they did before.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

HMV to launch brand new HMVdigital music downloads store

HMV's brand new digital music service, hmvdigital, officially launches. The download service, which has recently been in beta testing, was built and is powered by HMV's digital partner 7digital – a leading digital media delivery company operating both consumer and B2B services for digital music, video and ebooks.

Source: mi2n

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

For pianist, software is replacing sonatas

The pianist Robert Taub was puttering around the house one afternoon in 2004 while his teen-age daughter was practicing for a violin lesson — a Schubert sonatina in A minor. His assessment of her playing was diplomatic: “She needed to be reminded about notes and rhythms.” What followed was a brainstorm that explains why Mr. Taub — who made his reputation playing two distinctly different B’s, Beethoven and Milton Babbitt — has put his performing on hold, and why “software entrepreneur” now tops his résumé.

Source: The New York Times

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

More Brahms, please and pass the popcorn... the Philadelphia Orchestra could end up in pictures.

In a deal with SpectiCast and Bryn Mawr Film Institute, nine of the orchestra's 2010-11 concerts will be offered live to North American movie houses with high-quality projection and audio systems.

Source: Arts Watch

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

The symphony you can take with you

At first glance, it looks like a CD with unusual cover art—maybe the guts yanked out of some hi-fi equipment left behind at a stoop sale. Pick up a copy of "1-Bit Symphony" when it goes on sale, and inspect more closely. It's not a CD at all. It's a simple electronic circuit glued inside a clear plastic jewel-box case, terminating in a headphone jack on the right spine.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Posted: 23-08-2010 Technologies and media

Sheet music piracy

Digital technology has made it possible for users to share perfect copies of audio and video files over the Internet, skirting copyright laws. And, as Tony Award-winning songwriter Jason Robert Brown discovered recently, even sheet music isn't immune. When he published correspondence about the issue between a teenage fan and himself on his blog, he unleashed what he has called a "firestorm" of responses.

Source: NPR

Posted: 23-08-2010 The rest

Governor's island in New York evolves into arts playground

Technically part of Manhattan and 800 yards from its shores, Governor's Island is peculiar by any measure. It has about 100 buildings, but no residents. It has a high school, but no homes. It has roads, but no passenger cars.

Source: Americans for the Arts

Posted: 23-08-2010 The rest

Britons clueless about classical music, survey reveals

A third of participants have never listened to the genre and 4% wrongly identified a type of Italian cheese ball as a composer.

Source: The Guardian

Posted: 25-08-2010 The rest

Rock and Roll Jihad

Salman Ahmad is among first rock stars to use music to build bridges between India and Pakistan, between West and Muslim world. A bearer of hope, Pakistani American rock star Salman Ahmad’s recent memoir, Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution, is suffused with the warmth of spirituality and the author’s deep-rooted faith in God. “We can only wake up each day and go out and plough the fields, armed with our God-consciousness and a clear awareness of the purpose of our individual life,”.

Source: Middle East Online

Posted: 25-08-2010 The rest

Chinese rock legend sings on

In true star fashion, the man who describes himself as the founder of Chinese rock and roll was late for our interview. His manager blamed Beijing's notoriously bad traffic... A quarter of a century after first wooing Chinese audiences, the singer is still on the stage, still trying to be relevant in a very different age.

Source: BBC