The Globe and Mail - Music News

THIS DAY IN MUSIC

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Oct. 11, 1973: Elvis and Priscilla Presley's divorce becomes final.CHUM Chart (25 Years Ago)1. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Eurythmics)2. Tell Her About It (Billy Joel)

At centre ice tonight: the great Canadian hockey-song faceoff

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

''A change to a new type of music is something to beware of as a hazard to all our fortunes,'' writes Plato in The Republic. It would be hard to find a better summation of the anger and disbelief that still roils fans of the CBC's abandoned Hockey Night in Canada theme music.

Fierce and bossy and bristling with change

KEN WINTERS — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAJames Ehnes, violinSir Andrew Davis, conductorAt Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on ThursdayThursday's concert by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was not just a blast but a privilege. That was thanks to James Ehnes's patrician performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto; to conductor Sir Andrew Davis's idiomatic orchestral transcriptions of three marvellous, unhackneyed organ chorale-preludes of Bach; and to Davis's and the orchestra's arresting assault on Stravinsky's acerbic, mind-expanding Symphony in Three Movements.

Taming Prokofiev's 'monster'

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

''She knew what it was all supposed to represent,'' Tolstoy writes in War and Peace, describing his heroine's first experience of an opera performance, ''but it was so blatantly false and unnatural that she felt alternately ashamed for the actors and amused by them.'' No doubt Tolstoy was also referring to the audience. For him, opera and the opera house symbolized the phony sophistication and moral rot of the well-to-do Russian society into which he was born.

She wailed, she flailed, she soared

BRAD WHEELER — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Alanis MorissetteAt Massey HallIn Toronto on WednesdayToward the end of an affecting, flowing concert, Alanis Morissette, super-emotional singer-songwriter, sat on a stool, right leg crossed over left, microphone in hand. It looked as though she was about to open the floor to her adorers' questions. That didn't happen, but it wasn't so far off: Figuring out answers is what this Ottawa-born searcher does.

The sound of whale music

JEFFREY MOUSSAIEFF MASSON — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

THOUSAND MILE SONGWhale Music in a Sea of SoundBy David RothenbergBasic Books, 287 pages, $29.50If you are at musically inclined and interested in whales and whale song, this is the book for you. David Rothenberg, who wrote the well-received Why Birds Sing, has done an immense amount of research and travel to try to understand the far more mysterious world of cetacean singing (and clicking and sonar navigation). He has not been entirely successful, through no fault of his own, simply because it is much harder to study whale music than bird song.

Simple Plan records version of hockey theme

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

The former Hockey Night in Canada theme song is getting a rock 'n' roll makeover. Montreal band Simple Plan will be the first in a series of Canadian artists to put their stamp on the iconic tune, sports channel TSN has announced. The network nabbed the rights to the CBC song earlier this year.

So much for the revolution

Rachel Evans — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

So Cambridge University historian David Fowler has concluded that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones weren't the voice of a generation, but rather ''capitalists who quickly joined a wealthy elite'' (Profits, Not Prophets - Oct. 10). Thanks for the news flash, but didn't the rest of us figure this out 30-odd years ago?

Courting donors in tough times: Take a tip from the TSO

SIMON HOUPT — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

The future of arts funding in Toronto may begin with a view inside a Spanish whorehouse. For when the Toronto Symphony Orchestra last weekend made its first visit to New York in a decade, dozens of well-heeled TSO donors found themselves gazing upon Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the famous cubist painting depicting a Barcelona brothel, during an exclusive after-hours guided visit to the Museum of Modern Art.

Wrecker's ball threatens New York's Tin Pan Alley

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Tin Pan Alley, the home of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and other great American songwriters, is up for sale.Five buildings on West 28th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea district are being offered as a group for $44-million (U.S.). A listing on real-estate website Loopnet recommends that the buildings be torn down and a high-rise take their place.

John McCain no hero to the Foo Fighters

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

The Foo Fighters have told presidential candidate John McCain to stop using their song My Hero in his campaign. They said they learned it was being use through news reports.

Too busy to brag

J.D. CONSIDINE — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Wynton Marsalis is a busy fellow. Given the range of roles he has assumed - trumpeter, band leader, composer, author, educator - that shouldn't seem surprising. But it's not until the 46-year old starts to talk about Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York music and education program he co-founded in 1987, that one truly gets a sense of how much he has been up to.

Wainwright's opera to premiere in England

Guy Dixon — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Rufus Wainwright's much anticipated first opera, Prima Donna, won't be staged in New York, as once expected, but in Manchester, England. Sung in French and set in Paris, the opera will be staged as part of the Manchester International Festival from July 10-19 next year.

Vancouver Opera posts operating surplus

James Bradshaw — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

Vancouver Opera has continued an impressive trend, posting its eighth operating surplus in nine years.Audited statements show the company some $50,000 in the black for 2007-2008 on a budget of $8.7-million. The company also received record individual gifts and saw increases in both earned and contributed revenues.

MUSIC: GOING OUT

Jennifer Van Evra — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

You'll have to camp out on Craigslist if you want tickets to Aussie dance group Cut Copy, theatrical New York Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello, hipster electrofunk duo Chromeo, or California Celtic rockers Flogging Molly, because they're all sold out. But there are plenty of other great shows.

Think MTV, but this time on the Web

Mathew Ingram — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 00:00 EDT

It has been more than 25 years since MTV first launched, so plenty of people have probably forgotten what a splash it made at the time. A whole television channel about music? It seemed crazy. Now, a music start-up called LP33.tv wants to take up the same kind of position on the Web - an all-in-one community that features new bands, shows videos, allows fans to interact with their favourite artists and so on.