The anticipated music application from Twitter has been released to the public today; having had a limited release to a handful of celebrities last week. The app, suitably named #Music, allows users to discover new music, listen to artists through Rdio or Spotify, view concert and tour dates, along with watching videos on Vevo or YouTube and purchasing music via the iTunes store.

Following the usual Twitter format, users can view which artists are most popular or ‘trending’ across the social media platform, as well as viewing up and coming artists who are not as well recognised. In addition, there are also two more tabs which highlight artists through the people you follow and personal music taste.

#Music is now available on the web as well as the iTunes store (Android users will have to wait a while longer). With rave reviews from the early-bird celebrities, partnered with specifically developed technology from We Are Hunted – which will hopefully rule out any problematic issues, which Twitter app Vine faced – #Music may have filled an unknown gap in the music industry, intelligibly interlinking it with social media.

(Written on April 18, 2013 )

The Independent

The Rite of Spring: Happy birthday to music’s most famous flop

Century-old Rite of Spring couldn’t be more popular – now

Evening Standard

The great British busk-off: what happened when a world-class violinist played on the London Underground?

Nick Curtis joins commuters hanging out with the fiddler on the Tube

The Guardian

Pupils accuse third teacher of abuse at top music school

Ten women come forward with new claims after suicide of witness in trial against choirmaster

The Strad

Top cellist’s bow is damaged

Alban Gerhardt calls airport security staff ‘brutal and careless’

Classic FM

Classical music celebrated at Grammys

A host of classical stars picked up awards at the 55th Grammy Awards at glamorous ceremony in Los Angeles last night.

Arts Desk

Save The Conservatoire: Blackheath and the Arts Funding Climate

What can a local campaign tell us about the national arts funding situation?

Music Industry News Network

New Crowdfunding Site Launches For Music & Film Projects

Fundervine is a new crowdfunding platform for music and film projects.

Music Week

Spotify launches in Italy, Poland and Portugal

Spotify has launched in three new European markets: Italy, Poland and Portugal.

Facebook tests ‘Buy Tickets’ button

Facebook is testing a number of ‘Buy Tickets’ buttons for its events pages – leading to some speculation that the social network could one day enter the ticketing space more deeply.

Arts Desk

(Written on February 12, 2013 )

New York Times

Wolfgang, Is That You?

In the impossible search to know exactly what the face of musical genius looked like, researchers in Salzburg, Austria, have made progress. Their subject was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a local boy.

Runway Crescendo: Strut Over, Beethoven

At Carolina Herrera’s fashion show on Monday at Lincoln Center, don’t expect to hear the Knife’s “Full of Fire,” Haim’s “Don’t Save Me” or Rihanna’s “Diamonds.”

The Economist

Daniel Barenboim performs Beethoven

Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999. The group is a rare, and virtuosic, collaboration between Israelis and Arab

The Telegraph

Michael Gove’s GCSE U-turn: how EBacc was scrapped

Michael Gove’s plan to replace discredited GCSEs with new academic English Baccalaureate Certificates has been shelved after less than five months

Huffington Post

How Music is Instrumental in Breaking Generational Barriers

Within the 21st century, there is a large barrier between generations. Parents have difficulty understanding their children’s individual expression while adolescents have trouble accepting their parents’ wisdom.

Classical Source

The Royal Opera’s Eugene Onegin Broadcast Live Into Cinemas Worldwide On Wednesday 20 February

Kasper Holten, Director of Opera for The Royal Opera, makes his directorial debut with the Company with an exciting new production of Tchaikovsky’s poignant Eugene Onegin which will be broadcast live into cinemas worldwide on Wednesday 20 February.

The Wagnerian

New Wagner Book: The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia

Should you have a spare £120 then the following maybe of interest…

Music Week

iTunes Store sells 25 billionth song

Apple has announced has surpassed 25 billion sales of songs via its iTunes Store.

The Guardian

iTunes and Spotify devastate high street music sales as fans go digital

HMV and others hit by ‘digital music switchover’ as more than a quarter of UK population download or stream music

New York Times

(Written on February 7, 2013 )

The Telegraph

Coughing in classical concerts ‘twice as likely’

People are twice as likely to cough during a classical concert as they are during normal life, an academic researching the irritating phenomenon has claimed.

The New York Times

As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle

Like plenty of music fans, Sam Broe jumped at the chance to join Spotify two summers ago, and he hasn’t looked back.

The Arts Desk

Q&A Special: Conductor Sir Simon Rattle

The conductor on his long-running association with period specialists the OAE

Classic FM

Gabriel Prokofiev’s Nonclassical announces electronic music festival

The Nonclassical club night and record label has announced a new festival of electronic music, celebrating composers like Messiaen, Stockhausen and Varèse.

Kasper Holten on Tchaikovsky in cinemas

Falling in love, rejection, growing up – and all to the soundtrack of Tchaikovsky’s beautiful music. Kasper Holten, Director of Opera for the Royal Opera House, explains what we can expect from his latest production of Eugene Onegin, screened live in cinemas on 20 February.

Classical Music Magazine

Analysis: Much ado about Rattle

Sir Simon Rattle’s announcement that he will leave in 2018 has provoked a storm of rumour and gossip, not least that he is leaving thanks to ‘growing strains’ in his relationship with the orchestra ‒ reported by news organisations from Santiago to Sydney.

Music Industry News

StudioTraxx.com Launches Social Network-Based Online Marketing For Artists, Producers, Managers, Songwriters, And Record Labels

StudioTraxx.com, a leading provider of online musician-for-hire collaboration services, is pleased to announce that it is now offering a variety of online marketing packages to artists, producers, managers, songwriters, and record labels.

Music Week

Midem attendance down 7% YoY, organisers remain upbeat about future

Midem attendance was down 7% compared to 2012 with the four-day event reporting around 6,400 attendees travelling to the Palais des Festivals last weekend.

The Telegraph

(Written on January 30, 2013 )

The Guardian

The Rest is Noise: here comes the 20th century

Gillian Moore, head of classical music at London’s Southbank Centre, introduces the first instalment of the year-long festival – and the work of Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg

YouTube owner Google poised to take stake in Vevo

Deal thought to be worth about £42m for stake of close to 10% in music video website founded by Universal and Sony

The Economist

The Q&A: Alex Ross: Make some noise

Some sage once quipped that writing about music is about as edifying—and evocative—as dancing about architecture. Certainly most music criticism has a lifeless quality, packed with adjectives yet tuneless on the page.

Classic FM

Antonio Pappano receives Distinguished Musician Award

Previous recipients of the award, presented by the Incorporated Society of Musicians, include Pierre Boulez, Jacqueline du Pré, and Simon Rattle.

The Strad

Violinist crowdfunds chin rest 

Project to manufacture multi-adjustable model raises nearly $25,000 on Kickstarter

BBC News

Frank Zappa score joins The Rest is Noise classical festival 

A controversial orchestral film score by music legend Frank Zappa is to have its UK premiere as part of a major celebration of modern classical music.

Music Week

Sweden: Record sales rise again in 2012

Overall recorded music sales in Sweden in 2012 showed an increase of 14%, with 90% of all digital income coming from streaming services

Elizabeth Sobol appointed President and CEO of Decca USA

Universal Music Group International have appointed Elizabeth Sobol as president and CEO of the Decca Label Group, USA.

The Strad

(Written on January 18, 2013 )

The Times

Spotify to launch ‘music app’ service.

Spotify is to launch apps with its online music service yesterday, allowing millions to read reviews, sing along to lyrics and buy concerts tickets as they listen to songs.

The Independent

The Nutcracker: It’s all going nuts at the ballet.

Jessica Duchen is overwhelmed by the volume of Nutcrackers around.

New York Times

Andrew Kazdin, Record Producer, Dies at 77.

Andrew Kazdin, a producer known for his recordings of the New York Philharmonic, died on Monday in Manhattan.

LA Times

Grammys: Gustavo Dudamel in classical’s West-leaning field.

The classical Grammy nominations have been announced.

Slipped Disc: Norman Lebrecht

Chailly’s out. Boston’s options are down to one.

Riccardo Chailly has withdrawn from January’s long-planned concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Breaking: Santa Claus gets an opera house.

Leif Segretsam, also known as Father Christmas:

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2011/11/breaking-santa-claus-gets-an-opera-house.html

(Written on December 1, 2011 )

Today we are discussing the responses we got from our new feature “What’s your View?” -with the question “Where do you buy classical music and in what form?” It’s interesting to see the variety of forms that people collect music and it’s also interesting to see that the divide in methods is not entirely generational but centres more on how involved and enthusiastic people are about classical music.

Many people still listen to and record music from the radio, BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM being the most popular. Is the reason they’re still popular based on how they work? People can call in to request their favourite works or recordings and they will be played. Classic FM also has a weekly chart of the most popular classical pieces, this appeals to a more mainstream classical listener. Do people prefer to listen to the radio as they are learning more in the process? The classical demographic still sees the radio as an essential outlet for their music which is a big contrast to the popular music radio stations, which are dealing with a falling number of listeners. Is this because classical music has a niche audience which will never change and popular music audiences change their preferences regularly?

It was mostly the older generation still buying physical copies of music from shops and they were not limited to CD format, there were people buying LP’s, minidiscs and tapes. We were told about some good shops in Soho, London where classical enthusiasts can hunt for their favourite recordings, one such store is Harold Moores, which is a quaint little store with a welcoming environment. There is of course the corporate stores such as HMV which do have a variety of classical recordings but mostly new releases or albums that have been or are on the classical charts. Does hunting through an old record shop with a large catalogue of classical music excite and stimulate people?

The internet has clearly become an essential in all aspects of communication and purchasing in the last ten years so it’s no surprise that people use it in a variety of ways to buy music. Some people like bargains so they buy hard copies, usually CD’s and sometimes second hand from amazon and eBay. Amazon has an amazing catalogue of classical music and you can find almost any relevant recording and some more conspicuous ones. iTunes is also a front runner of online music purchasing but unlike Amazon there is less variety of classical music on offer and it only comes in digital form. Is the digital form of music on the rise due to iPods and mp3 players that require digital copies? The digital music database Spotify has become increasingly popular with the younger generation as it offers the opportunity to listen to any of the pieces on it’s catalogue for free (if you have an account). Naxos is very popular for classical music listeners as it is strictly for classical music, even universities encourage their music students to use it for their studies!

Does where you access music depend less on convenience and entirely on the actual recording itself? Most people who buy classical music are classically inclined and have particular recordings of certain ensembles, artists and works that they prefer, so they don’t mind having it as an LP or tape. The younger generation are increasingly buying digital copies online is this down to convenience, or could it be that they have not yet ripened their musical preferences? It might also be good to consider where SHOULD we buy music from? If we carry on buying online we will put other outlets out of business, is a happy medium between methods required to keep some industries afloat and to also keep the excitement of hunting for your recording in an old store, whether it be vinyl, tape or CD?

How do you get your music and in what format? Can you relate to any of the above? Would it be fair to say that as classical music is timeless and that it doesn’t matter how or where we get it, as long as we have it?

(Written on September 8, 2010 )