Canuck

  Sunday, 10 March 2002

 < 2:04:20 AM>.

Orchestras Loosening the CD Bind: "COLIN DAVIS'S recording of Berlioz's epic opera "Les Troyens," with the London Symphony Orchestra and a splendid cast headed by the tenor Ben Heppner, is going to shake up the classical-music industry as nothing else has in some time. Not just because the performance is superb, nor because it recently scooped up a pair of Grammy Awards for best classical and best opera recording of 2001.

The four-disc set represents one major orchestra's attempt to rescue its recorded legacy from the control of those clueless executives at the major companies who are squeezing out the classical divisions."

They've sold 30, 000 copies of a 4 CD set. Amazing. We're talking about an opera. Many of those sales have been online.

The orchestra musicians do not get paid the usual higher scale for recordings. I wonder if Big Ben and the other soloists took a pay cut.

< 1:49:12 AM>.

Good.

< 1:46:55 AM>.

It took me a while after moving out of Québec to get used to the idea that I could turn right on reds.

< 1:30:14 AM>.

"They were a little skeptical about the GPS -- there was a feeling that it was just another gizmo," Mr. Shalmon said. "Then we showed them what we could do and they were amazed." "