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Available for birthdays, weddings and bar mitzvahs... one of Europe's leading orchestras
July 02, 2009

The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra has lived through a lot in the past 20 years. Yugoslavia has been reinvented in different, ever-shrinking configurations, finally dissolving altogether with the divorce of Serbia and Montenegro. Belgrade has gone from being the capital of the West's favourite communist state to a warmongering pariah, target of 78 days of Nato bombing raids, to being the latest applicant to join the EU. Through it all the band played on.

So it is ironic, now Serbia has at last a real prospect of rejoining the West, that the city's finest flowering of classical Western culture should be struggling to survive. But that was the sub-text of an advertisement that recently appeared in the city's papers, to readers' consternation.

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Saint Louis Symphony Reports Increase in Revenue, Audiences in 2008-'09 Season
July 02, 2009

Saint Louis Symphony Reports Increase in Revenue, Audiences in 2008-'09 Season flickr.com/photos/bottleofblues The SLSO onstage at Powell Hall. This past season has been a banner one for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Not only did music director David Robertson make his singing and kazoo-playing debut at Carnegie Hall and management negotiate a three-year labor agreement with the musicians an entire year ahead of schedule, but the SLSO even made more money by playing for larger audiences.

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    Ensemble and Performer News

    Contempory classical music has brought orchestra, Gier good luck
    July 02, 2009

    There's no doubt that classical works by the great masters of the past 400 years dominate the material played by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. "And that's going to continue to be our primary objective, but every orchestra does that," says music director and conductor Delta David Gier. So he makes it a point to program about 20 percent contemporary classical music, too.

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    Composer News

    Even Bach Needed Goldberg
    July 02, 2009

    When audiences at Telluride MusicFest are introduced to Philip Glass's violin sonata Thursday night in Colorado, many will admire the lush expressiveness of the music. Some may note a recent preoccupation with chamber music on the part of a composer best known for film scores and operas. But few will know that this latest work by America's most famous living composer was a private commission by an amateur violinist in Harrisburg, Pa., looking for an original birthday gift for his wife.

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    Reviews

    Classical music CD reviews: Outstanding performances of Fennimore and Handel
    July 02, 2009

    After all the keyboard showpieces whipped into frenzies at the recent Cliburn Competition, this collection of pianistic intimacies from American composer Joseph Fennimore is balm to the ears. An eloquent pianist himself, Fennimore (b. 1940) writes with unassuming skill and directness for his instrument. But these mostly recent works – Cathay, Tourmaline and the 13th Romance all from this decade – also open up magic gardens of sound and haunting beauties.

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