Category: Headlines

Leonard Slatkin Photo courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra

Conductor and noted champion of American music Leonard Slatkin is among the 2003 Medal of Arts Recipients announced by President George W. Bush. Slatkin and the nine other honorees were presented with the medals by the President and First Lady Laura Bush in an Oval Office ceremony at the White House yesterday. Established by Congress in 1984, the distinction is the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence.

“I am very proud to have been selected as a recipient of this most prestigious honor,” Slatkin said, accepting the award. “The arts are an invaluable source of this country’s vast creative output. To be recognized for any part of that spirit is indeed a humbling honor.”

Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra since 1996, Slatkin is also chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He flew in for the presentation ceremony from London, where he is preparing the orchestra and soloists for a recording of Samuel Barber‘s Vanessa. Patricia O’Kelly at the NSO said that Slatkin was picked up at the White House and taken directly back to the airport so he would be back in time for rehearsals today.

Music was heavily honored this year. In addition to Slatkin, this year’s recipients also include the PBS television program Austin City Limits, children’s book author Beverly Cleary, arts educator Rafe Esquith, dancer Suzanne Farrell, blues musician Buddy Guy, director Ron Howard, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, country singer George Strait, and dancer Tommy Tune.

“These ten remarkable individuals represent decades of significant artistic achievements.” said Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “Whether they embodied the grace and drama of great choreography, fired the imaginations of children, created unforgettable movies, or moved us with the passion of many voices, these inspiring people and institutions have made special contributions to the richness of our nation’s cultural life.”

The Medal of Arts is awarded “to those who have made extraordinary contributions to the creation, growth and support of the arts in the United States.” The President selects the recipients based on the recommendations of The National Council on the Arts (the Endowment’s Presidentially appointed advisory body).

Berklee College of Music has launched Berklee Shares, a program that provides free music lessons (protected by Creative Commons licenses, more about that later) via file-sharing networks. The project’s Web site hosts a growing catalog of text, MP3 files, and even QuickTime movies derived from curriculum developed at the college by its own faculty, Berklee Press publications, and online music courses at Berkleemusic.com.

For instance, under the topic of music improvisation, you can download a movie of faculty member and professional musician Ed Tomassi demonstrating how to use motives to enhance improvisational playing. This all happens without charge, without the user even being required to register.

The lessons are also available for download at affiliate partner sites and peer-to-peer networks, including Limewire.

So why the altruism? Their Web site considers it simply a fulfillment of the school’s mission to train students seeking a music career and as “a way to reach interested students and make them aware of the possibility and potential of a Berklee education.”

Currently the catalogue includes more than 85 music lessons spanning instrument performance, music production and technology, songwriting and arranging, music business and careers, music education, and improvisation. More lessons are expected over time.

The site’s content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license, which basically means that the Berklee College of Music and its faculty and authors hold the copyright on the material, but that they have given permission for it to be used, copied, or distributed for non-commercial educational purposes, without modifications or derivation. So without asking, you know that you can download something and share it with a friend as long as you don’t sell it to him for $20.

“Berklee Shares was born out of Berklee College of Music’s commitment to furthering music education through innovative means,” said Dave Kusek, associate vice president. “Offering free education on the Internet and through file sharing networks underscores the college’s core beliefs that these channels are an effective way to openly distribute meaningful educational content to a global audience, as well as serve as a powerful promotional platform for artists to market, distribute, and sell their music.”

With all the damage file sharing channels are charged with wreaking on the music industry, this moment probably couldn’t have come soon enough.

Thad Jones Photo courtesy The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

When the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra kicked off Baruch College’s Twelfth Annual Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Concert Series at Mason Hall in New York last Thursday, it was not only the crispness and ingenuity of Thad Jones’s charts that made his classic “Mean What You Say” sound brand-new. The score is one of several by the late, legendary composer, arranger, and cornetist that have recently been restored as part of the VJO’s Thad Jones Legacy Project.

Jones founded the orchestra with drummer Mel Lewis in 1966, and for the last thirty-seven years the seventeen-member group has been keeping his music alive through performances every Monday night at the Village Vanguard. VJO Director and lead trombonist John Mosca knew that much more of Jones’s work wasn’t being performed because the scores were lost or erroneous and resolved to bring this neglected music to the public.

VJO Project Director Tom Bellino introduced Mosca to Richard Kessler, executive director of the American Music Center, and in 2001 the two organizations launched the Thad Jones Legacy Project, an ambitious effort to preserve, present, and explore the repertoire of Thad Jones. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Recording Academy, the orchestra has begun the first stage of the project—the restoration and reconstruction of eleven of Jones’s unpublished compositions and arrangements for big band, which have been unavailable for performance or study for more than twenty years and exist only in the form of recordings. The scores must be painstakingly transcribed from the recordings (some of which are unreleased private tapes), then checked and double-checked by the musicians for accuracy.

In addition, the orchestra has enlisted copyists to proofread error-ridden published scores against Jones’s originals so that the players will have durable, accurate charts. The VJO is establishing an archive at William Paterson University, where the historic original scores will be preserved in a temperature-controlled environment. They are also making arrangements with renowned jazz organist Rhoda Scott to retrieve a cache of Jones’s scores from her Paris home. The project will be documented through catalogs, guidebooks, a website, and the recording of material that has fallen out of print or has never been recorded.

The first of the restored scores—”Mean What You Say” and Jones’s arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing”—were unveiled in August at the Vanguard. The orchestra kicked off its set Thursday with the former and closed with “The Little Pixie,” one of the scores that has been restored by correcting the published version against the original. Before the group launched into that tune, Mosca held up a yellowed, Scotch-taped original score and quipped that it was in better condition than many others in need of restoration.

In keeping with the VJO’s mission to balance tradition and innovation, the set also featured two recently commissioned pieces—Jim McNeely’s “Don’t Even Ask” and Slide Hampton’s “Past, Present, And Future,” along with McNeely’s “Extra Credit” and “A Simple Wish” by the late Julie Cavadini. The concert series, organized by the Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Committee and sponsored by the Baruch College Performing Arts Center and the Baruch College Fund, will continue with the “Sax in the City” quartet on December 4, 2003.

Mosca and the Orchestra consider the Thad Jones Legacy Project among their most important work in terms of jazz history. Making this treasure trove of lost music once again available to musicians, listeners, and scholars is difficult, costly, and time-consuming, but well worth it—as Mosca says, “like seeing an old friend after twenty years.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has been invited by conductor Sir Gilbert Levine to perform in Rome for Pope John Paul II on January 17, 2004. To date, no other American orchestra has ever played for the pope at the Vatican.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison has been commissioned to write a choral work based on text from the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis to open the concert program. A chorus drawn from members of the London Philharmonic Choir, Krakow Philharmonic Choir, and the Ankara State Polyphonic Choir (Turkey) will sing the world premiere of Abraham. Mahler‘s Second Symphony will follow.

The concert has a stated theme of “Reconciliation,” honoring Pope John Paul II’s 25th year as pontiff and his “lifelong commitment to interfaith understanding and outreach of the Abrahamic faiths.” It is also intended as a comment on current global issues. The official Vatican invitation to the PSO read: “This initiative has assumed a special significance in view of the current world context. The event entrusts to the powerful efficacy of music the commitment to reconciliation that all the children of Abraham – Jews, Christians and Muslims – must embrace with conviction.”

Harbison Photo by Katrin Talbot

In a statement this morning, Harbison said that as the reconciliation concept for a concert featuring Mahler’s Second Symphony took shape, “I was honored to be invited to compose a piece as Prologue, speaking directly in contemporary terms to the themes of the concert.” He explained that the selected Biblical text “presents Abraham as ‘father of many nations.’ In these difficult times, the music centers on the name and spirit of Abraham as a bridge, a mode of communication, a point of commonality.”

Though a first for an American orchestra, this will not be a first visit for Levine, who has led performances by European orchestras at the Vatican for 15 years. Recently dubbed the “Pope’s Maestro” during a CBS “60 Minutes” profile, Levine said in a statement issued by the PSO that he insisted on featuring an American orchestra for this Vatican concert because “there is no country that better represents a society of tolerance.” He personally chose the Pittsburgh Symphony to represent the “great American culture” abroad, stating, “this is truly a great orchestra with a central European tradition second to none.”

Speaking today specifically about the premiere, Levine was remarkably enthusiastic about the upcoming event, especially the fact that it would include new music. Noting the recent lack of works written especially for a papal event, Levine said Harbison’s piece is important “for the historical reason that what you’re talking about is a rarity even in hundreds of years of Vatican musical practice.”

Levine said he has been aware of Harbison’s work for a long time and considers him “one of our most important spiritual music composers.” After attending the premiere performance of Harbison’s Requiem and talking with his publisher G. Schirmer, Levine said that the composer “stuck out as somebody that I felt would really understand what was required for this very special commission.”

Harbison’s task wasn’t easy. He was charged with creating a work that fit the spiritual nature of the performance and added to the meaning of the Mahler symphony. All text had to be approved by the Vatican.

Levine has gone over the finished piece and said confidently, “I think it’s perfect.” After 15 years performing at the Vatican, he’s fairly confident the pope will enjoy it as well. “I think he’ll be very impressed with the modernity of it and yet its dedication to the spiritual values, which the pope obviously feels extremely deeply, and honoring the tradition of the Vatican. So I hope the pope is going to be enthralled.”

The concert is being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, who have reportedly donated more than $500,000 in suport. U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See James Nicholson, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Bishop Donald Wuerl and Pittsburgh Symphony Board Chairman Richard Simmons have been credited with facilitating the participation of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Seeming to summarize the sentiments of all the concert’s planners, Simmons noted that the event “has historical significance for not only the Pittsburgh Symphony, but the entire country…Through music we have the ability to speak to all nations, all religions, all people. It is a universal language that uplifts the soul and gives us renewed hope for a brighter future.”

New World Records recently released Music From The ONCE Festival 1961-1966, a monumental project documenting the innovative musical activities that took place during the now-legendary annual events that shook the entire new music community four decades ago. The nicely packaged 5-CD box set focuses on the music of the festival’s founders, Robert Ashley, George Cacioppo, Gordon Mumma, Roger Reynolds, and Donald Scavarda, making available a virtual treasure trove of never-before released historical recordings.

Besides recollections and program notes penned by the surviving founders, the 140-page booklet included with the set features a thoughtful essay recounting ONCE’s history by Leta Miller, dozens of photos by Makepeace Tsao, and even a few score excerpts. The wealth of background information and documentation provides a helpful key for getting inside the mindset of the times—when a startup festival on a shoestring budget suddenly exploded into a breeding ground for new interdisciplinary performance and cutting edge experimental music.

For those not exactly in the know, the ONCE Festival—once, as in the organizers truly believed it would be a one-time occurrence—momentarily made Ann Arbor, Michigan, the center of international attention, attracting the participation of artists like John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, La Monte Young, Terry Jennings, and the like, usually for very little compensation. As the festival grew year after year, the scope of its programming evolved to include more inter-media work, performance art, and less definable sorts of actions. The festival continued to move out of traditional venues eventually culminating with a series of major performances on the rooftop of the Maynard St. parking structure. The core of ONCE affiliated artists began organizing other events and touring as the ONCE Group, eventually performing at the 1964 Venice Biennale. ONCE spawned many unexpected collaborations within the ranks of artists associated with the festival, most notably the Sonic Arts Union.

So how does an ostensibly sleepy Midwestern town become a hotbed of avant-garde music and experimental interdisciplinary performance? Mumma recounts “the cultural milieu of Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the time was very diverse—I mean it’s a college town, right? By the late 1950s when this was starting to bubble, one still has GI Bill students—military people who have been conscripted to go fight in Vietnam or Korea…they were vastly more socially and intellectually mature than your usual college freshman. Add the Civil Rights movement, the end of the McCarthy oppressive era, all of that stuff was all there at the same time. It’s a very complex recipe…So Ann Arbor was in a way, at that time, a rich opportunity because the resources were so extraordinary.” Hence five friends and colleagues plotted to seize this opportunity by inviting fellow students and local musicians, along with Luciano Berio, Cathy Berberian, Paul Jacobs, and the Domaine Musical Ensemble of Paris to not only perform their own music, but also a diverse sampling of up-to-the-minute avant-garde works from Europe, and the first ONCE Festival was born.

Generally we trace current DIY trends in new music (read: Bang On A Can, and offspring Common Sense, Minimum Security, Anti-Social Music, Wet Ink, etc.) back to Philip Glass and Steve Reich whose solution to getting their music performed according to their specifications was decidedly entrepreneurial. It’s strange, sometimes the parentage of current fad and fashion is inadvertently forgotten. Despite our unexplainable memory lapse, the ONCE Festival is now more than ever a reverent model for today’s enterprising young composers. “The grassroots aspect was very substantial,” Mumma points out. “From my prospective the most important aspect of what happened is we took responsibility for our own productions.” Equally important to the ONCE dynamic was the diversity of its founders. Mumma adds “the differences between, say, Roger Reynolds and Robert Ashley is like night and day. We were celebrating those differences.”

Paul Tai, New World’s Director of A&R who inherited the ONCE box set project from his predecessor Howard Klein and Al Margolis, revealed that the entire process from drawing board to final product took nearly 7 years. Tai retells the story of an early meeting between Margolis and Robert Ashley at which the collection’s “repertoire list was sort of put together from Bob’s memory.” During the process each composer was allotted a generous amount of control over the editing and mastering of the recordings, as well as final veto power over their own contributions to the set. In actuality, the main obstacle in releasing the CDs may have been paperwork. “I think what took the most time was really trying to locate as many performers as possible and getting permissions” says Tai. “I mean going back 40 years, it’s very difficult.” Mumma confides that many performers “were told by their teachers [at the University of Michigan] somewhere about the third festival, ‘You can’t be in that. Stay out of there.’ They were in it anyway. They didn’t put their names [on the program], the performers made up names!” This of course must have contributed to the difficulties in clearing the rights to release the recordings.

While the recordings in the collection vary from full-retro mono to digitally souped-up amalgamations, Roger Reynolds believes an “energy exists in these recordings. You can hear how much the people who were doing it believe in what they are doing.” Reynolds counts among the many milestones included in the ONCE box set the long-overdue release of Donald Scavarda’s music, stating that “it was a time in which [Scavarda] made a number of very significant discoveries. He did some extraordinary work. My personal favorite is Sounds for Eleven.” Mumma considers Pauline Oliveros‘s Apple Box Double, performed by Oliveros and David Tudor, as one of the set’s hidden gems, explaining, “It was the turning point in David Tudor’s career when he decided, on his part, that he was going to do composing with electronic music resources. It was the takeoff for him.”

Now devoted aficionados of the American experimental tradition, once only armed with 40 years of hindsight and hearsay, can discover and unravel for themselves the impact of the notorious ONCE Festival. “For something that happened 40 years
in the past it was amazing to all of us that this actually happened,” admits Reynolds, adding “I think everyone is uniformly delighted with the results.” While the phrase “hearing is believing” isn’t uttered too often, Paul Tai hopes that the release of Music From The ONCE Festival 1961-1966, “might inspire some scholars to do a little further research and try to find some more of this material and do a photographic companion or a visual counterpart to complement the audio material that we’ve released.” By all accounts the spectacle of ONCE definitely matched the daring and invigorating spirit of the music it left behind. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 40 years before film footage and other visual documentation is unearthed.</p

The late Joan B. Kroc. Credit: Twyla Cecil, courtesy Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies

In what is reportedly a totally unexpected windfall, NPR has been bequeathed more than $200 million from the estate of philanthropist Joan B. Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald’s Corp. It is believed to be the largest monetary gift ever received by an American cultural institution.

Though no official plans have been announced, the Washington Post reports speculation that the money could be used to restore funding to music and cultural programs recently affected by budget cutbacks. For those who would like to see an increase in the airtime devoted to American music, perhaps now would be the time to write a letter.

“We are inspired and humbled by this magnificent gift,” said NPR President Kevin Klose in a statement issued today. “This remarkable act of generosity will help secure the future of NPR as a trusted and independent source of news, information and ideas for millions of listeners.”

Most of the gift will become part of the NPR Endowment Fund for Excellence, created in 1993 to provide a sustaining source of support for NPR activities. The exact amount will depend on resolution of Kroc’s estate and the final value of her investments. Disbursement of trust funds will take a number of months, giving the NPR board and staff time to plan how to best put the new funds to use.

“We will use that time wisely…to determine how best to translate this gift into an enduring legacy,” said Klose. Joan Kroc, well know for her philanthropy, died of cancer Oct. 12 at age 75.

John A. Herrmann Jr., chairman of the NPR foundation, added that the gift will give NPR “the capacity to think big, both about the services of NPR and about further building the financial resources of this great institution.”

“It is no secret that these have been challenging economic times for public radio, a challenge that is still unmet,” concluded Klose. “We hope this gift will inspire a broad conversation about the funding needs for public radio, particularly our member stations.”

Kent Kennan

University of Texas at Austin School of Music professor emeritus Kent W. Kennan died in Austin on Nov. 1. He was 90. The cause was likely related to his failing kidneys for which he had refused dialysis.

Born in Milwaukee April 18, 1913, Kennan studied music and composition at the Eastman School of Music and received of the Prix de Rome in 1936. He then taught briefly at Kent State University in Ohio before joining the faculty at UT in 1940. He left to serve in the armed forces during World War II and spent two years at Ohio State University before he returned to UT in 1949.

Kennan was especially acclaimed as the author of Counterpoint and The Technique of Orchestration, both of which remain standards in music education.

Though he penned work for orchestra, chamber groups, chorus, piano, voice and organ, his teaching and administrative duties often eclipsed his musical output. His Night Soliloquy for flute and orchestra, written in 1938, remained his best-known work.

• UT statement on the death of Kent Kennan

Disappointed you didn’t win the MacArthur or the Charles Ives Living this year? Fret not. Perhaps someone will nominate you for the just-established Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition. The Northwestern University School of Music has just announced the creation of the biennial award that will carry with it a $100,000 cash prize intended to honor “classical music composers of outstanding achievement.”

The Nemmers Prize winner will also be recognized with a performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a four-week residency at the Northwestern University School of Music.

The prize will be awarded to a classical music composer whose entire body of work, rather than a particular piece, “has significantly contributed to the direction of contemporary composition.”

Toni-Marie Montgomery, dean of the Northwestern University School of Music, explained the motivation for establishing the prize. “These artists indelibly shape our musical landscape and it is only fitting that they are honored accordingly,” she said. “We look forward to working with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and strengthening the bonds between our institutions.”

Daniel Barenboim, Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director, echoed Montgomery’s assessment, noting that “it will certainly afford the opportunity to highlight the important composers of our day. We are delighted to be partners in this venture.”

Composers, regardless of citizenship or institutional affiliation, must be nominated to be considered. A letter describing the nominee’s accomplishments and qualifications should be sent to the selection committee. Scores and tapes, however, should not be sent. A three-member selection committee, designated by the CSO and Northwestern’s School of Music, will review the nominations.

Northwestern University already administers two other Nemmers prizes: the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Mathematics and the Frederic E. Nemmers Prize in Economics, both awarded since 1994.

Stephen Hartke Photo by Bob Millard

Stephen Hartke has received the Charles Ives Living which awards an American composer $225,000 over the course of three years, Philip Pearlstein, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today.

Currently professor of composition at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, Hartke will begin his three-year term in July 2004. In accepting this award—the largest monetary award given exclusively to an American composer—Hartke must take a leave of absence from his salaried job and devote himself exclusively to composing. He can, however, take on new commissions.

Similar to the MacArthur awards, there is no application process for the Charles Ives Living. Academy members nominate candidates who are considered by a panel of composer members. Inaugurated in 1998, the award has previously been granted to Martin Bresnick and Chen Yi. The selected winner is informed by letter.

Speaking from his home on Friday, Hartke said he immediately showed the letter to his wife at work in her studio. As you might expect, his initial reaction to the news was intense. “She says I was vibrating,” he admitted with a laugh.

Hartke is grateful to USC, which he said has been “very generous” about granting him the time off. “They’ve never had to work out a deal for a three-year leave of absence but they were able to come up with something.”

It’s already been a busy year for Hartke. Three different labels have released CDs that feature his work and his Symphony No. 3, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic with the Hilliard Ensemble as soloists, was premiered in September. He is currently at work on Boule de Suif or The Good Whore, commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera and the Institute for American Music of the Eastman School of Music (set for a summer 2006 premiere) and a work for violin and piano commissioned by the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress (scheduled for the 2004-05 season).

“[The award] is of course a tremendous boon in helping with that,” Hartke said. “I guess there’s the issue of other things that can be added to the docket and I’m still in the sort of daydreaming phase. A few other things are in discussion but otherwise I’m open.”

However Hartke chooses to use the time artistically, the selection panel spoke confidently about his abilities. Ezra Laderman, chairman of the committee (which also included Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, Yehudi Wyner, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich— all Academy members) noted in a formal statement: “Stephen Hartke’s magnificent musicality has brought forth a series of exquisitely crafted compositions. As the recipient of the third Charles Ives Living, he is recognized as a composer of unusual gifts that exemplify what is wonderfully exciting about the music being created today.”

Hartke is committed to that work. “I feel certainly that art is an essential part of life,” he explained. “It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it [laughs]. I guess my job is to be true to myself as an artist.”

The award’s link to Charles Ives makes it especially sweet to Hartke. “It’s very special for me to be the beneficiary of this particular award because Ives does mean a lot to me. I’ve been a fan for ages,” he acknowledged, an appreciation dating back as far as his high school days in the ’60s. “There are so many facets to his music. I think that a lot of it is that he has a good time. And the rediscovery of his music reminded us at a time when everyone was so deadly serious that you have an obligation to have a good time.”

Generally a reserved speaker when it comes to his own music, the topic of Ives ignited Hartke to speak at length. “I think your role as an artist is to have a good time and to play and to invite other people into that spirit of play with you. And I think that that’s what Ives does to a large part. Even his more transcendental music also invites you in the same way. His music hit the scene when we were all trying to justify pitches on the basis of a matrix or using procedures to generate pitches. His music was an important wake up call, a reminder that as artists we have a job to do, which is to have a good time.”

Considering Ives’s influence, it seems especially appropriate that Hartke will take up the Charles Ives Living award as commemorations of the 50th anniversary of Charles Ives’s death begin and his work is celebrated across the country.

Is it just me, or does it seem like we are experiencing news déjà vu a lot lately? From Bush at war in the Gulf to Princess Di and Mother Theresa back in the headlines, I’m starting to suspect we’ve slipped through a time warp. The controversy over music in the digital world is also making headlines, though in truth it never left them. Recent weeks have produced several items worthy of note.

Hate the sin not the sinner…

After criticism and a fair share of heckling in the press for suing children and the elderly in an effort to curb illegal downloading, the RIAA is still aggressively pursuing music pirates in and out of court. Their processes of obtaining a subpoena that requires ISPs to identify someone believed to have used the ISP’s services while committing copyright infringement over the Internet has raised privacy protection concerns.

However, RIAA President Cary Sherman is optimistic, commenting that “the music community’s efforts have triggered a national conversation—especially between parents and kids—about what’s legal and illegal when it comes to music on the Internet. In the end it will be decided not in the courtrooms, but at kitchen tables across the country. We are heartened by the response we have seen so far.”

Agree or not, file sharing without the copyright owner’s consent is illegal, but somehow like jaywalking, to many it doesn’t seem really illegal. The Clean Slate Program offers amnesty to peer-to-peer network users who voluntarily identify themselves and pledge to stop illegally sharing music on the Internet. Users must file a form before they are investigated or involved in litigation.

Also, in response to criticism over their tactics, the RIAA now sends letters warning people they are about to be sued and gives them 10 days to make contact and discuss a settlement to avoid formal litigation. Under copyright law, the defendants could face damages that range from $750 to $150,000 for each illegal song. Most settlements, however, have been for less than $5,000.

Whatever headway the strategy is making for the economic good of the artists, it’s definitely alienating segments of the music buying public who are vocally protesting the RIAA’s actions on message boards and in the national press—this from a public already disenchanted with an industry they have long felt overcharges for a product of sometimes questionable quality. Makes you wonder where the high-priced marketing spin is on this one.

Apple to the rescue?

A new hope is perhaps to be found in the form of Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store. Unlike the other subscription services that have tried (and if not failed then not exactly succeeded) to corner the online market over the last year, iTunes has a simple strategy that’s working dramatically in the marketplace—pay 99¢ per song and it’s yours to do with as you (legally) like. Apple reportedly sold 13 million songs in six months—70 percent of all online music sales—even though the service worked only on Macs. The recent launch of a Windows version is already pushing those numbers higher, though skeptics say it still won’t curb illegal file sharing.

Just the facts…

A new consumer report examining the status of online music has been released by Jupiter Research. According to analysts there, music aficionados, who represent 14 percent of the online music audience, spend on average over $30 a month on music and tend to be male, under age 35, and comfortable acquiring and consuming music on the PC. Jupiter suggests that “retailers of music downloads and subscription-based online music products should spend their marketing dollars” here.

CDs remain the dominant revenue generator online, though 23 percent of respondents said they have decreased their spending. On average, both CD purists (11% of the audience) and music aficionados purchase two to three CDs per month. Unsurprisingly, the affluent CD purists (one-quarter of them earn over $100,000 per year) “show little interest in MP3s or file sharing,” but are typically older and “devoted music enthusiasts.”