10/9/16
I. DOJ RULING: WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
II. WHAT’S LOST WHEN POPS ORCHESTRAS TAP POP CULTURE
III. EVENTS
…Absolutely guaranteed anonymity – Former Musician’s Union officer
…The one voice of reason in a sea of insanity – Nashville ‘first call’ scoring musician
…Allows us to speak our minds without fear of reprisal – L.A. Symphonic musician
…Reporting issues the Musicians Union doesn’t dare to mention – National touring musician
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I. DOJ RULING: WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
A couple of Tuesdays ago the SCL (Society of Composers and Lyricists)
hosted a meeting at the Crest in Westwood to discuss the recent
DOJ Ruling. What follows are notes taken at the meeting.
ON THE OVERTURNING OF THE DOJ RULING
THE DOJ RULING: BMI Prevailed,… What Happens Now
September 20th, 2016 – 6pm
CREST THEATER
Panalists:
1) Ashley Erwin – Pres. SCL
2) Todd Brabec
3) Michael Eames
4) Garry Schyman
5) Charles J. Sanders
BMI went to get an extension on the DOJ ruling to keep it
from being put in force, but the court came up with a decision….
And overturned the earlier decision in BMI’s favor.
CONSENT DECREE
SOME HISTORY
1917 – ASMAC created
1949 – BMI created
1930’s – Government looked at ASCAP’s actions. ASCAP’s
POWER WAS HUGE
1941 – both ASCAP / BMI put under decrees that limits
how they operate.
ASCAP had EXCLUSIVE rights to their members. Sign
with them, only THEY can license your work.
BMI – Was the same deal.
Have been amendments over the decades.
ASCAP / BMI – had to treat similarly positioned composers alike.
Court in 1950 – ASCAP must have a rate court in case writer and others cannot
agree on a rate.
1994 – BMI created a rate court.
Different judges for each organization.
Gives users and pros a recourse if they cannot agree on a fee.
They have interim fees.
In most cases interim rate is very low.
2001 Decree – Sped up some of the rate courts.
Millions of dollars spent on these rate courts.
Since the online world came in – ALL THE SERVICES have
gone to rate court to cut down on the fees to be paid.
PANDORA was the first case where they got a decent rate.
Consent decree is 75 years old.
Composers are the least represented of all artists.
If record company owns the publisher, they try for the lowest
fee possible. (If there was no floor, the rate would be zero)
Companies want a universal one-size-fits-all rate.
Full work licensing – Is it a buyout? Who gets the benefit?
DOJ was asked by those who want to deflect from having to
pay fair royalties.
Theory of why it came up – Who ran the investigation?
Someone from silicone valley who used to work for Google
as an anti-trust counsel.
No longer talking about changing consent, now talking
about FULL WORK LICENSING.
Cannot get back to talking about changing consent until
we’re done talking about full work licensing. After this is
done we’re back to where we started. The full work licensing
has been a very effective delaying tactic.
Consent decrees artificially suppress fair royalty fees.
We went asking for relieve from consent decree, and the
DOJ went after another angle. (Full Work Licensing)
During Pandora Case –
Big publishers wanted to withdraw part of their works
from the online world only.
ASCAP/BMI wanted to bundle rights.
ASCAP/BMI wanted to replace rate court with an arbitration.
DOJ asked for comments
Amenable to bundling
Amenable to partial work withdrawal
Totally against replacing the rate court.
How is the WFH creator’s relationship with a publisher
different to that of a traditional songwriter.
How would full work licensing affect WFH composers and
songwriters.
Employee and independent contractors, both have rights.
Composers inhabit a third category.
Employees: Collective bargaining – salary, working conditions
Independent contractors: allows ownership, no benefits.
Composers: Considered to be Independent Contractors by NLRB
Work for Hire was created in the 1976 copyright act.
Employer took ownership of the music. Composer sued.
It led to the dissolution of the composers union.
Certificate of authorship – grants ownership to the studio –
composers become in effect an employee without any of
the benefits. Composers are allowed to collect 50% of the
fees collected, representing the “Writer’s Share”.
What we want – Writer’s Share included in statue of the law.
Writer’s share does not appear in any statute. We want it
incorporated into copyright law.
We all reach out to local representatives. SCL will come up
with a letter to send.
SONA – Songwriters of North America – Sued to give voice to
the songwriter in this fight. Found pro-bono lawyers.
Everyone in Washington needs to see that these actions are
affecting the smallest of the smallest business owners.
SONA Suing the DOJ saying it has hurt their property rights.
Hard to get congress members to understand what’s at stake
and the subtleties of copy write law.
Meeting Adjourned
[EC: If anyone finds this synopsis incomplete or incorrect,
please send in your corrections and we’ll be more than happy
to include it in the next blog.]
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II. WHAT’S LOST WHEN POPS ORCHESTRAS TAP POP CULTURE
New York Times August 24th, 2016
by Brian Wise
Tchaikovsky’s bombastic “1812 Overture” has been a staple of the Boston Pops’ Fourth of July concert since 1974, when the famed Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler added it — complete with cannon blasts and church bells — to lift attendance. It became the traditional lead-in to the fireworks display over the Charles River.
But that changed over the past decade, as CBS began broadcasting the show and the “1812 Overture” was moved earlier in the evening, before the nationally televised portion began. The prime-time pyrotechnics this year instead used hits by Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and others as a soundtrack. Some traditionalists took to social media to vent their dismay.
“Nice they let the Pops play ONE song at their own concert,” one viewer wrote in a sarcastic tweet, adding, “And #1812Overture relegated to commercial break.”
“For first time in 40 years #BostonPops doesn’t play 1812 Overture, opting instead for crass top-40 dreck. Pathetic sellout,” another wrote on Twitter.
“I agree with a lot of that reaction,” Keith Lockhart, the orchestra’s conductor since 1995, said in an interview. “The network has very specific ideas about the demographic that they want to attract, which may not jibe with our ideas about the demographic that is going to get the most out of this, and have the best relationship with the Boston Pops.”
There is a fundamental challenge facing pops orchestras and series, which tend to have audiences older than classical ones. As music directors and administrators try various approaches to connect with new audiences — adding film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, video game soundtracks, theatrical circus spectacles and 1990s rock acts — are they abandoning the large repertory that drew many listeners in the first place?
What is disappearing, some say, are the light classics that once were staples of mainstream classical concerts that, around the middle of the last century, migrated to pops: Rossini overtures, Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsodies,” Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome,” Bach transcriptions and other colorful showpieces.
“If you’re going to do a Mahler symphony as the centerpiece of a concert,” said John Mauceri, the founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, “you don’t have any room for von Suppé or Offenbach.”
The average age of a Boston Pops subscriber is 55 — compared with 48 for subscribers to its parent ensemble, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Pops has been turning more and more to headliners with multigenerational appeal, such as the comedian and singer Seth MacFarlane and contestants from “Dancing With the Stars.” Last week, the St. Louis Symphony followed orchestras in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, by booking the rapper Nelly. The National Symphony Orchestra has drawn much attention for performances with Kendrick Lamar and Nas: far from fluffy Strauss waltzes.
“There’s kind of a lost repertoire,” Mr. Lockhart said. “As pops orchestras have begun to chase an increasingly nonclassical audience, that material is woefully underrepresented in a lot of places. It’s even represented less here than it was when I first started,” he said, referring to the Boston Pops.
These changes have decades-old roots. In 2004, Henry Fogel, then president of the League of American Orchestras, wrote an article for the league’s Symphony magazine documenting the fading of once-popular works like Smetana’s tone poem “The Moldau” and Chabrier’s flamenco-tinged “España.” Comparing classical subscription programs of six major American orchestras from the early 1920s through 2001, he showed how light classics had nearly disappeared by 1960.
“The development of pops as a separate thing actually hurt orchestras,” Mr. Fogel said in a telephone interview. “It tended to remove some of the music whose principal reason for existence is pure entertainment.” He placed some of the blame on music critics, who often dismissed tuneful pieces like Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies, and on conductors, who were afraid of being branded as mere entertainers.
Some orchestras devoted to pops, including the New York Pops and Cincinnati Pops, continue to mix light classics with American songbook standards and film music. But others, like the Philly Pops, have abruptly changed course. When Michael Krajewski became that ensemble’s music director in 2013, he jettisoned light classics for pop- and rock-themed programs, which this season will include tributes to the Beatles and 1970s arena bands. Sarah Maiellano, a spokeswoman for the Philly Pops, credited this overhaul with a 64 percent increase in subscriptions since 2014. Concerts at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia sold at 96 percent capacity last season.
A similar tactic has been used at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which has a history of championing contemporary American music. Last year, its pops series sold at 85 percent capacity, compared with 73 percent for its classical series; orchestra officials partly credit the higher pops sales to headliners such as the country band Alabama.
“Pops is a way to bring in money, but we also look at it as a way to bring in new audiences,” said Larry Tucker, the orchestra’s vice president for artistic administration, who has a lead role in overseeing concert programming. (Research from the League of American Orchestras shows that audiences seldom cross over from pops to classical concerts, but pops concerts, which involve fewer rehearsals, are known to subsidize classical series.)
The New York Philharmonic is one of several major orchestras without a pops series, though its Summertime Classics concerts, which ran from 2004 to 2014, harkened back to the Fiedler model of pops repertory. The series was discontinued not because of poor ticket sales but because of touring obligations, said Edward Yim, the Philharmonic’s vice president for artistic planning, who works with the music director Alan Gilbert to plan concerts. “It would be nice to see some of that repertoire sprinkled throughout our main subscription series,” he added. “Not every subscription concert, week in and week out, should be so deadly serious.”
The Philharmonic has drawn large audiences by showing films with live accompaniment; popular performances in May of Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Disney’s “Fantasia: Live in Concert” were added after the season had already begun. The orchestra has started to spin off touring editions of films from its Art of the Score series, renting the production elements to other orchestras.
The pilot installment, “On the Waterfront,” featuring a score by Leonard Bernstein, had its premiere in New York last September and will be presented this season by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. A similar distribution strategy is planned for a restored version of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” its soundtrack dotted with brassy Gershwin melodies that will be conducted by Mr. Gilbert on Sept. 16 and 17 at David Geffen Hall.
As these film programs multiply (current favorites of concert presenters include “Home Alone” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” according to the online directory Movies in Concert), conductors and artistic administrators say they struggle to find room for the traditional light orchestral numbers. But Steven Reineke, the National Symphony’s principal pops conductor, doesn’t plan to abandon those older pops staples. “To play those types of pieces as preludes or interspersed throughout the programming,” he said, “I don’t see them disappearing.”
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III. EVENTS
DEAN AND RICHARD DEAN AND RICHARD are now at Culver City Elks
the first Friday of every month.
7:30pm-10;30pm,
11160 Washington Pl.
Culver City, 90232
310-839-8891
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LA WINDS JAZZ KATS 584
NO COVER, NO MINIMUM.
Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at Viva Cantina
7:30-10:00. 900 Riverside Drive, Burbank.
Free parking across the street at Pickwick Bowl.
Come hear your favorite charts played the way they
should be. We are in the back room called the
Trailside Room. Come on down. Guaranteed to swing.
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10/19/16
On Wednesday October 19, 2016 at 12:10-12:40 pm
the Free Admission Glendale Noon Concerts will feature
the Jung Trio performing
Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, Op.100,
at the Sanctuary of Glendale City Church,
610 E. California Ave. (at Isabel St), Glendale, CA 91206.
For more information, email [email protected]
or call (818) 244- 7241.
The Jung Trio.
Jennie Jung – piano
Ellen Jung – violin
Julie Jung –cello
Artist website: https://jungtrio.wordpress.com
Free Admission Glendale Noon Concerts series
(concerts every first & third Wednesday at 12:10-12:40 pm)
are listed at http://www.glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com
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11/19/16 SFV Symphony Orchestra Nov. 19, 2016 – Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center Bizet: Carmen Suite #1 Bizet: Symphony in C major Fernandez: Oboe Concerto Francisco Castillo, oboist Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, 1st mvt. Thompson Wang, violinist Contact: Roberta Hoffman, publicist ([email protected]) www.sfvsymphony.com Program information:
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Other concerts in the series
Jan. 21, 2017 – Tutor Family Center at Chaminade West Hills
Schumann: Manfred Overture
Mendelssohn: Symphony #3 in A minor (Scottish)
Belling: Music Madly Makes the World Go Round
Inaugural Performance
Cary Belling, violinist
Mar. 18, 2017 – Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center
Tuttle: By Steam or By Dream Overture
Inaugural Performance
Prokofiev: Symphony #1 in D major (Classical)
Ben-Haim: Pastorale Variée for Clarinet, Harp and Strings
Geoff Nudell, clarinetist
Beethoven: Romance for Violin and Orchestra
Domine: Frankenstein Fantasy
Ruth Bruegger, violinist
May 13, 2017 – Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center
Saint-Saens: Bacchanale from “Samson and Delilah”
Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C major
Egizi: Orchestral Suite “In Memoria di Mio Padre”
Inaugural Performance
Programs subject to change
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You can read all previous offerings at:
http://www.responsible47.com
UNTIL NEXT TIME,
THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47