Industry News

Club Date

Florida Atlantic University held its first Hip-Hop Symposium on February 26. Recognizing the popularity of rap music and the growth of hip-hop into a $10 billion industry, the FAU symposium brought together visiting professors and students to discuss the impact of this music on politics and social change.

Recording

Billboard Magazine will now include digital downloads when it calculates weekly top hits.

Peer Impact has reached agreements with all four major record labels (Sony BMG, Universal, Warner, and now EMI) to make their entire catalogs available via legitimate peer-to-peer download.

Sony Ericsson has launched Walkman phones that support most digital formats and has partnered with Sony Group to offer download and streaming services. This is on the heals of Motorola partnering with Apple to launch iTunes-enabled phones. One in ten adults now own portable digital music devices.

Sony BMG has announced that it is making an effort to diversify its revenue streams by branching out into film and television, much like Viacom’s MTV Films.

British start-up Sonaptic, creator of 3D audio technology for the Xbox, have debuted a new line of cell phones in Japan that incorporates three-dimensional sound technology.

Warner Music, a unit of Time Warner selling music through labels including Warner Brothers and Atlantic Records, filed for an initial public offering on March 11. The $750 million raised will be used to reduce debt and for general purposes.

Sirius Satellite and Interscope Geffen A&M Records have entered into an alliance to market and promote artists, which may lead to creation of more satellite radio shows such as the Eminem-produced hip-hip channel on Sirius.

The Manhattan headquarters of The Hit Factory will be closing and moving its operations to its Miami Facility. More and more recordings are taking place in “destination” locations such as Miami, said owners, and competition from home studios, including state-of-the-art facilities built in the homes of recording artists, may also be to blame.

Latin is In

Universal has launched Machete Music, the first Latin urban label fully owned and funded by a major label. Labels are also courting Latinos through technology. Hispanics are more likely to be Internet radio listeners, music downloaders, and even owners of DVD players. Music DVD sales doubled last year, so the major labels have begun marketing the new DualDisc technology to Latinos in hopes of improving their bottom line. The DualDisc is a standard audio CD on one side with a DVD on the flip side which may contain surround sound audio, videos, artist biographies, photos, and more. DualDiscs generally sell for only a few dollars more than regular CDs. The labels may be on to something...preorders for the Dualdisc version of Jennifer Lopez’s new album Rebirth have outnumbered preorders of the regular CD version by three to one.

Symphony

The Cleveland Orchestra will open the new Greater Miami Performing Arts Center in January 2007 with a three-week residency.

The Florida Orchestra (Tampa) has ratified a new three-year contract. The contract calls for increases from wages of $25,120, pension of 4 percent, and a 32 week season to wages of $30,090, pension of 6 percent, and a 34 week season over the life on the contract.

The Miami Symphony has appointed Eduardo Marturet, former conductor with the Venezuelan National Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic, as Associate Principal Conductor. Music Director Manuel Ochoa will continue to conduct, but hopes to partner with Marturet to expand the Miami Symphony into “the Orchestra of Miami.” The orchestra has also hired former Miami-Dade mayor Alex Penelas’ former campaign fundraiser Fred Menachem to be their Director of Development.

The Skylight Opera Theatre (Milwaukee), whose musicians voted for union representation in 2003, has signed its first collective bargaining agreement with AFM Local 8. The contract provides for improved job security and wage increases of 26 percent over three years.

Carnegie Hall has created an annual orchestral residency project that will use the talent and energy of visiting orchestras to reach out to the five boroughs of New York. Planned for 2007 are mentorship with the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, which will play side-by-side with the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as a performance of youngsters dancing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to the accompaniment of the Berlin Phil.

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