Song of the year Grammy award for organ donation: Bonnie Raitt - Just Like That

Stephanie Wang alerts me to the surprising fact that this year's Grammy Award for Song of the Year is Bonnie Raitt's song, Just Like That, about organ donation.  You can listen below (have some tissues handy):

CNN has the story: 

No one was expecting Bonnie Raitt to win Song of the Year, least of all the singer herself By Hafsa Khalil, CNN  February 6, 2023

"Raitt’s winning song, “Just Like That,” is about a woman visited by a man who is only alive because of the heart he received – a heart that had belonged to the woman’s son.

“I was so inspired for this song by the incredible story of the love and the grace and the generosity of someone that donates their beloved’s organs to help another person live and this story was so simple and so beautiful for these times,” Raitt explained in her acceptance speech.

The market for music rights--all Bob Dylan's songs

 The NY Times has the story:

Bob Dylan Sells His Songwriting Catalog in Blockbuster Deal--Universal Music purchased his entire songwriting catalog of more than 600 songs in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of a single act’s publishing rights.  By Ben Sisario

"The deal, which covers Dylan’s entire career, from his earliest tunes to his latest album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” was struck directly with Dylan, 79, who has long controlled the vast majority of his own songwriting copyrights.

"The price was not disclosed, but is estimated at more than $300 million.

...

"Music publishing is the side of the business that deals in the copyrights for songwriting and composition — the lyrics and melodies of songs, in their most fundamental form — which are distinct from those for a recording. Publishers and writers collect royalties and licensing fees any time their work is sold, streamed, broadcast on the radio or used in a movie or commercial. 

...

"Streaming has helped lift the entire music market — publishers in the United States collected $3.7 billion in 2019, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association — which has drawn new investors attracted to the steady and growing income generated by music rights.

"Dylan’s deal includes 100 percent of his rights for all the songs of his catalog, including both the income he receives as a songwriter and his control of each song’s copyright. In exchange for its payment to Dylan, Universal, a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, will collect all future income from the songs."

Organs for sale

 Given the heated discussions and intense repugnance that often accompany questions concerning compensation for organs, you might be surprised to find an American Organ Clearing House  that has a section devoted to Organs for Sale.  

The site appears to get a lot of support from religious institutions

Needless to say, although money plays an important role, this kind of commerce still involves a good deal of matching.

"There is more to placing a pipe organ than checking physical dimensions. We will work with you to choose an instrument appropriate for the acoustics, liturgy, and other activities of your church."

Collaborations that went sour: Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon

A recent interview in The Telegraph sheds light on how a wonderful collaboration can be remembered with bitterness if one collaborator feels overshadowed by the other. In this case, Art Garfunkel complains about the songwriter singer Paul Simon, with whom he became famous when they, and I, were young...

Art Garfunkel on Paul Simon: 'I created a monster' -- Forty-five years after Simon & Garfunkel split up, the singer is still consumed with bitterness

Every unhappy collaboration is different, but you see these things in academia too from time to time.

Vacancy chains and reneging on / recontracting for arrangements for musical performances

Different markets have different cultures regarding how binding are different kinds of arrangements reached far in advance. A recent fall by an orchestra conductor, which forced him to withdraw, casts some light on the classical music biz: Maestro’s Injury Ignites Game of Musical Chairs

"The effects of James Levine’s accident this month and his replacement as conductor at the Metropolitan Opera have rippled across two continents. There is rage in Rome and vexation in Vienna. Genoese music lovers have been deprived of a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. At an opera house in Essen, Germany, unsung assistant conductors and a British import get to shine. Even student musicians at U.C.L.A. are affected; a famous maestro had to postpone a concert with them.

"The Met called on Mr. Levine’s standby and heir apparent as music director, Fabio Luisi, to replace him. That caused Mr. Luisi to cancel engagements next month in Rome, Genoa, Vienna and San Francisco. Substitutes for Mr. Luisi had to be found, and in some cases Mr. Luisi’s subs needed subs.

"The Tetris-like sequence of events also served as a vivid example of how haphazard classical music marquees can be: star singers, soloists and conductors come and go with regularity because of sickness or better opportunities, despite their long-term billing. Usually it’s done in a spirit of mutual back scratching and gentility. Sometimes protocol breaks down, as in this case, with public criticism from music officials in Rome and Vienna.

"Mr. Levine, who has suffered a series of physical ailments, needed emergency surgery after falling while on vacation in Vermont and will be out at least until January, the Met said. Mr. Luisi, who held the title of principal guest conductor, was instantly upgraded to principal conductor. He arrived on Sept. 11 and began rehearsals the next day. He will conduct various performances of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Wagner’s “Siegfried” through Nov. 5.

"The first casualty of Mr. Luisi’s Met engagement was a new production of “Elektra” at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, which issued a blistering statement saying that Mr. Luisi’s abandonment of his obligations on such short notice was a “regrettable matter” that had harmed the world of classical music. The house threatened unspecified action, possibly legal. Mr. Luisi was to have conducted five performances there.

"In defense of Mr. Luisi, Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the Italian opera scene was notoriously unstable. “Italian companies cancel right and left,” he said. “They of all people should understand that certain situations arise.”

"The Rome company hired Stefan Soltesz, the general and artistic director of the opera house in Essen, Germany, who himself proceeded to cancel appearances at his own house to make time for Rome. Mr. Soltesz, a Strauss expert who has conducted five productions of “Elektra,” said he took the Rome job because he admired the production’s director, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, and viewed the Rome opera as on the upswing.

"Mr. Soltesz wanted to keep his options open for freelancing, a spokesman said.

"Mr. Soltesz, 62, said he had no qualms about bowing out of duties in Essen, where he conducts an enormous number of performances: up to 70 a year. He also drew a distinction between taking leave from his own house and cancelling a guest appearance, as Mr. Luisi did.


“In Essen I make the programs,” he said. “I am the boss there. It’s a big difference.” Mr. Soltesz said he would never cancel one guest appearance for another.

"In Essen, a respected German opera house, two staff conductors, Wolfram-Maria Märtig and Volker Perplies, will take over two free concerts that Mr. Soltesz was to have conducted and two performances of “Madama Butterfly.” They will also run rehearsals for the forthcoming “Tales of Hoffmann.”

"Michael Francis, a 35-year-old Briton who has made last-minute rescues a specialty, will conduct two symphony concerts on Sept. 29 and 30, giving up time he had planned to devote to studying scores. A conductor is still being sought for the opening night of “The Flying Dutchman” on Oct. 8.

"Mr. Luisi also canceled concerts with his own orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, where he holds the title of chief conductor. He was to have led performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 on Oct. 12, 13 and 14 at the fabled Musikverein. The symphony has borne the brunt of Mr. Luisi’s Met substitutions. It had to replace him several times last season when he filled in for Mr. Levine.

“It’s practically becoming routine,” said Thomas Angyan, the artistic and executive director of the Musikverein, where the symphony often plays. Mr. Angyan never has trouble finding someone to conduct at the Musikverein, he said, and within a day or two he engaged the veteran German conductor Lothar Zagrosek, who has long experience in Vienna.

HT: Muriel Niederle

The market for musicians (in top orchestras)

Need a Job? Help Wanted at the N.Y. Philharmonic . These posts, naturally, are rarefied and have little to do with the normal job picture nationwide. But the number of openings prompts the question of why so many spots stand vacant in a market glutted with talented musicians looking to move up to better orchestras or just to find jobs.

"The economy has had an effect. It is cheaper to leave jobs unfilled and to pay substitutes, who usually receive close to the minimum base pay and fewer benefits. Starting salaries at the 10 top-paying orchestras next season range from $101,600 (Minnesota) to $136,500 (Los Angeles), but principal players can earn two or three times that.

“It happens that you do save money,” Mr. Mehta acknowledged, but he said the lingering vacancies in New York were not cost-saving measures."...

"The elaborate logistical demands of orchestral auditions cause delays. First auditions are advertised. Then time must pass for applicants to send in résumés and tapes and practice the assigned excerpts from the orchestral literature. A committee of players, usually in the section, has to be formed, and preliminary rounds of auditions have to be scheduled. After the finalists are chosen, a time must be found when the busy music director and committee members can hear them. The process can easily stretch out for many months.

"Often no winner is chosen. That happened last year with the Philharmonic’s principal clarinet job. Two rounds of auditions for associate principal horn player and a double bassist also produced no result. The music director in New York has final say but makes the decision in consultation with the committee.

"The Boston Symphony usually has a high number of openings, because the demands on the players — the Tanglewood festival, the Boston Pops and regular concerts — make scheduling auditions especially difficult, as does the orchestra’s system of hiring based on a two-thirds majority in committee.

"The finest musician can have a bad day: it’s a paradox of the process, in which less than an hour of playing is supposed to determine whether a musician is suitable for the continual day in, day out life of an orchestra member. And in another contradiction, the aspirants play alone for a job that depends on group effort. (Winners are usually on probation for a year or two, effectively a tryout with the ensemble.) On occasion, when no winner is chosen, established orchestral players from elsewhere will be invited to play as guests in a kind of informal tryout. It’s an imperfect system, but no one has figured out a better one."

The orchestra audition process is the topic of the paper"Orchestrating Impartiality: The Effect of 'Blind' Auditions on Female Musicians" by Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse American Economic Review (September 2000)

Market for recorded music

Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic
"Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones. "

"At the Warner Music Group, Atlantic’s parent company, digital represented 27 percent of its American recorded-music revenue during the fourth quarter. (Warner does not break out financial data for its labels, but Atlantic said that digital sales accounted for about 51 percent of its revenue.)
With the milestone comes a sobering reality already familiar to newspapers and television producers. While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast. Analysts at Forrester Research estimate that music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year. That compares with $14.6 billion in 1999, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs — and usher in overall growth — have largely been dashed....
Instead, the music industry is now hoping to find growth from a variety of other revenue streams it has not always had access to, like concert ticket sales and merchandise from artist tours. “The real question,” Mr. Rose said, “is how does the record industry change its rights structure so it captures a fairer percent of the value it creates in funding, marketing and managing the launch of artists?” "

In related news, a Boston judge has thrown out a suit by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) against Boston U., seeking to subpoena IP addresses at which illegal downloads may have been made, on the grounds that
"The University has adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty. As a result, the Court finds that compliance with the subpoena as to the IP addresses represented by these Defendants would expose innocent parties to intrusive discovery."

Market for online music

The Digital Media Association announces a new agreement on how to pay royalties for music that is heard but not saved.