OPERA America Headline RSS Feed

Build a Killer Website: 19 Dos and Don'ts

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

At bottom your website is a marketing tool. For many businesses, it’s the only source of business. If done right, it can be a major part of yours.

Here’s my quick-hit list of the top dos and don’ts before you get started.

Tips, Tricks, and Strategy for Using Google Adwords: a Non-Technical Guide

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There has been a lot of controversy over the past couple of weeks concerning Google's new privacy policies. No matter how they change, Google is the largest, most powerful advertising system in the world. Have you ever wondered how ads show up next to your search results? How do they choose what ads you'll see? Most importantly, how can you get your organization in front of potential audience members' based on their search results?

Happy Birthday to: Martina Arroyo

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ms. Martina was born in New York City on this day in 1937. The younger of two children of Demetrio Arroyo, an immigrant from Puerto Rico, and Lucille Washington, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, Ms. Martina enjoyed much success as a soprano - but, it might not have been.

Fort Worth Opera Extends Darren Woods' Contract

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Fort Worth Opera has announced that the contract for General Manager Darren Woods have been extended for two years, meaning he'll be there at least through June 2018. And that's a good thing, because Woods has brought some positive changes to the organization, notably proving that you can get crowds for new and less often-produced opera.

Houston Grand Opera goes through three tenors in La Traviata: Day saved with little rehearsal

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

As they say, the show must go on.

Four Music Entrepreneurs: How do they do it?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This wonderful group of artists showed that it is indeed possible to make one’s way in the world as a musician, and that there are many different paths to creating career success. Here are some of the top lessons that I gleaned from their remarks, which center on the themes of knowing your mission and purpose, proactively creating your own opportunities and making your luck happen, nurturing relationships, taking risks, maintaining high standards and working hard at your career development.

Growing Pains

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There is such a thing as reaching for the next rung of the career ladder too early, as in the case of the over-eager self-promoting student, or buying a lot of expensive printing equipment when you print out only a few scores each year. Yet there comes a time for every composer when one must either expand or else stifle development: when works are receiving some performances but there’s nowhere online for someone to listen to or purchase the composer’s music, or when it’s time to create a separate checking account just for composing travel and expenses. It seems to me that there are paths that overemphasize each extreme—pushing to expand too rapidly when it is not helpful, or failing to make the necessary changes and investments when old ways are holding us back. Composers would do well to stay attentive to their own needs right now, and not what their peers, friends, and competitors are doing.

What the music industry needs to do with the classical renaissance

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

We're currently seeing a melding of genres and a breaking of boundaries across the music world. This recent trend – listeners moving to the avant garde after they start demanding more from the mainstream– has long been acknowledged within pop. In recent years, mainstream pop artists have even started adopting aspects of the avant garde in their search for fresh output: it's a dialogue that has benefited artists, labels and listeners alike. Up until now the implications for former "niche" genres – classical, jazz, world – have been largely overlooked. In a world where listeners no longer define themselves along firm genre lines, music is increasingly just that – music. As a result, we are now witnessing a musician-led movement gleefully adopted by listeners, in which classical is being rebranded from the ground up. Even the term "classical" itself seems obsolete in the face of what's being produced and consumed.

Spain crisis hits Barcelona opera house

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Barcelona's renowned Liceu opera house says it must cancel shows and close its doors for two months because of the economic crisis hitting Spain.

The theater says in a statement it is running a deficit of euro3.7 million ($4.87 million) following cutbacks in government subsidies and a drop in sponsorship.

Songwriter Royalties and Digital Retailers

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

If you’ve ever looked at who gets paid (and how) in the digital music space, you may have walked away dizzy. The two copyrights in music — sound recording and composition — wend their way through the marketplace in lots of curious ways. For us, the most important thing is how revenue manages to get back to the actual musicians and songwriters. As convoluted as things can be in the US, the picture is even more complicated in other countries.