Passionato - one of The Guardian’s Top 100 websites for the Year Ahead

Posted by Carrie Ann under Guardian Top 100 Websites, Passionato, Uncategorized

Passionato is proud to have been recognised by The Guardian as one of the Top 100 websites for the Year Ahead -Top 6 for music sites! (Thursday 18th Dec 2008)

It’s a great accolade for a brand new company and one that raises expectations of what we can achieve. But we’re aiming high!

Just one of the many new technological developments on the horizon is a new Player designed especially with the Classical music fan in mind. Watch this space for news on that. We’re also constantly aiming to bring our customers better value so we’ve introduced several money-saving offers, such as 50% off Universal Duos, 50% off EMI Classics for Pleasure and LSO Live MP3s from £4.99. We’re also adding more labels to the site all the time such as LSO Live and the LPO labels.

We realise that there’s lots of hard work ahead if we’re to meet the high expectations of Classical music lovers but we’re excited by the challenge and feel sure you’re going to love some of the new developments that’ll be happening soon.

All the best for 2009!

Progress at Passionato

Posted by James under Classical Music, Great Conductors, Uncategorized, Zoe Martlew

We have made a lot of progress at Passionato in the last few weeks that I would like to tell you, our customers, about. First of all, we have been doing a lot of work refining our search capabilities. You should see a greatly improved search function; if you don’t, please comment at the end of this blog. (In fact, feel free to comment about anything at the end of this blog!) Second, we have improved the ‘browse’ function. That’s the bar at the top that says ‘Catalogue’ (you can also access this feature from the grey bar after ‘full catalogue’ just above the three album covers). Here you can browse by time period, composer, label–any way that classical music lovers like to look at their music.

We also put in a download manager. This enables you to download all the tracks in an album at once, rather than clicking on each individual track. We actually had a download manager when we launched in September, but we had to design a new one, since the rush of visitors to our site exceeded our estimates, and the download manager imploded.

We have lots of new plans for the site. Tell us what you think of the ones I’ve mentioned above, or suggest new ones.

LSO & Colin Davis Rehearsal - Sep 10th 2008

Posted by Tony Coro under Uncategorized

Went to a rehearsal this morning to watch Colin Davis conducting the LSO at St Luke’s for a forthcoming concert at the Barbican (24th September, if you’re wondering). I’ve never seen an orchestra rehearsing before and it’s quite something.

The first surprise is that when you walk in they’re making a terrible din as they’re all tuning and limbering up to different bits of music - either that or they were getting a sneaky practise of some Stockhausen in. Obviously, too, they’re all wearing jeans, drinking coffee from Starbucks and generally looking alarmingly like any old group of Creative Media types having a staff meeting. Colin Davis, wearing a cool grey suit, was sitting on a stool at the front with his eyes shut like some Egyptian Pharaoh while the room about him degenerated into a cacophony that would have done a schoolband proud.

Suddenly at ten ‘o’ clock Sir Colin wakes up, claps his hands and a dread hush fills the room. With a quick smile, a ‘Let’s take it from 18′ and a deep breath he leads the Orchestra into Vaughan Williams’ 4th Symphony. Within seconds he’s waving dejectedly at the first violins and the orchestra grinds to a halt. He genially tells them off for some missed quavers and off they go again. A weary look at the first violins developed into something of a theme throughout the rehearsal, sometimes being replaced by a cross tap of the baton on the score or, at one apex of despair, with a complete sinking of the head into hands. Generally though the orchestra were quite well behaved and required just some gentle prodding with their timing. You had to feel sorry for the Tuba player though, who made all the considerable effort of putting the mute into his instrument just as the interval was called.

The second half was a quick-run through of Mozart’s Symphony No.38, which involved much shushing from Sir Colin (again mainly directed at the first violins) and a really troublesome section involving quavers that resulted in the conductor explaining to his musicians how not to be stick insects. I’m not entirely sure the orchestra followed him on that one. Finally they went through The Lark Ascending which led inadvertently to the highlight of the entertainment - namely the percussion. One poor guy, looking really bored, had to sit through the whole of the Mozart with nothing to play. Then he had wait till halfway through The Lark Ascending just to tap the triangle six times - never have I seen the instrument hit with such pent-up emotion. Once relieved of his frustration he immediately grabbed his coffee and left the room. It’s a tough life being an orchestral musician.

It was great to watch a conductor at work and to see just how important the conductor is to the orchestra. He dictated everything (in a very nice way of course because he is Colin Davis, after all). There was a real sense of the music being developed and of the subtelties involved in the performance. Apart from anything else it was good to see the conductor’s face for a change instead of the usual back of the receded hairline. An orchestra in rehearsal was a real eye-opening experience and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s watched Maestro and is still confused about exactly what a conductor does. And, judging by the form they were in during the reheasal (even the first violins got the hang of it in the end), it should be a cracking concert at the Barbican on the 24th. Try here lso.co.uk for more info.

Placido Domingo vs Ming the Merciless - Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony BBC1

Posted by Tony Coro under Uncategorized

Good to see Classical music being thrown at the global masses again at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony. After Lang Lang’s bizarre duet with a baby non-piano-playing Chinese clone at the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony featured Placido Domingo battling it out with a beautiful Chinese folk singer, Song Zuying, who was unfortunately attired in a Ming the Merciless style outfit complete with outrageously large collar. Quite what they were singing escapes me now, so dazzled to distraction as I was by Ming’s effervescent frock. Domingo, dressed like he’d been told he was performing just two minutes beforehand, nevertheless had a good old bash at the tune and, in all fairness, they didn’t make too bad a vocal pairing. Can’t wait to see them together in the revival of Damon Albarn’s ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’.

Not to be outdone by Domingo at the closing ceremony David Beckham brought along his own personal string duo to entertain the world atop a fungus-infected London bus. They played, not quite sure what they played actually, but that’s not the point; they were young, energetic, attractive and the female violinist was wearing some very short shorts indeed. Bravo!

Maestro BBC2 Episode 1

Posted by Slicer under Proms, Uncategorized

I am writing this article a couple of days late… I’ve been busy. But did you manage to catch the first episode of Maestro on Tuesday evening (12Aug08)? I don’t want to start a debate on the over-saturation of reality TV based shows, or on the definition of ‘celebrity’ in 2008, or for that matter the size of Maestro presenter Clive Anderson’s forehead. What I do want to say is how much I thoroughly enjoyed the show.

The format for Maestro is quite simple: Eight celebrities will spend the summer training in the ancient, revered and mysterious art of conducting with one participant voted off each week by a panel of leading international musician judges led by Sir Roger Norrington, who conducts this years Last Night of the Proms. The winner will then get to perform live in front of 30k people at Proms In The Park in Hyde Park, Sept 13^th, marking the end of the Proms 2008.

There is no doubt Maestro is going to be a great amount of fun, “All you have to do is wave your hands around in the air” said one celeb. I was in fits of laughter watching the antics of the 8 celebrities as they tried to get to grips with conducting for the first time. The footage of the celebrities in training is entertainment enough but it is the actual performances that make the show. Bradley Walsh’s Thunderbrows; Sue Perkins’ Windmills; The physical agony etched across David Soul’s face; Alex James’ ‘gasp of breath’; Katie Derham’s wiggling derriere; and who could forget Peter Snow’s so surprisingly utter incompetence – I doubt the old man could keep time with a metronome.

There is potential in the group, actress Jane Asher is fiercely determined behind the glittering smile… and capable. Comedienne Sue Perkins could make an impact. But it is surely DJ and Drum&Bass artist Goldie that will be the star of the show. He has natural rhythm and beat; an inventive musical brain; fearless character; and a real passion for music that I think will take him all the way to Proms In The Park. To check out his masterful performance click here

The judges are quite interesting too. Norrington assumes the Lloyd Webber role whilst there is no doubt Zoe Martlew is pitched as the Simon Cowell of the group - we can expect some sharp comments from her in forthcoming weeks. Dominic Seldis made a couple of quite chauvinistic remarks that will not have endeared him to the PC brigade or BBC Complaints Team but he’ll get away with a slapped wrist. Simone Young needs to impose herself more.

So yes I think Maestro will be fun and entertaining but more importantly I think it will offer classical and non-classical fans alike a fascinating insight into the secret world of conducting, the immense reality of bringing a piece of music to life, and the extraordinary relationship that exists between a conductor and their orchestra. I hope the show will do for classical music what ‘Any Dream Will Do’ ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria’ and ‘I’d Do Anything’ have done for interest and particularly sales of West End Musical tickets and recordings.

I will be watching every episode of Maestro and blogging my thoughts right here so stay tuned… or tell me if you think I am wrong?

Follow me on twitter

Posted by James under Uncategorized

If you want to see what I’m doing follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com, name jglicker. Interesting concept, I don’t know where it ultimately leads……

Why I started Passionato………………….

Posted by James under Uncategorized

As a classical aficionado, I was frustrated by the way the big digital companies treated classical. FIrst, they had sub-standard sound qualtiy . The 128kbps AAC format that Apple uses is not really high fidelity-it’s closer to FM radio quality than CD quality. In designing Passionato, we believe to present the only Classical site that has most of its titles in both 320 kpbs MP3 and in lossless FLAC. Our 320 kbpsMP3’s increase fidelity by over double that of ITunes.

Second these other services present limited data on each recording. Do I want the 1955 Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations or the one from the 80s? We will launch with more data than anyone, but it will take a while to get ito all of it d isplayed properly.I will keep you posted.

Third, these other stores don’t offer an ‘Editorial Point-of-View. When I come to a classical store, I want some information from the experts. And we will offer a suprising number of these. But we will also have our own take on whethere a performance is sublime– or crap.

Fourth, they don’t have the ability to search and browse. With our specialized browse tool (located in the gray bar with the first entry being ‘composer’ in the middle-left) you can search by various fields (time period, composer, etc) to give you the finest classical recording browse on the planet.

Fifth, and I think this is the most important, they have limited community functions. We offer ratings, reviews, blogs, and forums. And in the future we’ll offer video blogging, wiki consumer-generated artist and composer pages, and much more.

I hope your’e as excited as I am about Passionato. Feel free to give me your feedback.