T.H.E. Show in Southern California in June – The Home Entertainment Show, which has been held each January concurrent with the giant CES Show in Las Vegas, is now also scheduled for June 3 thru 5 at the Hilton Hotel, Irvine in Newport Beach, CA. The location is across the street from the John Wayne/Orange County airport. Expanding on other high-end interests, the show will include a classic car show and a Spirits and Jazz concert every evening. The T.H.E. Show is being produced in conjunction with the world’s largest audio club, The LA/Orange County Audio Society, which boasts 750 members. There will be over 100 separate exhibit rooms where attendees can actually listen and experience AV products in an uninterrupted and controlled atmosphere. Hourly seminars on audio and home theater from the early days to now will include iPod, iPad, streaming music and more. Such topics as “the difference between a $500 speaker and a $50,000 one” will be discussed. Official sponsors include the leading audio and home theater print magazines. For details: www.theshownewport.com
Universal Music Launches Groovetown for Hi-Res Music – Universal Music Group Distribution announces the launch of Groovetown Vinyl, a new online storefront specializing in high-quality audio products for discerning music fans. The site will offer lossless audio FLAC files bundled together with collectible vinyl releases at a discounted price, and is directed to all types of consumers – the audiophile, the technologist, and the true music aficionado. A Universal spokesman said “Music fans have fallen in love all over again with the vinyl experience, from the packaging to the distinctive sound to the collectability, and the FLAC files provide the ease of digital listening without any of the sacrifice that normally accompanies digitally-compressed audio files.” The site offers a 15% discount and free shipping on transactions over $50.
Death of Sony Chairman Who Developed CDs – Sony has announced the death of their former president and chairman Norio Ohga, who as a young man had written to Sony complaining about the quality of its tape recorders. His love of music shaped the development of the compact disc and made the Japanese electronics firm into a global software and entertainment empire. He insisted the new digital disc be designed to hold at least 75 minutes worth of music, in order to store his favorite: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In the 1970s Ohga said CDs would eventually replace vinyl albums, but skeptics scoffed. He also played a key role in the introduction of the Walkman in 1979, and MiniDisc in 1992 and SACD in 1999. In 1993 he established Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., which produced the PlayStation. Ohga, who had started as an opera singer, never lost his love of music. He was a guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony, The Boston Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Met Opera Orchestra. He had retired from Sony’s board in 2003 and died at age 81.
Composer Peter Lieberson Dies at 64 – Searching and inventive American composer Peter Lieberson died last Saturday. He had been a voice among composers seeking to create a more accessible and lyrical sound than the standard serialized academic approach. His first Piano Concerto brought him to prominence and in the last decade of his life he wrote many vocal works. His wife, mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, had died of breast cancer in 2006.