Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

Founded in 1971, Streetside Records was, for many years, the record store chain in St. Louis, with dozens of locations scattered throughout Missouri and Illinois. The general downturn of music retail coupled by a pair of buyouts (first by New Jersey-based chain CD World, then by retail giant Trans World Entertainment) whittled the number of Streetside locations down to just a handful, but the company's flagship store at 6314 Delmar in the U. City Loop remained a thriving destination. On December 24th, 2007, the store will be closing its doors for good, with the venerable record store being forced out by their landlord to make way for a pair of chain restaurants.

While the Delmar store is not the last Streetside location (the store at 10865 West Florissant in Ferguson remains, as do the locations in Columbia and Kansas City), it is the original Streetside, located just across the street from where the first store opened its doors 36 years ago. The loss of the flagship Streetside store marks a major change in the musical landscape of St. Louis in general and the Loop in particular

"Why do those holiday tunes get stuck in your head so much?" I was invited to pose this question to Dr. Robert Zatorre, Co-Director of the BRAMS: Brain Music and Sound lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University. Dr. Zatorre is a leading expert in neuroscience research on the biological basis of music; if anyone is able to explain why Jingle Bell Rock is haunting me, it's him.

Commonly known as earworms, some songs repeat in our mind. They are "typically annoying," said Dr. Zatorre. We often can't control it, the sounds won't go away, and they loop, repeating a refrain or short segment of music. I asked if earworms are related to symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and he said they are "maybe a mild form of obsessive thoughts" since they are intrusive, but everyone experiences them.

British praise for an American choir is about as rare as German plaudits for Bud Light or French kudos for Kansas quiche.

The choir that international critics have been fawning over lately is not from New York or San Francisco; it’s the combined forces of the Kansas City Chorale and the Phoenix Bach Choir.

The two choirs and conductor Charles Bruffy, artistic director of both, have released three discs on the high-end British label Chandos that have achieved off-the-scale attention.

On Thursday the Grammy committee took note, nominating two of the discs for Grammy Awards in five categories, including best classical album and best choral performance. It is believed to be the first such nominations for a local classical group.