2003 in music

Specific locations

• 2003 in British music
• 2003 in Irish music
• 2003 in Norwegian music
• 2003 in Scandinavian music
• 2003 in South Korean music

  Specific genres

• 2003 in classical music
• 2003 in country music
• 2003 in heavy metal music
• 2003 in hip-hop
• 2003 in jazz
• 2003 in Latin music
• 2003 in progressive rock

  Events

January–February

• January 6 – The annual Park Lane Group Young Artists festival of contemporary music opens with two concerts in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre, London. The first concert, given by the Gallimaufry Ensemble, includes the premiere of a new wind quintet by 23-year-old Benjamin Wallfisch; the second concert features solo bass clarinettist Sarah Watts, who premieres Marc Yeats Vox for solo bass clarinet and Michael Smetanin's Ladder of Escape for bass clarinet with prerecorded ensemble of six bass and two contrabass clarinets.
• January 7 – The Philip on Film Live festival opens at the Barbican Centre, London, featuring films with music by Philip Glass performed live by the Philip Glass Ensemble, conducted by Michael Riesman.
• January 9 – The Vienna Philharmonic belatedly announce that violist Ursula Plaichinger has become the first official female member of the orchestra, 158 years after their founding and six years after they have been forced to allow women to audition, under threat of having their state subsidies stopped. At the same time, it is disclosed that orchestra boss Clemens Hellsberg has formally banned Plaichinger from giving interviews to the press.
• January 10
• *Andrew Lack, former chief of NBC news, is named the new head of Sony's music division, to the surprise of the music industry, because he had no previous experience of the record industry. He replaced Tommy Mottola, who resigned the previous day amidst reports of friction with higher Sony executives over huge financial losses in the music division.
• *Following an investigation by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and London detectives, police raids in the UK and the Netherlands recover 500 original Beatles studio tapes, recorded during the Let It Be sessions. Five people are arrested. The tapes have been used for bootleg releases for years.
• January 13 – The Who guitarist Pete Townshend is arrested by British police on suspicion of possessing and making indecent images of children and of incitement to distribute them. Townshend claims in a statement that he did not download any such images and accessed Web sites advertising child pornography because he was researching material for his autobiography, which will include passages about his abusive childhood.
• January 17–February 2 – The Big Day Out festival takes place in Australia and New Zealand, headlined by Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction and Underworld.
• January 18
• *The Indian Air Force band, the Air Warriors, play a concert in the Homi Baba Auditorium in Colaba, which included Muthuswami Dikshitar's Vathapiganapathi in a version combining military band with traditional Carnatic instruments.
• *A two-day festival of the music of Mark-Anthony Turnage is given at the Barbican Centre, London, with three world premieres and chamber concerts by the Nash Ensemble and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
• January 22 – Nikolaus Harnoncourt cancels a European tour after being ordered by his doctors to take a two-month rest.
• February 3
• *Police respond to a 911 phone call from one of Phil Spector's neighbors and discover the body of actress Lana Clarkson, with a gunshot wound, at Spector's his home in Alhambra, California. Spector is arrested on suspicion of murder.
• *The Martin Bashir television film Living with Michael Jackson premieres on ITV in the UK. It airs on ABC in the US three days later. A total of 53 million viewers in the two countries watch the special.
• February 8 – Avril Lavigne scores her third #1 single "I'm with You", making her the second artist in history to have three consecutive #1 songs from a debut album in the Billboard Mainstream Top 40.
• February 20 – The Station nightclub fire: Fire engulfs a Rhode Island nightclub during a fireworks display which was part of the performance by rock band Great White. The fire quickly spreads across the ceiling, filling the building with thick, black smoke, killing 100 people and injuring 160 others as audience members rush for the exits. Many people are missing for some time, including Great White guitarist Ty Longley, who is later confirmed to be dead.
• February 23 – New York City is the site of The 45th Annual Grammy Awards, featuring Nickelback, No Doubt, Foo Fighters, Beyoncé and other performers. Norah Jones wins a total of six awards, including all four in the General field.
• February 24 – Robert Trujillo joins Metallica.

  March–April

• March 3 – Avril Lavigne kicks off her first headlining tour the "Try To Shut Me Up Tour".
• March 10
• *Johnny Cash is admitted to Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee to undergo treatment for pneumonia.
• *The Dixie Chicks unleash a firestorm of controversy at a concert in London when lead singer Natalie Maines announces to the audience that "just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas". The group is dropped from radio playlists all over the United States and receives death threats as a result.
• March 21 – Ex-Neighbours star Delta Goodrem releases her debut album Innocent Eyes which became Australia's monster smash hit of 2003 and included the releases of the new singles "Born to Try" and "Lost Without You".
• March 24 – Meteora by Linkin Park debuts at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart.
• March 25 – Céline Dion begins A New Day..., her Las Vegas residency show. It would run for almost five years and over 700 shows.
• April 1 – Dozens of fans walk out during a Pearl Jam concert when lead singer Eddie Vedder makes comments opposing the Iraq war and derogatory remarks about U.S. President George W. Bush. Other audience members boo and shout at Vedder telling him to "shut up." Vedder attempts to calm the crowd by adding "just to clarify... we support the troops."
• April 4 – Alex Katunich quits Incubus.
• April 16 – Luther Vandross suffers a severe stroke at his home in New York City. He emerges from a coma seven weeks later.
• April 21 – S Club announce live on stage at London's Docklands Arena that they've decided to split up after five years together. Their final single, "Say Goodbye", enters the chart at #2 a month after the announcement. Rachel Stevens from the group launched her successful solo career shortly afterwards with the song "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex".
• April 26-27 – The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place in California. Headlined by Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers, the lineup also features Queens of the Stone Age, Iggy and the Stooges, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Blur, The White Stripes, Sonic Youth, Black Eyed Peas, Interpol, the Mars Volta, N.E.R.D. and Primal Scream.
• April 28 – Apple Inc. opens the iTunes Music Store, offering 200,000 songs for download at a cost of 99 cents each. More than 1 million songs are sold in the store's first week.

  May–June

• May 7 – Pete Townshend is cleared of the charges stemming from his arrest in January on suspicion of possessing child pornography, but is formally cautioned and placed on the sex offenders register for five years.
• May 19 – The former TV channel MuchMusic USA relaunches as Fuse.
• May 21 – Ruben Studdard wins the second season of American Idol, edging Clay Aiken.
• May 24
• *Turkish singer Sertab Erener wins the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Riga, Latvia, with the song "Everyway That I Can". It is the last time that the contest is a one-night event.
• *After a 40-year wait, Russian fans of The Beatles finally get to see former Beatle Paul McCartney perform on their soil, on the Red Square in Moscow.
• May 31-June 1 – The inaugural Download Festival takes place at Donington Park in Leicestershire, England. Iron Maiden and Audioslave headline the main stage, the latter acting as replacements for original headliners Limp Bizkit. The Scuzz Stage is headlined by A and NOFX.
• June 14
• *David Del Tredici's Wondrous the Merge for string quartet and narrator, based on a homoerotic poem by James Broughton, makes its controversial debut at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.
• *Henry Ranta quits Soilwork.
• *Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera kicked off their summer Justified & Stripped Tour.
• *Los Angeles, California radio station KROQ-FM airs the 11th Annual of the Weenie Roast show with AFI, The Ataris, Blur, Chevelle, Deftones, Finch, Foo Fighters, Godsmack, Good Charlotte, Hot Hot Heat, Interpol, Jane's Addiction, Less Than Jake, Liam Lynch, Staind, Sum 41, Thrice, Transplants, The Used, The White Stripes and Pete Yorn.
• June 20
• *Beyoncé releases her No.1 debut solo album Dangerously in Love, which would earn her 5 Grammys in a single night. It also spawned two No.1 singles in the US and has sold 11 million copies to date.
• *Nick Oshiro replaces Ken Jay in Static-X.
• June 24 – Taylor Swift signs to RCA Records.
• June 27–29 – In the Glastonbury Festival, U.K., headline acts include David Gray, R.E.M., Primal Scream, Morcheeba, The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Super Furry Animals, Lamb, Macy Gray, Feeder, Manic Street Preachers, Moby and Doves. The weather is mostly dry and the festival deemed a success from both a security and entertainment viewpoint by Michael Eavis.

  July–August

• July 2
• *A-Teens and many others perform at the Stockholm Pride festival.
• *Delta Goodrem is diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease.
• July 5 – Lollapalooza returns after a six-year absence from the music festival circuit. Jane's Addiction, Audioslave, Incubus and Queens of the Stone Age are among the featured acts.
• July 11 – Judas Priest announces that Rob Halford has rejoined the band, with a reunion tour to follow in 2004.
• July 14 – The Eurodance and alternative rock musician Lynda Thomas makes her last public appearance before suddenly leaving the music industry and public life.
• July 19–20 – The Splendour in the Grass music festival takes place in Byron Bay, Australia, headlined by Powderfinger and Coldplay.
• July 20 – An auto accident in Oregon, United States, kills three of the four members of The Exploding Hearts, ending the band after just one album.
• July 30 – The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, The Guess Who and others headline a benefit concert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to prove that the city is safe from SARS. With 450 thousand spectators, it is the largest concert in Canadian history.
• August 19 – Jessica Simpson releases her third studio album In This Skin. The album would later go triple platinum in the U.S. and would produce the hit single "With You".
• August 28 – Madonna sparks media controversy by kissing popstars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. The situation even ignited a quick war of words between Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera over the kiss.