Aside from Yunchan Lim and Vilde Frang, a notable (if challenging) development is that “the age of the all-star studio-made opera recording is very much over. DVDs of stage productions now easily outnumber new audio-only opera sets.” - The Guardian (UK)
British musicians Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason bought a ticket for Sheku’s cello, but Air Canada said no way. That forced the siblings, who were scheduled for a sold-out concert in Toronto, to cancel at the last minute. - CBC
When an artist is inevitably asked “what’s the meaning behind this song?” and they give a literal answer, it immediately closes down the different ways a listener can interpret it. - The Conversation
Just a day before the catastrophic 2017 blaze that nearly destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, a smaller fire broke out in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Neither organ suffered major damage, but both had toxic dust fill their thousands of pipes — and both are now resounding once more. - The New York...
That's the annual gala opening the season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, which (by long tradition) happens on December 7. And there are always major celebrities and politicians, fabulous clothes, demonstrators for a variety of causes, and a big media circus. Oh, and superstitions. - The New York Times
"The deal … promises to maintain the current compensation and performance levels for the 32 paid choristers during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. … The breakthrough, which includes retroactive application of the agreement from Aug. 1, was made possible by the generous donation from an anonymous patron." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Art is a con. That’s why it’s great. I’ve always said art should lower gross domestic product; it shouldn’t be there to bolster efficiency, or do a certain thing. It’s a shamanistic thing that is essentially founded on a belief that you can buy into, or not. - The New York Times
The nonprofit Third Coast Music has won the city's request for proposals to develop the site. Its plan is for an $80 million facility to record and produce music, primarily for film and television. The 32,000-square-foot complex will include a soundstage even larger than that of Skywalker Sound in California. - WBEZ (Chicago)
The gift from the family foundation of real estate magnate and former Chicago Tribune owner Sam Zell provides "vital" capital to reduce debt, fund retirement benefits, and pay for tours, special artistic projects and digital initiatives, said a statement from orchestra management. - Chicago Sun-Times
The Stradivarius on which Joseph Joachim played the world premiere of Brahms's Violin Concerto will be auctioned on February 7, and Sotheby's is estimating its value as between $12 million and $18 million. (The current record was set in 2011: $15.9 million for the Lady Blunt Stradivarius.) - Artnet
Loftis goes to the New Jersey Symphony from his position as Chief Advancement and Revenue Officer of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), where he oversaw the fundraising, marketing, special events, and analytical research departments. - Symphony
“We, the undersigned musicians, wholeheartedly oppose major record labels’ unjust lawsuit targeting the Internet Archive,” the Musicians for Fairness and Preservation Open Letter reads. “We don’t believe that the Internet Archive should be destroyed in our name.” - Engadget
The short-term extension comes amid long and contentious bargaining between SFS management, which insists that huge deficits must stop for the organization to survive, and the American Federation of Musicians, which argues that cuts demanded by management will severely diminish the orchestra. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Through its 149th and final show, which took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday, Swift’s tour sold a total of $2,077,618,725 in tickets. That’s two billion and change — double the gross ticket sales of any other concert tour in history and an extraordinary new benchmark for a white-hot international concert business. - The New York Times
