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MUSIC

Why Have Pop Music Concert Ticket Prices Spiraled Up?

Overall, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours around the world was £101 last year, up from £82 in 2022, according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the concert industry. - BBC

Who Thought It Was A Good Idea To Turn Garth Greenwell’s First Novel Into An Opera? Quite A Few People

First to get the idea was conductor Alan Pierson, a friend of Greenwell's since music-student days at Eastman. Pierson sent the book, What Belongs to You, to composer David T. Little, then they got tenor Karim Sulayman to star and choreographer Mark Morris to direct. - The New York Times

Inside Trimpin’s Sound World

“The kind of idea in my work with music dealing with three parameters — timbre, pitch, and time,” said Trimpin. “But my interest to give it a fourth dimension or parameter — adding space, movement, and motion. - San Francisco Classical Voice

How Do You Get Kids Into Classical Music? The “Wow Factor,” Says Charlotte Symphony’s Kwamé Ryan

Speaking of his own experiences as a child in 1970s Trinidad as well as conducting children's concerts at the BBC Proms in London and in North Carolina in the 2020s, Ryan says the secret is the same. - The Guardian

Why San Diego Symphony’s Concert Hall Needed That $125 Million Renovation

"Audience members had long complained about lousy acoustics under the balcony overhang and bad views from many seats. … Musicians coped with a backstage area that felt like a cramped obstacle course. … Guest performers had to walk out to steel catwalk stairs and down four floors from the artist entrance." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

In Unanimous Vote, National Symphony Musicians Authorize Strike

"At the core of the dispute is what the union identifies as an unacceptable wage gap between NSO musicians and their peers in orchestras of similar size and stature, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic." - The Washington Post (MSN)

Canadian Pianist Wins Leeds International

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko took home the top prize, along with a cash award of roughly $54,000, following his final performance at St. George's Hall in Bradford, about 325 kilometres northwest of London, on Saturday. - CBC

On Leonard Cohen’s 90th Birthday, One Of His Most Important Collaborators Pays Tribute

“There could be no sweeter-sounding bird on the wire that leads back to Cohen’s 50-year legacy in music than Batalla, who along with Julie Christensen formed the duo that accompanied Cohen during his incredibly fruitful ‘I’m Your Man’ and ‘The Future' period.” - Variety

The Producer Who Shaped The Sound Of Modern Music But Never Got To Hear It Play Out

Sophie, who died in 2021, started young, going to music festivals with her dad and brother as a child. "One day, a friend of their dad gave Sophie an old synth, and she began experimenting, sampling sounds around the house and recording music." - The Guardian (UK)

A Painful Gesture Toward Opera On New York’s Little Island

"The opera’s three-and-a-half-hour running time has been cut to ... ninety minutes, and the exquisite Italian libretto is being projected in internet-speak English subtitles accented with the occasional emoji. The show promises to be art in line with that great contemporary ideal: frictionlessness.” - Paris Review

Can The San Francisco Symphony Get Its Chorus Back In Time For The Next Performance?

The chorus struck for three days last week, canceling the season opener. “An earlier proposal would cut choristers’ compensation by 65% and reduced their programs to five per year.” Now there’s a compromise proposal, but will that be enough? - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Canada’s Juno Awards Tried To Drop Gospel, Reggae, And Children’s Albums From The Lineup

That did not go over well with the musicians of Canada - and all three are back. - CBC

Reassembling Opera, With Yuval Sharon

“I want a production to constantly unsettle the audience and ask for continuous renegotiations of their experience.” - The Wall Street Journal

Unknown Piece By Mozart Discovered

The piece dates to the mid to late 1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting about 12 minutes, the Leipzig municipal libraries said in a statement on Thursday. - The Guardian

San Francisco Symphony Finds Few Fans For Its Present Course

"I continue to be struck by the fact that the current leadership of the San Francisco Symphony really has no defenders in any press: local, national, or international. They are getting hammered by all quarters, by all media. And if they were hoping to win over ABC7, that clearly didn’t go well." - Song of the Lark

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