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MUSIC

Why Is Spotify Getting Into Virtual Concerts Just As In-Person Performances Are Coming Back?

The demand for remote performances is presumably waning, which is why it's weird that Spotify just entered the virtual concert business and thinks people will pay $15 for prerecorded shows you can only watch once at a dictated time. - Mic

We Need A New Model For Selling Music. How About This?

"I sometimes feel we’re losing sight of how valuable music is. I get messages on Patreon or Instagram from fans telling me how my music got them through a huge depression or losing a child. It was the same for me." - The Guardian

‘Let The People Pee Without Missing A Note!’ — Maybe Doing Two-Hour Operas With No Intermission Isn’t Such A Good Idea

For its first post-pandemic performances this fall, Lyric Opera of Chicago — based, it seems, on feedback from potential audience members and official guidelines last year — decided to keep all performances under two-and-a-half hours and eliminate intermission. When he reported this, writes Chris Jones, "my mailbox immediately filled up with one burning question from Chicago's opera fans: When...

England’s Amateur Choirs Were Ready To Sing Again After A Year, And Then —

"Choirs had been working under the assumption that restrictions on rehearsals would be relaxed on 17 May, at the same time as shops, bars and hairdressers opened up. Instead, the guidelines" — revised the following day to limit indoor rehearsals to six people and those outdoors to 30 — "were actually more draconian than the ones in place last...

Nearly Half Of UK Musicians Consider Leaving Country Because Of Brexit

"More than 40% of musicians polled about their work in the European Union said they would consider relocating to Europe to continue accessing jobs, with a fifth contemplating changing career entirely. Musicians warned that the red tape and additional costs of touring and working in Europe after Brexit would have substantial impacts on their careers." - The Stage

Marin Alsop – A Career Of Firsts

Alsop satisfies exactly none of these stubborn criteria for conducting an orchestra, which is perhaps why her career has been an exercise in exhausting the potential of the word “pioneer.” Owing to her severe allergy to “can’t” and “don’t,” Alsop’s achievements are many and, more often than not, warrant some celebratory disclaimer to the tune of “first woman to...

That Viral Band The Linda Lindas Gets A Record Contract

The girls went absolutely viral for a video of their performance at the Los Angeles Public Library, especially a clip with their song "Racist Sexist Boy." Now the punk band comprised of 10-16-year-olds has a contract. (Though one hopes they don't tone things down for the record company.) - Variety

A Japanese Composer, A Burkina Faso Storyteller, And A Congolese Rapper Make Opera

Composer Keiko Fujiie, who moved to Burkina Faso and built a house where the musicians can practice without annoying their neighbors, hopes to tour the country and debunk the idea of opera as an elite art form: ""I didn't come to introduce European opera here - to the contrary - I needed to study their music, and little by...

Italy Wins EuroVision

Congrats to Italy's Måneskin. But yikes to the UK (which, technically, is no longer in Europe anyway?). "The UK's James Newman came last, getting zero points from both the jury and the public. - BBC

What Might Opera Look Like In A Post-Pandemic World?

Let the Long Beach Opera show you. "Guests have the choice of watching this production “tailgate-style” or from inside their automobiles. The action occurs throughout a parking structure with multiple screens projected live on big screens." Safe, and very Southern California as well. - Los Angeles Times

Honey, I Found A Guarneri In The Attic

"A violin found in an attic in Italy has been confirmed as a priceless instrument made by Giuseppe Guarneri 'filius Andreae' in c.1705. The age of the wood was confirmed using dendrochronology, and the researchers were even able to prove it came from the same tree as the wood in an already-identified violin by the same maker." - The...

After 66 Years, There’s A Professional Orchestra In Yorkshire Again

"Seventy-four years after it first formed," and 66 years after it closed, "the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra has been revived to support musicians in northern England hit by the pandemic. … The conductor of the re-formed ensemble, Ben Crick, said the lack was 'really strange' given the size of the cities of Leeds, York and Sheffield." - The Guardian

Opera Philadelphia Gives Up This Year’s O Festival

For the second year in a row, the company's critically praised September week of mostly new opera is called off; even as other groups expect to be in the concert hall by then, management feels that opera requires too many people collaborating in too-close quarters to be safe so soon. Meanwhile, says general director David Devan, the company will...

How Glyndebourne Didn’t Miss A Step

Throughout the pandemic Glyndebourne has been notably agile, putting on outdoor performances last summer and leading the brief UK return to theatres in the autumn. Now, for summer 2021, the only real casualty of the originally planned season is a revival of Barbe & Doucet’s staging of Mozart’s Magic Flute, which, with its huge drop sets and puppets, would...

Seeing How Musical Instruments Actually Get Made

"The process of making musical instrument is generally out of the public eye, and there's often a mystique about how those particular tools-of-the-trade are created. During some idle hours of the long lockdown, I went deep down the YouTube rabbit hole and discovered scores of fascinating videos capturing all manner of fine artisans — luthiers, brass wranglers, wood turners,...

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