This isn't great, since each musician needs rather a lot of paperwork - and it's possible, though unclear, that their instruments may need a deal too. "The new agreement means British orchestras may choose to reduce the number of European countries they visit to cut down on administrative costs." - The Guardian (UK)
The lack of touring, time to sit with songs instead of performing them every night, and a ton of time in or near recording studios has made musicians remake, remix, rethink, and re-release albums even in the not-quite-year of the pandemic in Europe and the US. - The Guardian (UK)
Thanks so flipping much, pandemic and a government that refused to get its COVID response together in time to save the arts. Owner Joon Lee decided not to renew the lease after it ended in November. It's a serious loss: "'What Joon was able to cultivate there in terms of how artist-forward it was, that doesn’t exist anywhere else...
And that's actually been great. For instance, once an opera in L.A. might have reached a thousand people in a sold-out night; during the pandemic, more than 22,000 watched the same opera online. "The experimentation afoot within companies like On Site and festivals like Prototype signal a new, vital place for experimental approaches to opera — which now feel...
In a six-week pilot collaboration between New England Conservatory and Massachusetts General Hospital this fall, the Boston Hope Music Teaching Project connected teaching fellows from NEC with frontline health care workers for weekly private music lessons. The goal wasn’t to teach them skill or technique, but to provide a refuge from day-to-day life on the COVID ward. - Boston...
A graduate of Venezuela's El Sistema, the 40-year-old music director of the San Diego Symphony begins a five-year term at the Maison symphonique in the fall of 2022. Payare's San Diego contract currently runs through 2025-26; he says he plans to keep both jobs, with 14 to 16 weeks per season in Montreal and 10 per season in San...
Andris Nelsons, who has been in Europe since before the pandemic started, returned to Symphony Hall to record three programs pairing Beethoven symphonies with contemporary music for the BSO's season of streamed concerts. - The Boston Globe
The year 2020 ended up setting a streaming record in America, increasing 17% for the year to end with an unprecedented 872.6 billion streams. - Variety
"When we restrict ourselves to Western art music, we forgo the opportunity to speak about basic yet essential musical elements such as groove, timbre, improvisation, and post-production in styles where these are powerfully foregrounded. Today’s leading theory texts cover more or less the same material as those we used as students. Why then do we as a discipline remain...
After all, "in 2009, critic Allan Kozinn declared in The New York Times, 'If you think about it, drums are the new violins,' pointing out the newfound ubiquity of percussion on new music programs." And with the 21st-century blossoming of contemporary classical repertoire in the U.S., percussion groups are getting ever more pieces to play and ever more opportunities...
The ceremony, hosted by Trevor Noah, had been scheduled for January 31. It will now take place on March 14, due to, as a statement from the Recording Academy puts it, "the deteriorating COVID situation in Los Angeles, with hospital services being overwhelmed, ICUs having reached capacity, and new guidance from state and local governments." - Variety
Her horrible 2020 began in January when movers dropped her four-pedal Fazioli, the instrument on which she made every recording she'd done since 2003. Paolo Fazioli, the eponymous piano maker, had five new pianos made for her to choose from, and it took her about half an hour to pick one. Is it her new best friend? "I guess...
"Yes, musical organizations will talk about learning pragmatic lessons from this pandemic. But as the industry begins the long march back toward some semblance of normalcy, let’s hope the lessons internalized also include keeping sight of the art form’s unique modes of immediacy, of intimacy, of direct expression, and of vulnerability. These qualities carried classical music through 2020 —...
“Every other major orchestra has been compensated since the very beginning of the pandemic. Met management is using the pandemic opportunistically. They are not seeking a short-term crisis-plan to balance out pandemic circumstances. They are seeking permanent cuts. The cuts they seek are so deep that the orchestra would need unrealistic salary gains over the next quarter-century just to...
Is it too little, too late? "Unlike other business sectors that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, performance centres are in a uniquely challenged position due to thin profit margins that rely on large audiences." - BBC
