When he was first named as the next music director back in 2018, the Met asserted that he would conduct a minimum of five operas per season. What are we to make of this seemingly diminished conducting commitment? - Parterre Box
Gilmour: “The music industry is a tough one these days, and for people who are recording in it, the rewards are not justifiable. The rich and the powerful have siphoned off the majority of this money.” - The Guardian (UK)
On stage in DC: Two timpanists, seventeen timpani: “Rhythmic and melodic material is split between the two soloists — each surrounded by drums and navigating the placement and tuning of each note.” - Washington Post
The Bop Spotter project uses a microphone to surreptitiously and constantly record a street in the historically Latino neighborhood. Making use of a public Wi-Fi network and Shazam’s song-identifying software, Bop Spotter identifies the songs it hears and generates a public, ever-expanding list of the street’s music. - SFGate
"Pro Tools, as a sort of way of making music, on some level, has levelled the playing field that allowed people who can’t sing to sound like they can sing. And people who can’t play guitar now sound like they can.” - MusicTech
"In a letter to musicians … signed by Executive Director Roberto Treviño and Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, no alternate date for the concerts was given. The letter cites the reason for the postponement as 'in response to the financial impact and challenges that have arisen from a disinformation campaign.'" - San Antonio Report
During experiential fusion with music, you temporarily lose awareness of yourself as an individual entity separate from the music; you and the music have become one. If someone touched your hand and asked you, “Are you aware that you’re in a jazz club?” you’d almost certainly say, “Yes.” - The Walrus
Listening to instrumental or familiar music in the background competes less with a study assignment than music with lyrics or unfamiliar music. Instrumental music also seems to interfere less with reading comprehension and assignments requiring verbal and visual memory than does music with lyrics. - The Conversation
The pianist has filed legal proceedings in the federal court, alleging MSO management cancelled the 15 August concert in Melbourne in an attempt to silence him over his stance on the conflict in Gaza. - The Guardian
A bid to bring the first-ever professional Australian-rules football team to Tasmania involves constructing a 23,000-seat stadium, to host rock concerts as well as AFL games, just 130 feet from the Federation Concert Hall, the Tasmanian Symphony's custom-built headquarters in the island state's capital, Hobart. - The Guardian
The Record of the Year Prize went to Hahn's disc of Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for unaccompanied violin. Soprano Carolyn Sampson is Artist of the Year, the Czech Philharmonic is Orchestra of the Year, and Michael Tilson Thomas, still hanging on against glioblastoma, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. - Gramophone
Glyndebourne, a privately funded festival that receives little state support, has been mostly immune from the convulsions of the opera industry in Britain. - The New York Times
The 55-year-old Costa Rican conductor, currently completing his 16th and final season as music director of the Nashville Symphony, takes over the summer music festival next year. 2025 will also mark the start of his tenure as music director of the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida. - WFMT (Chicago)
"(Kaija Saariaho's) Innocence is about the aftermath of a school shooting, and the blood table was where the makeup crew applied stage blood to the performers. (There) were squirt and nozzle bottles, as well as baskets with blood packs, which would later burst onstage, each basket labeled with the name of a performer." - San Francisco Classical Voice
The tyranny of choice can make the comparatively limited days of the in-car CD player, or multi-disc changer, if you were fancy, seem highly attractive. Hold on to them if you’ve got them: from now on, car manufacturers in the UK will no longer include CD players on new models. - The Guardian
