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MUSIC

Syracuse Opera Files For Liquidation Bankruptcy

The company, which canceled all performances and laid off staff last last year, filed earlier this month for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the legal step toward liquidating its assets and closing itself down. - BroadwayWorld

The Year Peter Gelb Declared War On Critics

Believing that you possess a perfect understanding of what the people want is a poor way to run an opera company—or any organization, up to and including a nation. What we call the “audience” is an ever-shifting assemblage of tastes, expectations, experiences, levels of knowledge, degrees of passion. - The New Yorker

Spotify Doesn’t Care About Music As Long As It’s Content

Unlike a record label, a tech company doesn’t care whether we’re hooked on the same hit on repeat or lost in a three-hour ambient loop, so long as we’re listening to something. - The New Yorker

K-Pop Has Been Fueling South Korean Protests

The sight of young people moving to K-pop’s electrifying beat has become part of the drama of this protest movement. Protest organisers are blasting out K-pop hits, and demonstrators are waving K-pop light sticks (portable devices associated with specific artists or groups), turning the protests into multicoloured musical rallies. - The Conversation

Handel’s “Messiah’s” Rocky Start

When the librettist obtained a copy of the score, in early 1743, he didn’t like it. “His Messiah has disappointed me,” he wrote to a friend, “being set in great haste … . I shall put no more Sacred Words into his hands, to be thus abus’d.” - The Wall Street Journal

Super-Splashy “Turandot” In Seoul Nearly Collapses In Chaos On Opening Night

The venue is in the city's top conference center/shopping mall; the cast includes Asmik Grigorian and Brian Jagde; José Cura is conducting; top tickets cost nearly $700. But hours before curtain time, director Davide Livermore stormed away and producers reconfigured the hall to remove 2,800 seats. - The Korea Herald

Airports Have Started Putting Real Thought Into Their Background Music

Some — London Heathrow, Nashville, Phoenix, Seattle-Tacoma, both Chicago airports — have stages with live musicians. Others — Detroit, Austin — have specially curated playlists. Singapore-Changi even commissioned piano music for its famous waterfall. - AP

Reconsidering Schoenberg @150

We still don’t quite know how to sell Schoenberg. There is the scary modernist Schoenberg — inventor of the 12-tone system, replacing traditional harmony with the democratic notion that all notes are equal — who reputedly drives audiences away. But there is also the Schoenberg who carried on from the 19th century Romantic tradition. - Los Angeles Times

Why Composers Are Drawn To Writing Religious Music

Whether it’s chestnuts roasting on an open fire or a white Christmas, many of our classic Christmas images are drawn from songs written by Jewish composers and lyricists. Why are so many great artists drawn to making art about a holiday that isn’t theirs? - The New York Times

Is Spotify Feeding Listeners “Ghost” Artists?

Spotify, the rumor had it, was filling its most popular playlists with stock music attributed to pseudonymous musicians—variously called ghost or fake artists—presumably in an effort to reduce its royalty payouts. Some even speculated that Spotify might be making the tracks itself. - Harper's

How Music Shapes Our Future Perceptions

“Sound directs our passage through time. It shapes our orientation to the future moment and also to the moment when the future stops.” - The Wall Street Journal

Charlotte Symphony Is Making Big Investments In Immersive Performances

“It is going to be a space you can choose where to be and how to listen,” Fisk said. “We want people to lose themselves in this music and to be swallowed up by the experience of being part of nature.” - Charlotte Observer (MSN)

Why Some Non-Christian Composers Are Attracted To Christmas Material: David Lang

"Every Christmas, I ask myself this question, because accidentally I — a Jewish composer — have also written something of a Christmas classic: the little match girl passion. Cynics may think that these artists make Christmas music because they’re chasing the market. I believe there is something deeper at work." - The New York Times

Is The World’s Largest Fully-Functioning Musical Instrument In Jeopardy?

The organ in the old Wanamaker's department store, right across from City Hall, is a Philadelphia icon. Yet the store, currently a Macy's, is shrinking just like other department stores; the building is in receivership as upper-floor office space remains vacant post-COVID; and Macy's lease expires in 2027. - The Conversation

The New Music Counterculture – It’s Anti-Algo, Anti-Perfection

These creators are opting not to play in the traditional music business lane (largely because they would struggle to get the rights cleared). So, instead they are operating in the music business’ ‘grey market’ – not quite a black market but not the formal market either. - Music Industry Blog

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