ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

MUSIC

The Joys And Hazards Of Replacing Dudamel In Los Angeles

"What might a young music director mean to an orchestra and to a city when an amazing crop of international and, for the first time, diverse young maestros and maestras is upon us? The implications go far beyond that." - Los Angeles Times

Pappano: People In The UK Are Embarrassed By Opera

“Here it’s looked on with great suspicion. That drives me nuts, I have to tell you. England is a haven for culture whether it is pop culture or classical culture, literary culture, theatrical culture, this is one of the great addresses and yet we’re embarrassed by it.” - The Guardian

San Francisco Chronicle Music Critic Josh Kosman To Retire

On April 30, Kosman will flip his critic’s notebook closed for the final time, retiring from the newspaper at a crucial juncture for classical music in the Bay Area. - San Francisco Chronicle

What It Costs To Attend Coachella (Thousands of $) And Why These Fans Say It’s A Bargain

Many people are willing to lay out a lot of money for the experience and party in the VIP section, but it's possible to get by on a budget, too. - BBC

New York Philharmonic To Tour China This Summer

The five-concert tour to Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai, led by outgoing music director Jaap van Zweden and running from June 27 to July 3, will be the first visit by a full U.S. orchestra to the People's Republic since 2019. - AP

What’s Behind The Comeback Of Vinyl Records?

Where barely one million new vinyl albums were sold in the United States in 2006, that figure has grown every year since, soaring to just over 49 million units in 2023. - The Conversation

Why Do We Make Saints Of Dead Composers?

The saint is worshiped alongside the divine, and in many faiths, the line between the two is blurred. In the world of classical music, we effectively worship the Great Dead Composers as saints, the ones who transmit perfection into the musical world. - Van

AI And The Future Of Opera

It seems clearer that creatives using AI tools as a part of their own processes is considered more acceptable than administrators using AI to create or embellish creative work. - Opera America Magazine

Klaus Mäkelä, The Chicago Symphony, And The Importance Of Lived Experience

Cultural memory—for untold centuries, a precondition for creativity and appreciation of the creative act—risks becoming a stack of flashcards processed as media clips. Will sustained immersion in lineage and tradition remain an organic prerequisite for composition, interpretation, and reception? - The American Scholar

Scanning The Brains Of Jazz Guitarists To Find “Flow”

"Their level of experience ranged from novice to veteran, as quantified by the number of public performances they had given. The researchers placed electrode caps on their heads to record their EEG brain waves while they improvised to chord sequences and rhythms that were provided to them." - The Conversation

Record Labels Are Pulling Music From TikTok. Congress Might Ban The App. So Now What For Music?

TikTok began life as Musical.ly, an app to film oneself lip-syncing to songs. Interacting with pop music was a core function of TikTok. Fans and artists shared music they loved, grafting it onto videos showing their lives and ideas. It was a lifeline to friends and culture during the pandemic. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

UMG’s Fight With TikTok Is Hurting Musicians

“TikTok is how you get the word out about a new song — and now you’re muting someone’s entire catalog? The labels say TikTok is so important and push their artists to , and now they can’t?” - Variety

Spotify Has Demonetized Music Tracks With Fewer Than 1000 Plays

In an attempt to tackle fraudulent activity on the platform, the digital music service now also requires a minimum number of unique listeners for royalties to be generated. In addition, the length of play-time required for so-called “functional content” (such as white noise) to generate royalty payments has increased. - Eurozine

Fraud Fail: Musicians Are Seeing Their Music Being Taken Down From Streaming Services

Although distributors and streaming services frequently use language that places the blame on the artist for fraudulent activity detected on their accounts, it has become clear that artists are often caught in the middle of a crossfire between streaming services, distributors and fraudsters attempting to game the system for their own financial gain. - Variety

Conductor Edo De Waart Suddenly Announces His Retirement

Said the 82-year-old this morning, "I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning to get ready for rehearsal and I thought, what am I even doing? I was wobbly on my feet, and then I thought, I just shouldn't do it anymore." - NPO Radio 4 (Netherlands) (via Google Translate)

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