ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

MUSIC

The Doctor Musicians

Some reached the level where a career as either a professional musician or a doctor lay before them, before choosing the unquestionably sounder career path. But the existence of these orchestras is proof that the constraints of a medical life do not preclude creating music, and may well benefit it.   - Van

An El Sistema Grad Founds An Orchestra For Refugees In Sweden

Ron Davis Álvarez, a Caracas native, had settled in Gothenburg as director of El Sistema Sweden. When he saw crowds of teenagers from Syria and Afghanistan arriving in Stockholm with nothing and nobody, he decided he had to do something for them. And so the Dream Orchestra was born. - CNN

Third Coast Baroque, Chicago’s Period-Instrument Ensemble, Is Shutting Down

"'As referenced in a recent DCASE study,' the (board's) statement read in part, 'inflation and reduced grant funding, coupled with diminished ticket sales due to smaller audiences, have created a challenge for numerous arts organizations. TCB was not immune to these daunting challenges.'" - Chicago Tribune (MSN)

Conde Nast Is Folding Pitchfork Music Magazine Into GQ And Laying Off Staff

The move will result in an undetermined number of layoffs at the website, including the loss of Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel. - Daily Beast

How Video Game Music Is Changing Composers And Audiences

The impact of video game music has helped the music industry by creating a new audience for the classical orchestra. Popular concert cover albums of game music have generated dedicated fandoms and conventions. - The Conversation

English National Opera’s Musicians Formally Declare Strike

"Members of the Musicians’ Union and Equity will walk out on February 1. … Members of both unions have voted in favour of strikes after they accused the ENO management of planning to make chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant and re-employ them for only six months a year." - The Independent (UK)

Universal Music Group Is About To Eliminate Hundreds Of Jobs

"After weeks of rumors, Universal Music Group has confirmed that it will be laying off an unspecified but significant number of employees in the coming weeks. The company’s recorded-music division is said to be receiving the brunt of the layoffs." - Variety

Magnificent Obsession: The Man Who Spent Decades Building The World’s Greatest Stereo In His House

Building the world’s greatest stereo would mean transforming the very space that surrounded it — and the lives of the people who dwelt there. - Washington Post

The Pittsburgh Symphony Is Playing Well. But The Audience Is Missing. What To Do?

In the fall, the Pittsburgh Symphony averaged about 1,000 listeners per concert, or less than half of the capacity of Heinz Hall. This is at odds with how well the orchestra is playing lately. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Scammers Are Stealing Artists’ Music And Posting To Streaming Platforms

The streaming ecosystem, say critics, is easily gamed. For $20, artists can buy an annual subscription to a music distributor, a company that can instantly post songs to dozens of streaming platforms. Unfortunately, bad actors have the same opportunity. - The New York Times

SoundCloud May Be For Sale

But whatever happens to it, the way it transformed musical access, its musical underground vibe, will never die. - Wired

The San Francisco Conservatory Of Music Violated Title IX, The Office Of Civil Rights Rules

The conservatory's "response to a student’s report of sexual assault and stalking 'violated Title IX at every stage' and was 'deliberately indifferent,'" the investigation found. - Inside Higher Ed

A Window Into A New Opera Festival

What the Prototype festival brings to audiences: Anything from Biblical translations to "a kind of nostalgic reminder of the loud, messy, nudity-filled, often self-serious, generally baffling shows that were once fixtures of downtown New York." - The New York Times

The Portland Opera Is Selling Its Building To Relieve Debt

The company "will be vacating the entire bundle: administrative offices, costume shop, rehearsal space, parking lot and all." Where will it go? That's not yet clear. - Oregon ArtsWatch

Young Musicians Are Starting To Follow The Taylor Swift Career Playbook

This recalibration of the rules of engagement between artists and labels is also a result of the democratisation of information about the byzantine world of music contract law. - The Guardian

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