A US federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action that accused Spotify of allowing billions of bot-generated fake streams to inflate the play counts of Drake and other artists. - MusicBusinessWorldwide
The average audience at Heinz Hall for the flagship classical series is roughly 1,450, just over half of the venue’s capacity and up 14% (!) from the previous season. Attendance at pops concerts continues to fall, but it’s rising at educational events and live-film-score concerts. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The 55-year-old German composer-conductor has only been there for two seasons (he started in fall 2024), but the orchestra likes him well enough to extend his current contract for five additional years, keeping him through 2033-34. - Pizzicato
Antony Hermus, a 53-year-old Dutchman who is just finishing his tenure as chief conductor of the Belgian National Orchestra, will succeed Ryan Wigglesworth at the Glasgow-based BBC SSO as of the 2027-28 season. - The Scotsman
Japan has created a music right that will, for the first time, require performers and record companies to be paid when their recordings are played in public spaces such as cafes, shops, hotels, and gyms. - Music Business Worldwide
A speaker company wants to do what now? “What the company is undeniably great at is marketing. But selling mediocre Bluetooth speakers at inflated prices is very different from discovering talent and promoting artists.” - The Verge
SZA on Instagram "If your a musician and you support this degenerate shit? Your DISGUSTING and there’s NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY. … I hope u have the life u deserve.” - Variety
“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” - The Atlantic
The show up at old churches in remote communities, preparing their solar-powered mobile studio, and recording instruments both humble and monumental, whose complex systems of keys, stops, hand cranks, foot pedals, bellows and reeds were designed to vibrate the air around them until it approximates the sound of God. - The Guardian
Post Malone, Meghan Trainor and the Pussy Cat Dolls have all cancelled shows or entire tours in recent months — and while some of them have cited other reasons for doing so, fans have still pointed to their tours as part of the trend. - CBC
And she was singing a patriotic song, no less. In a December 2024 video which went viral, Parastoo Ahmadi performed “From the Blood of the Homeland’s Youth” with an uncovered head. For this “vulgar and immoral content,” Ahmadi and her production team have been sentenced to flogging. - The Guardian
“(The item was identified by) Hungarian antiquarian bookseller Ádám Bősze, who acquired the document at a Spanish auction where it had been mistakenly catalogued as a simple page from a musical album.” - Moto Perpetuo
Facing more than one court case and no scheduled concerts, the struggling Texas orchestra has promoted its associate conductor, Felipe Tristán, to the music director’s podium on an interim basis. - San Antonio Express-News (MSN)
Founded in 1984 in Sydney, The Song Company, which consisted of six to eight singers, regularly performed music ranging from the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Romantic era up to newly-commissioned works. The ensemble went into receivership in 2019 due to financial difficulties; now it has filed for liquidation. - Limelight (Australia)
