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
"(Management) has invited the problem at least partially by asking audiences to ... engage with their cell phones during visits. Tagging the ensemble on social media has long been encouraged. Signs at one recent performance asked patrons to bypass printed programs and instead read their program notes online." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Lalovavi, set in the year 2119 and with a score by composer Kevin Day, was to premiere next June but has been postponed one year to 2026 due to delays with Tifara Brown's libretto. The work is the first of three commissioned by the company for its Black Opera Project. - AP
"This was a natural response to an unprecedented level of stadium-level artists on the road today. We now have another home for them to perform." - CBC
“In an escalation after months of labor talks, the musicians walked off the job on Friday for the first time since 1978.” The strike lasted for three and a half hours. - The New York Times
Under those rules, streaming services that are not Canadian-owned and have more than CAD $25 million (approx. USD $18.5 million) in revenue in Canada annually are required to pay 5% of that revenue into funds that subsidize Canadian content and creators. - Music Business Worldwide
Ophélie Gaillard's 1737 Francesco Goffriller cello and antique bows were taken at knifepoint in 2018; the thief later returned them, smashing a car window nearby and leaving them inside. This week, a thief broke into her home — while she was there — and made off with the cello and bows. - The Strad
