Rivka Galchen looks into the development of acoustical engineering as a craft (which goes all the way back to Chichén Itzá and Hagia Sophia) and how Christopher Blair and Paul Scarbrough of the firm Akustiks approached the challenge of a venue that had seemed acoustically cursed. - The New Yorker
Amidst the misery of the pandemic’s peak, there were hopes that the effective shutdown of the touring industry would allow for the music business itself to work out the myriad issues that musicians face while trying to make a living on the road. That obviously didn’t happen. - New York Magazine
Justin Davidson: "I’m not ready to declare the hall a flop or a triumph. Acoustics are not a separate entity from the music that gets played there." - Vulture
It all started with tours: "In the early 1800s, opera companies and their star singers traveled from Italy to perform across the country. 'It was like a parade, people would welcome them in the streets of Mexico City.'" Then radio hit. - NPR
Geffen Hall (previously known as Avery Fisher Hall) was an acoustic disaster from the jump. But while "the hall was no Carnegie or the Musikverein in Vienna ... the badness of the acoustics was often overstated. On a given night, a concert there could be terrific." - The New York Times
Lina Gónzalez-Granados was 5 "when she joined a 'tuna' — a musical group traditionally made up of college students who ... stand in a semi-circle wielding Spanish guitars of various sizes and shapes and singing ballads." That was her first lesson in the physical nature of music. - Los Angeles Times
For one thing, "New York has yet to see tourism fully rebound, and attendance at many performing arts organizations has lagged. The reconfigured hall is seen as an opportunity to try to lure old concertgoers back, and to bring new audiences in." - The New York Times
Greek-Russian conductor Teodor Currentzis was a polarizing figure even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some considered him classical music’s biggest charlatan. Others thought he was the only one who could save the field. But that discussion always focused more on his appearance than on music. - Van
Midwest states hosted 27 percent of U.S. orchestra performances, even though they were home to only 19 percent of concerts overall. The Midwest doesn’t necessarily have more orchestras than the rest of the country, but it does seem to have bigger and more active ones. - Washington Post
The more you study the history of music, you realize that composers were not marching in lockstep in the interest of fulfilling a linear narrative prescribed by music historians. - The Imaginative Conservative
"It is a white-owned and white-run institution with a self-described mission to 'preserve, protect and perpetuate' one of the nation's greatest Black cultural legacies. ... A place where all the knotty questions of race and culture ... that face New Orleans and all of America are on blaring display." - The New York Times Magazine
We identify with Tár’s admirers, both because we feel empathy for her calculating misuse of them and because, like them, we can’t stop wanting her to really be everything she presents herself as: the uncompromising artist, the intellectually generous mentor, the loving parent and devoted spouse. - Slate
"Within a week of former Australian Consumer and Competition Commission chair Rod Sims (becoming board chairman) at Opera Australia, ... its artistic director of 13 years, Lyndon Terracini, ... (is) leaving the company next Friday, 14 October." - The Guardian
