Today it's different: The culture of personalities has taken over in all fields, with social media and all this. So I feel that today, when there is so much more equality — and of course, there still could be and should be more — we could finally speak about music. - NPR
"Because every hard-of-hearing person has a different history with music, and because every brain is different, how an individual's vibrotactile sense may fill in for the loss of hearing will vary. Either way, vibration communicated through touch offers a wealth of musical subtlety that researchers are now quantifying." - Nautilus
"It is a game you can train for, one you can become tremendously skilled at, but that skill and work is such a basic requirement that it may as well not matter. People don't win by being good at it, they win by being able to foot the bill." - Van
In 1965 the Pulitzer board rejected a unanimous recommendation from the music jury to award Duke Ellington a special citation for long-term achievement.” It was the second consecutive year that no Pulitzer for music was awarded. - The New York Times
Lincoln Center president Henry Timms: "In terms of volume, probably, the amount of classical music being presented hasn't changed much. The nature of it has changed, to some degree, though not fundamentally." New York Times classical critic Zachary Woolfe: "Uh-huh." - The New York Times
Jonathon Heyward, now 29 and chief conductor of the Northwest German Philharmonic, will be (after the late James DePreist of the Oregon Symphony) the second African-American music director of a major US orchestra in history. He begins his initial five-year term in the fall of 2023. - Yahoo! (The Baltimore Sun)
Mahler and Beethoven left several tantalizing blueprints of their 10th Symphonies behind. Now, computer scientists are developing algorithms for artificial intelligence (AI) to lift the “curse of the ninth” and complete the unfinished works of these classical masters. - Mental Floss
An experienced stage director as well as a renowned administrator, Audi doesn’t just work on grand strategy and schmooze with donors. He also gets into the details of craft, closely overseeing rehearsals. - The New York Times
“They don't care if Kate Bush was big 30 years ago, they're just like, this is the first time we've heard this and it's dope. They don’t care if they’re listening to Debussy, or Max Richter, or John Williams, and they don't care what year it’s from. - ClassicFM
Popular new opera? Well, yes: the Met did four main-stage contemporary works just last season. (Also, we're talking the likes of Jake Heggie, not Harrison Birtwistle.) Here are readers' top choices, from Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de loin (2000) to Tobias Picker's Awakenings (2022). - San Francisco Classical Voice
"The new role is slated to begin in the 2025/2026 season. Assuming (he) isn't renewing his contract with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, he is scheduled to end his tenure (there) in 2025. The Spanish dynamo (recently) completed his second season as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra." - Ludwig Van
Last week, when minister Nathi Mthethwa presented plans for the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, with an annual budget of 30 million rand (about $17.6 million), comparing the new band to a national sports team, he did not get the ovation he'd hoped for. - Sunday Times (South Africa)
Indeed, they were often required to keep watch at city gates and were sometimes required to show skill at swordsmanship. This isn't just because musicians could raise a loud alarm when necessary. In fact, European cities often made their paid musicians a point of civic pride and ceremony. - Ted Gioia
Every other summer since 2004, composer Delf Maria Hohmann has been visiting the vessels docked in the harbor at St. John's to learn about their horns' sounds — which he then mixes-and-matches into a composition called a "Harbour Symphony." - Yahoo! (Canadian Press)
"I think opera went through a sticky time, with all that Darmstadt stuff where people were deliberately writing music that people couldn’t understand, as a badge of honour, really, and I don’t think composers are trying to do that now. It doesn't mean they're always successful, but I do think a healthy contemporary element is pretty essential to any...
