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MUSIC

That Obnoxious Nissan Youth Orchestra Ad? This New Brunswick Orchestra Films A Perfect Response

The musicians’ response, recorded April 4, 2022, at the Imperial Theatre in St. John, New Brunswick, proves that age isn’t a barrier to playing the iconic work well. It also gets in a dig at the auto company with its title, “An INFINITY of Young Talent.” - Your Classical

Real Inflation: Concert Ticket Prices

Ticket prices increased 11% in 2021 relative to 2019, and 14% in North America, according to Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the world’s largest concert promoter. And demand remains strong, the company says, with concert ticket sales up 45% through mid-February compared with 2019. - The Wall Street Journal

Los Angeles Is Paying Tribute To Six Revolutionary Composers Who Have Recently Died

Mark Swed: "The consequence of the current loss is enormous and hard to process because little of their music is part of the regular performing, recording or broadcasting diet. ... Nor has there been, outside of local memorials, widespread acknowledgment of, let alone tribute to, their significance." - Los Angeles Times

Joyce DiDonato Takes On A Big Role

That is, battling climate change. "If the result is more mystical than activist, DiDonato’s aim remains, as her liner notes say, a prompt for her listeners 'to build a paradise for today.'" - The New York Times

Classical Music’s Dance Between Entrepreneur And Institution

The composer, who has accrued reputational capital on the open market, exchanges some of it for an ever-dwindling share of institutional security. The institution in exchange acquires not so much her music or her services as a teacher—though these come in the bargain—as a stake in her brand. - The Baffler

Artist William Kentridge Has Directed Many Other People’s Operas. Now He’s Doing One Of His Own.

Premiered by the Rome Opera in 2019 and soon to open at the Barbican in London, Waiting for the Sibyl is a 40-minute chamber opera with a scenario (you couldn't really call it a libretto) by Kentridge and music by composers Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd. - The New York Times

World War II Killed 20th-Century Classical Music, Says Conductor John Mauceri

His idea, spelled out in a new book, is that the natural heirs of Mahler and Richard Strauss were the "degenerate" composers (e.g., Korngold, Weill) chased out of Europe by the Nazis and ended up composing film and theater music that wasn't thought to count as "classical." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pianist Alexei Lubimov’s First Interview Since Moscow Police Tried To Break Up His Concert

"The police said they were just following orders, and they obviously didn't know the music or why they had these orders. ... Anyway, they were late, because we'd already played Silvestrov's music. So Schubert ended up sacrificing himself for Silvestrov and Ukraine." - Van

Mills College, Where American Avant-Garde Music Got Wild (And Ultimately Kinda Cool)

Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, Dave Brubeck, and Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh are alumni. John Cage, Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Roscoe Mitchell, and Morton Subotnick taught there — not to mention former department head Robert Ashley, who would get stoned before lectures. - The Guardian

Where, Exactly, Did The Blues Originate?

Every one of the hypotheses has some evidence to support it, although not every case is equally convincing. - Ted Gioia

Why Do People Lose Interest In Music When They’re Depressed?

It's a much-commented-on phenomenon, and that lack of pleasure is an important marker for distinguishing depression from plain old sadness. What's going on with that? It's all about the dopamine. - Mic

Fired San Antonio Symphony Conductor Speaks Out

“I think this is really to be seen as a hostile action against the musicians more than against me. Now you're undermining the efforts of the musicians to continue live music in San Antonio by doing something like this. It's a very strange message to potential donors and patrons.” - Texas Public Radio

Flameout: When Pop Stars’ Careers Suddenly End

The writing on the wall is only easy to read in hindsight. At the time, it’s all a blur. - The Guardian

American Conductor Quits Post At Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre

“There’s no way I could ever be in denial of what is happening in Ukraine,” he said during a series of interviews over the past week. “Russia is not a place where I want to raise my son. It’s not a place where I want my wife to be anymore. It’s not a place I want to be anymore.”...

Really Bad Look: San Antonio Symphony Fires Music Director Emeritus For Conducting His Orchestra

The orchestra's board made the surprise decision — the stated cause being breach of contract — after Lang-Lessing announced that he will conduct the San Antonio musicians, who have been on strike since late September, in two benefit concerts next month. - Texas Public Radio

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