Mary Ellen Goree, principal second violin: "I cannot sit on stage in my chair knowing that 26 of my colleagues lost their jobs just so I could hold onto two-thirds of mine. ... It’s a moral issue." - Spectrum News (San Antonio)
According to the Canadian pianist Liu, the answer after an extra COVID year was spontaneity. "That was the challenge, actually: to not get bored of yourself after playing these pieces and practising them for thousands of hours." - CBC
"'Often there's that idea that you're just going to dig your garden and go to Zumba or visit a National Trust property,' songwriter and guitarist Ruth Miller said. 'We want to be in a punk band. We don't want to just watch daytime TV.'" - BBC
She told Spotify to quit with the shuffle on albums - and "on Saturday, the streaming giant confirmed that it had agreed to the British superstar’s request to automatically play the music in the order an artist has curated." - Washington Post
Of course the past two years have meant near-constant revisions of goals, budgets, and the definition of success - but in Portland, the Friends of Chamber Music's Pat Zagelow had decades of flexible crisis response to call on. - Oregon ArtsWatch
"It is striking just how much joy is contained within the vivid and eerily detailed footage. Contrary to almost all accounts over the past 52 years, John, Paul, George and Ringo are seemingly happy." - The Guardian (UK)
Spain’s announcement means UK musicians and their crew will no longer need visas for engagements of less than 90 days, a change in policy that came after months of lobbying from trade groups on both sides. - The Guardian
“It created a completely new type of producer. It gave access to a versatile tool that would do what people want without spending thousands and thousands of dollars and training.” - Billboard
Around the world, vinyl pressing facilities are stretched to the limit with 24-hour, nearly seven-days-a-week production still not meeting demand. - CBC
Zachary Woolfe, classical music editor: "Omnipresent and energetic, he has been one of the central figures in New York's cultural re-emergence, and certainly the city's most significant and visible classical musician at a transformative moment." - The New York Times
For example, the group Resonance Works Pittsburgh, which has committed to make half of all works it plays by women and at least one-third by composers of color, just did an all-female-composer program. But might that limit audience interest the same way all-Beethoven concerts can? - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
If this period of enforced home life made her reassess her priorities – she lives in Salzburg with her husband and their two children – she was not alone. - iNews
Melbourne Digital Concert Hall streamed 430 performances, with over $1.6 million going to musicians during one of the longest, strictest lockdowns in the world. In 2022, as the Australian Digital Concert Hall, it will transmit 200 programs by performers from Perth to Brisbane to Hobart. - The Age (Melbourne)
The school became known for supporting the education of girls, who make up about a third of the student body. The school’s all-female orchestra, Zohra, toured the world and was hailed as a symbol of a modern, more progressive Afghanistan. - The New York Times
