In being asked to stand in for clubs, concert halls, and festivals so frequently these last two years, recordings are still being asked to do an awful lot, far too much. Have they succeeded? Probably not, but I wouldn’t advise Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit to bet against it. - Arts Fuse
The Times's Joshua Barone says she's "one of the world's top conductors." The LA Phil's CEO says "Susanna has to be at the top of anyone's list." And Mälkki herself? "I think this is a question that will be carefully thought about if it comes up." - The New York Times
“I just mean to really expose what these numbers mean and what they don’t mean." After splitting the revenue with a collaborator, those 80,000 streams only made him around $90, just over $0.001 per stream. - Seattle Times
Tony Kushner: "She either comprehends or intuits, not what necessarily is the most obvious choice for dramatic action, but what's under the surface, where the real meaning of a piece lies. … She has this absolutely uncanny ability to translate that into music." - The New York Times
New opera, by any reasonable definition – by any defensible amalgamation of the definitions commonly put forward over the years – is thriving. - Osborne on Opera: A Critical Blog
Orchestras are approaching these audiences through multilingual websites, artist and repertoire choices, and outreach activities, connecting more firmly with the communities they touch. - Strings
Here's an explainer about Musical Ear Syndrome — which isn't a form of tinnitus or of audio hallucinations caused by a psychiatric condition. In fact, MES is pretty common. - Ludwig Van
How these two Canadian companies chose to respond to our contemporary context of anti-racist calls when interpreting Messiah provides an opportunity to have a conversation about how performers and audiences of western classical music can engage more fully in anti-colonial and anti-racist work. - The Conversation
"Put it this way," writes David Patrick Stearns, "in a year when Berlin, London, and much of the operatic world were abuzz over higher-profile Ring activity, this — (at least) in the Dutch radio broadcast I caught — was the most important Wagner performance (of 2021)." - Classical Voice North America
Since 2013, she has been commissioning scores for a monumental project called “Density 2036”; when it comes to completion, in the designated year, it will have added as many as a hundred pieces to the flute repertory. - The New Yorker
It is one of the most vivid examples of efforts by major arts organizations across the country to bring youth education programs out into communities, rather than concentrating them in city centers or urban arts districts. - The New York Times
With Christmas pop the companies are on tricky ground. As one company executive put it, the Christmas record needs “an indefinable atmosphere.” Sex is not part of it. - The Guardian
Plenty of explicitly Christmas-themed songs will have certain musical characteristics, even though they’re always optional. These include a major key, an accessible pitch range and a moderate tempo, making them both easier to sing and easier on the ear. - The Conversation
to Cairo and asked people there about it — and she found that people, even those who've never seen it themselves, seem generally proud of Aïda and its glorification of their homeland's ancient history. - The Guardian
The scheduled conductor and all four soloists, who'd been rehearsing together, tested positive the day before Wednesday's concert — and, rather than canceling, the orchestra managed to round up another cast and conductor within 24 hours. David Patrick Stearns reports on how it went. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
