Admirers and critics alike may say, "At last!" This is a strong about-face. "He proudly played Bach on modern pianos; referred to fortepianists with an interest in Schubert as mere 'specialists'; and told a New York Times interviewer in 1983, 'I’ve heard some ghastly things done in the name of authenticity.' Time and experience, though, have brought about a wholesale change in...
Universal, Hipgnosis, Primary Wave, and others have paid multiple hundreds of millions for music catalogs ranging from Bob Dylan's to that of Stevie Nicks. But "music publishing and related intellectual-property management and exploitation is not a business one enters lightly. Famously called 'a business of pennies,' it requires attentive nurturing and development in order to maximize the value. ......
Zachary Woolfe: "There are more of them than ever, and they go by a variety of titles: assistant, associate, fellow, resident. Almost every major orchestra has at least one, … a far more diverse group in which women and musicians of color have found success in recent years. … The question now is how soon they will enter...
Three members of the national company's governing body (reportedly the three with the most experience with and connections within the industry) stepped down in May. One of them has since spoken up to refute speculation about specific reasons for their departure, but his explanation is less than entirely clear: "What I saw was a huge upswelling of discontent and...
Thomas, named artist in residence at the Los Angeles Opera and about to star in the new LAO COVID-safe performance of Oedipus Rex, says about his also new Russell Thomas Young Artists in Training program, "The most exciting project is the academy for young singers, because being a singer is so expensive and I was lucky when I was...
It's not because they'll live forever; think of the precipitous decline of Elvis' music and memorabilia. It's because they're hot right now and for the next few years. And if you're a young singer? Well. "The future of the music business is in fashion, make-up, booze, shoes—almost anything except the music itself. If you’re looking for the next Dylan,...
The 38-year-old conductor and cellist is also music director of the Orlando Philharmonic and the Greater Bridgeport (Ct.) Symphony, but he's best known in the wider world for two dynamic contemporary music ensembles: chamber orchestra The Knights, which he founded with his violinist brother Colin, and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. - The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
"A team of researchers studying brain activity of singing male and female plain-tailed wrens has discovered that the species synchronizes their frenetically paced duets, surprisingly, by inhibiting the song-making regions of their partner's brain as they exchange phrases." - Phys.org
As vaccines spread and COVID-19 numbers drop, "concert and theater venues are scrambling to keep up and figure out when and how to welcome back the crowds they depend on. For the Hollywood Bowl — perhaps the most celebrated outdoor venue in the nation — that has meant making plans, and ripping them up again, as it rides rapidly...
William Grant Still's one-act Highway 1, U.S.A. has barely been seen since its 1963 premiere, but it's being brought back to life this summer by Opera Theater of St. Louis with a cast headed by Nicole Cabell and Will Liverman and no less than Leonard Slatkin conducting. Yet it wouldn't have happened at all if not for COVID. -...
Angelico specializes in trousers (or pants, in the US) roles. He says that one day, he finished a rehearsal at covent Garden and realized that he couldn't play the role of a woman offstage anymore. "The art of opera has always had an appreciation of gender fluidity – and it allowed Adrian to perform as a man onstage before...
How'd the dry run for the YOLA concert hall go? "It would be hard to imagine a less proper acoustic assessment, or a better real world one. The ensemble of student string players spent the pandemic practicing at home and taking instruction via Zoom. Yet their assignment, on only their third time back together, was the tricky first movement...
To be fair, the Skagit Valley Chorale (the one where 52 of 61 singers eventually got COVID from a single rehearsal in March 2020) is singing together now - over Zoom. But a planned return in the fall looks bumpy, thanks to politics around vaccine requirements. - NPR
Justin Davidson, on the NY Phil's Green-Wood Cemetery "Death of Classical" concert: "That might not seem like the obvious location to stage the revival of performance culture, but when Green-Wood opened in 1838, it was intended to be one of New York’s grandest, most verdant, and most romantic public parks. (Today, its permanent residents include the orchestra’s late music...
Sara Glojnarić, who won Berlin’s “Neue Szenen” competition last year, explains that being a woman, being queer, and working against racism all intersect in her work, and she believes others' identities are reflected in their work as well. When she was in school at Stuttgart, she says, "our professor, Martin Schüttler, encouraged us to engage with that, to work...
