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...
The amount of money people are spending on music hasn't changed from when we bought albums at the record store or CDs by Sony subscription service - but the way musicians get the money, and how much money they get, is radically different. "When we talk about per stream rates, what we’re doing is sort of smushing all of...
A Facebook post in late April from an alumna of Venezuela's famous system of free musical education "has since sparked a collective portrait of teenage girls in El Sistema being systematically groomed by older male teachers, with coercive innuendos and propositions as everyday occurrences." Said one former student of her oboe teacher, "His methods rested on an uplifting discourse...
"On May 25, 1991 — 30 years ago Tuesday — Billboard … started counting album sales with scanners and computers and whatnot, and not just calling up record stores one at a time and asking them for their individual counts, often a manual and semi-accurate and flagrantly corrupt process. … Virtually overnight, SoundScan changed the rules on who got...
"While a normal season features about 90 concerts over eight weeks, last year just 14 concerts played to an empty Royal Albert Hall. The BBC said the plan this summer was for 52 concerts over six weeks, with audiences. 'And we pray it will be a full audience,' said the Proms director, David Pickard." - The Guardian
The demand for remote performances is presumably waning, which is why it's weird that Spotify just entered the virtual concert business and thinks people will pay $15 for prerecorded shows you can only watch once at a dictated time. - Mic
"I sometimes feel we’re losing sight of how valuable music is. I get messages on Patreon or Instagram from fans telling me how my music got them through a huge depression or losing a child. It was the same for me." - The Guardian
For its first post-pandemic performances this fall, Lyric Opera of Chicago — based, it seems, on feedback from potential audience members and official guidelines last year — decided to keep all performances under two-and-a-half hours and eliminate intermission. When he reported this, writes Chris Jones, "my mailbox immediately filled up with one burning question from Chicago's opera fans: When...
"Choirs had been working under the assumption that restrictions on rehearsals would be relaxed on 17 May, at the same time as shops, bars and hairdressers opened up. Instead, the guidelines" — revised the following day to limit indoor rehearsals to six people and those outdoors to 30 — "were actually more draconian than the ones in place last...
"More than 40% of musicians polled about their work in the European Union said they would consider relocating to Europe to continue accessing jobs, with a fifth contemplating changing career entirely. Musicians warned that the red tape and additional costs of touring and working in Europe after Brexit would have substantial impacts on their careers." - The Stage
Alsop satisfies exactly none of these stubborn criteria for conducting an orchestra, which is perhaps why her career has been an exercise in exhausting the potential of the word “pioneer.” Owing to her severe allergy to “can’t” and “don’t,” Alsop’s achievements are many and, more often than not, warrant some celebratory disclaimer to the tune of “first woman to...
The girls went absolutely viral for a video of their performance at the Los Angeles Public Library, especially a clip with their song "Racist Sexist Boy." Now the punk band comprised of 10-16-year-olds has a contract. (Though one hopes they don't tone things down for the record company.) - Variety
Composer Keiko Fujiie, who moved to Burkina Faso and built a house where the musicians can practice without annoying their neighbors, hopes to tour the country and debunk the idea of opera as an elite art form: ""I didn't come to introduce European opera here - to the contrary - I needed to study their music, and little by...
