How? With weddings, quinceñeras, and life's joyful moments generally canceled, mariachi bands' calendars have filled with funerals for friends, family members, and even fellow band members. "As the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands...
The new director of Long Beach Opera talks about making more with less. "There are people who are really comfortable with being very elite and exclusive and get wrapped up in the cachet of it all — the red carpets and the evening wear. I don’t think that’s helping sustain the art form. It alienates younger generations who don’t...
Timothy Jones's completion of several fragmentary violin-piano sonatas by Mozart "is unusual, though, in its choose-your-own-adventure approach. Jones, testing different aspects of Mozartian style, made multiple completions of each fragment, and the album includes some of that variety, giving a heady sense of how open-ended creative production is." - The New York Times
"This is a moment for change. Casting singers of color is really easy, but my focus has been on composers, librettists, conductors. I’m thinking about this season as a statement of principles, and that’s what I hope for going forward.” - The New York Times
Either way, the Met’s tweet (sent out to an audience of over 243,500 followers, roughly 304 times Wu’s audience) drew more attention to Jennifer Wu’s original joke than it likely would have seen on its own merits. Even the most viral posts on Twitter have a relatively brief life cycle. Yet this public comment, combined with Wu’s suspension, gave...
At the Philharmonic’s concert, strict rules were in place to reduce the risk of contagion. Spectators were required to give their names when purchasing the tickets, which were not transferable. - The Local (Germany)
For a program commemorating the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (the one in which the area known as "Black Wall Street" was destroyed), the company commissioned composer Daniel Bernard Roumain to write a piece, including his own text, for mezzo Denyce Graves. Roumain submitted a work titled They Still Want to Kill Us, with the final line...
Dr. Sanziana Roman, an endocrine surgeon at UCSF who was once a voice major at Cornell (and who can sew as well), worked with San Francisco Opera to develop a two-ply mask, made of cotton muslin and polyester corset boning, that allows a full range of facial and jaw motion. The company is already using the masks to rehearse...
UK record labels enjoyed a 30% boost in income from the sale of vinyl records last year to £86.5m, the highest total since 1989, as fans unable to attend live music because of pandemic restrictions spent their spare cash on building up their record collections. The number of vinyl records sold, led by classics such as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours...
The design of the Opera House takes on unconventional forms, opening up the space and integrating the opera house into the Greater Bay Area. Entitled Light of the Sea, the proposal puts in place a curved, light, transparent, and floating roof, under which performance spaces such as opera hall and concert hall are placed. - ArchDaily
"The move brings a singer at the peak of her international career to Detroit. She will perform locally at least once a season, take the lead in casting MOT productions and complement Sharon's experimental streak with a sensibility forged within the core of the operatic tradition." - Detroit Free Press
Wendy Law uses the same bow, in the same room with the same microphone, to play the opening of Bach's First Cello Suite on a contemporary instrument by Jay Haide, a 19th-century English cello by Thomas Kennedy, and an early 18th-century instrument by Alessandro Gagliano, the first great luthier in Naples. - Digg (YouTube)
Inspired by the vinyl LP revival, new CEO Danny Zeijdel thinks he can make a go of the online business and, ultimately, brick-and-mortar. For now, "you can visit the website, buy a vinyl record, a CD, even a cassette tape, or slake your Tower nostalgia with a logo T-shirt. Everything comes to you wrapped in that familiar yellow...
"The unevenness of response across the London halls, from the vagueness and uncertainty of the SBC to the Wigmore Hall’s dauntless ongoing programme of streamed recitals, with audiences to be readmitted as soon as possible, has been mirrored across the country." - The Guardian
Peel's star has been ascending, with work for TV and movies, and hosting a new, controversial BBC music show - and she managed, with the help of the cosmos, Barbara Hepworth, her grandfather's voice, and nature, to compose a new album during pandemic lockdowns and restrictions and a lot of Zoom meetings. - The Observer (UK)
