The Italian-British conductor has been music director at Covent Garden since 2002; at the end of the 2023-24 season, he'll move three miles or so across town to the Barbican, where he'll succeed Simon Rattle as chief conductor of the LSO. - The Guardian
Michael Morgan believes the power of the symphony orchestra lies in its ability to be harnessed for a diversity of musical styles and genres. As such, he views the orchestra as a way to bring people together in community, especially groups that have historically been excluded from these kinds of arts and culture spaces. “Our primary question is ‘who’s...
Mere months after her star turn in 20 Feet from Stardom, the singer was in a car accident so terrible that she spent five months in the hospital and years undergoing rehab. "Clayton said her family sat by her bedside crying profusely while a team of doctors came into the room. 'I wondered, ‘What the heck is going on?’'...
Small-scale, outdoor productions could take place in nearly every park that has a bandstand. They just need some attention, and the concerts need some intention. "They are structures unlike any others: halfway between the outside world we crave and the domestic interior to which we have been urged to retreat. They are often beautiful – flashing their finials –...
The singer Yseult, a Parisian whose parents are from Cameroon, won the award for Best Newcomer at the French Grammys in February, and she has millions of fans and YouTube views. But when she won and said, "This is not just a victory for me, it’s a victory for my brothers and sisters. We have snatched this, our freedom,...
Music was inextricably linked to Austen's creativity - she practiced, when she had access to a piano, every day, and copied friends' sheet music note by note. During the times her family didn't have a piano? As far as scholars can tell, she wasn't writing. - Colorado Public Radio
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...
