"Both the Juno Awards and the Polaris Music Prize announced Friday they were rescinding the honours Sainte-Marie had received over the years, after the 84-year-old musician returned her Order of Canada earlier this week” since, as it turns out, she was never Canadian. - CBC
Under David Snead’s leadership, the 210-year-old period instrument orchestra’s annual revenue grew by 45 percent. Its endowment has expanded from $13 million to more than $34 million, and its ongoing comprehensive fund-raising campaign recently surpassed $50 million. - Symphony
Brian Katz, an acoustics expert at the Sorbonne, took an extensive acoustical survey of the cathedral in 2015, four years before the fire, and another shortly afterward. He says the sound in the burned church was like at Napoleon's coronation, and he has ideas about how the post-restoration acoustics are different. - BBC
A memo from the United States Department of Education forced the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to pause their Emerging Black Composers project. - KRON4
Christopher Dragon starts on July 1; by that point, the No Name Pops will be called the Philly Pops. Dragon is currently resident conductor of the Colorado Symphony and music director of the Wyoming Symphony (through this summer) and the Greensboro (NC) Symphony (starting this fall). - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
In particular, tenure exists to ensure that orchestra conductors cannot “clean house” according to their personal artistic tastes. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In a vacant church, he built a concert hall and studio where he recorded the Delta blues and Louisiana roots music. His latest acquisition is a printing shop that makes farm-equipment manuals and inserts for Analogue Productions LPs. Today, LP sales are now a $1 billion-plus market in the U.S. alone. - The New York Times
“The San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Conservatory of Music have ‘paused’ the Emerging Black Composers Project, citing a memo from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that called diversity efforts ‘repugnant’ and ‘shameful’ and directed schools to eliminate them or risk losing federal funding.“ - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
As the cost of living continues to skyrocket and spaces for musicians to perform become fewer, some say municipal music strategies are becoming increasingly important. A municipal music strategy is a set of policies created by municipal governments to help bolster local musicians. - CBC
In recent years, concertgoers have paid eye-popping prices for tickets to see popular artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Oasis on tour. But Gen Z fans — those born between 1997 and 2012 — are paying much more for concert tickets than previous generations did when they were young adults. - The New York Times
The group’s primary concert venue has been in Glendale in L.A. County rather than in the city proper, but starting next season, LACO will be performing in downtown Los Angeles at the Colburn School, right across the street from Disney Hall. - San Francisco Classical Voice
David Faber, cellist of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam: “In the early days of recorded classical music, string players exclusively used gut strings. Musicians like Leopold Auer and Fritz Kreisler achieved a full, sustained sound closer to Tchaikovsky’s era than today’s practices.” - The Strad
“For contemporary classical composers, writing children’s opera (is) like casting a spell that lets them be both big and small. Artists with highly experimental aesthetics get to embrace their silly sides and reconnect with the childlike urge to create. … As (composer Thierry) Tidrow often says, ‘They haven’t read Adorno.’” - The New York Times
With hammers and screws, of course. Composer Daniel Blumberg, tipped to win tonight, “found himself in the novel position of actually having to write music about architecture.” - The Independent (UK) (MSN)
