The Mason Bates/Gene Scheer opera, whose ticket sales improved for each performance of this fall’s run (the last two selling out, despite widely divergent reviews), is being brought back for four performances this February. Only one other time in its modern history has the company added shows mid-season. - Playbill
I believe that Agentic AI, which dynamically employs complex reasoning and adaptation, has the potential to revolutionize how fans interact with and discover music. - Music Business Worldwide
The musicians’ union and management reached agreement (pending a ratification vote) on a new contract on October 5, bringing to an end a ten-day walkout that was the first strike in the VSO’s 107-year history. - CBC
Swift broke the record set by Adele's 25, which sold 3.378 million copies in its first week in 2015. The Life of a Showgirl was released Oct. 3. In its first week, pure album sales totaled 3,479,500 copies. She's also become the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. - CBC
Roughly 96% of the classical music on terrestrial radio in the U.S. is broadcast on public radio stations — and those stations often have crucial symbiotic relationships with the classical music scenes in their listening areas. Michael Andor Brodeur considers what’s at stake. - The Washington Post (MSN)
As AI becomes more embedded in music creation, the challenge is balancing its legitimate creative use with the ethical and economic pressures it introduces. Disclosure is essential not just for accountability, but to give listeners transparent and user-friendly choices in the artists they support. - The Conversation
A team led by Dr. Shinichi Furuya at the NeuroPiano Institute and Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. has provided the first scientific evidence showing how pianists’ touch on the keys can actually change a piano’s timbre—the tonal character of its sound. - SciTech Daily
Cristian Macelaru: "The work is a lot more complex and challenging here , but it’s also much more rewarding. … I’ve always had such strong beliefs about what I would do if I were a music director of an American orchestra.” - The New York Times
In Britain, after December 31st, MTV will be no more - for the most part. “The flagship channel, MTV HD, will remain on air, showing reality series including Naked Dating UK and Geordie Shore.” - BBC
US District Judge Eumi Lee on Monday ruled that Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO can press forward with claims that Anthropic bears legal responsibility when users of its Claude chatbot generate copyrighted lyrics. - Music Business Worldwide
Andrés Orozco-Estrada, who was in Houston from 2014 to 2022, will become music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony next fall. He is also music director of the orchestra and opera house in Cologne and is now in his last season as chief conductor of the RAI National Symphony in Turin. - Moto Perpetuo
The invitation for Caterina Barbieri to lead the Music Biennale gave “a platform to another side of contemporary music that is generally excluded from these more institutional places.” There is “another scene that often doesn’t get taken quite as seriously because it’s not as technically virtuosic.” - The New York Times
“The strike will be held on Friday 17 October, the date of the opera house’s first performance of a run of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which will close its 2024-25 season. The theatre’s musicians and staff have for months called for Beatrice Venezi’s appointment as music director to be revoked.” - The Guardian
A group of independent music venues in Chicago have come together to protest the building of Lincoln Yards, a $5 billion new development on the city's North side, which is set to include three to five new concert halls run by Live Nation. - Pitchfork
“James Meena, former principal conductor and artistic director for (the Charlotte-based company), said he took to Facebook to refute ‘unsubstantiated rumors’ by (board members and staffers) at the opera company that he stole money from the group and that artists weren’t paid because of that.” - The Charlotte Observer (Yahoo!)
