"(Starting in) the late twentieth century, a family of technologies moved from the fringes of novelty attraction and the avant-garde to the heart of mainstream culture. … The main character in this story is a device named for its ability to fabricate music artificially, producing sounds that are, by definition, synthetic." - Literary Hub
This is the latest event to be canceled by the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover. The show “Finn,” which could be read as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ experience, was also canceled. - OperaWire
As Messiaen saw it, the real revolution in 20th-century music had been launched not by an Austrian Jew but by a Frenchman, Claude Debussy, who ‘introduced the idea of haziness, not only in harmony and melody, but above all in rhythm and in the succession of timbres’. - London Review of Books
If genes and grit are not entirely responsible for the persistence of professional musical families across generations, what else matters? There are several possibilities. - Nightingale Sonata
Organizations across disciplines operated at a small deficit for the first time in five years in 2023. Choruses, by contrast, were still operating at a surplus on average. In 2019, about two thirds of the choruses reported surpluses, while in 2023 roughly half still reported surpluses. - SMU Cultural Data
The key findings of the Annual Field Report are drawn from the fiscal year 2023 data submitted by OPERA America’s Professional Company Members (PCMs) in the annual Professional Opera Survey administered by SMU Data Arts. - Opera America
Marching band is more than a pastime. It’s an extreme sport. The real reason the students rehearse so hard isn’t to play well at football games. It’s to prepare for a series of fiercely competitive marching-band contests in the fall, culminating in the Grand National Championships, in Indianapolis. - The New Yorker
Joshua Barone makes the case for such works as Samuel Barber's Vanessa, Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes’s Street Scene, Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, and Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe. - The New York Times
"The principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra was threatened with a defamation action for his comments about chorus members at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. … Gardner said: 'The chorus is made up of two rival Mafia families — who after one performance put each other in (the emergency room)." - BBC
There’s never been a better time in history to be an intermediary, a middleman, a hanger-on, an aggregator, a shyster. For a guitarist or keyboardist or singer, not so much. - The Honest Broker
I cannot recall a recording of Le Rossignol that gave more tingle to my ears. So am I allowed to recommend it here without incurring the wrath of #MeToo activists and the neighbourhood watch of public morals? - The Critic
Mariño, a sopranist, once begged his mother to take him to the doctor to fix his voice. Now, he says before a residency in Australia, "I like to describe my voice as a light lyric soprano, with a bit of coloratura.” - The Guardian (UK)
Before it burned, Charlie Springer’s house contained 18,000 vinyl LPs, 12,000 CDs, 10,000 45s, 4,000 cassettes, 600 78s, 150 8-tracks, hundreds of signed musical posters, and about 100 gold records. - The Atlantic
Recent years have seen a surge in options for physical customization of the piano and an enormous leap forward in the merging of acoustic and digital technologies, with AI applications cracking open a Pandora's box of possibilities. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"This marks the first such all-encompassing renovation since the iconic park, with its Prairie School architecture and sprawling lawn/picnic areas, opened in 1904 as a summertime 'high-end amusement park' and music-venue escape from the congestion of Chicago at the turn of the century." - WBEZ (Chicago)
