Music

Throughout the pandemic Glyndebourne has been notably agile, putting on outdoor performances last summer and leading the brief UK return to theatres in the autumn. Now, for summer 2021, the only real casualty of the originally planned season is a revival of Barbe & Doucet’s staging of Mozart’s Magic Flute, which, with its huge drop sets and puppets, would have required too many people working too closely together behind the scenes. – The Guardian

“The process of making musical instrument is generally out of the public eye, and there’s often a mystique about how those particular tools-of-the-trade are created. During some idle hours of the long lockdown, I went deep down the YouTube rabbit hole and discovered scores of fascinating videos capturing all manner of fine artisans — luthiers, brass wranglers, wood turners, and more — exploring the alchemy of turning raw materials into the precision instruments musicians depend on to work their magic.” – San Francisco Classical Voice

With support from a wide cast of collaborators, Angry and Katherine McMahon are taking songs from the public domain — a class of creative works whose copyright protections have expired or been otherwise forfeited, making them freely available for public use — and reimagining them for the present moment. – The New York Times

The wildfire-like spread of the coronavirus over a couple of hours of choral singing inside a Washington church was enough to send shockwaves throughout the singing community in California. – KQED

“Black composers have been emerging over the past year at a dramatically accelerated pace that’s particularly rare amid the normally glacial progression of the classical music world. Young figures such as Valerie Coleman – whose highly appealing Seven O’Clock Shout for the Philadelphia Orchestra was an instant hit – shouldn’t be such a surprise, but what about figures from the past who aren’t around to give a living face to their respective musical outputs? And why are we only hearing about them now?” David Patrick Stearns considers the question. – Classical Voice North America

“Dialing for dollars may be a skill that some sellers of products and services profitably employ. But when it comes to deepening a level of patron loyalty that would get a major cultural institution out of a pandemically induced shutdown, it’s done more harm than good.” – David Rohde

After wresting control of IMG Artists in an internal power struggle, Russian-born tycoon Alexander Shustorovich has kept the agency alive through the pandemic to become the world’s largest manager of classical music talent. – Billboard

Brexit regulations are not great for the LSO, which had 99 tour dates booked in Europe before the pandemic canceled them all. “It’s all so obviously ludicrous, even in the area of haulage regulations. Touring concerts have to be planned in a different way – the truck has to return to England after two venues – we cannot go from one country to another.” – The Observer (UK)

You might this it’s Nintendo – the soundtracks to Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong sure can linger in one’s brain – but instead it’s Roblox, and the music (which took off in popularity with the addition of, you guessed it, TikTok), created the genre robloxcore. “Mostly made by young teenagers, it’s a strain of chaotic, profanity-laden rap that’s overloaded with frantic sound effects. Tunes like ‘Threat,’ by lieu, a 13-year-old musician, emulate being inside a digital dimension where every bass thud and synth shake is an enemy you’re blowing past, every vocal stutter and short-circuited squeak a new obstacle to avoid.” – The New York Times

The tale of Artur Rodzinski is not a charming one, and yet, “arguably no man had more of a hand in turning American orchestras into the technical marvels they became in the mid-20th century — whether through those he led himself, or through the example he set. He jolted up the standards of some of the great ensembles of the radio age: the Philadelphia Orchestra (as an assistant from 1925 to ’29), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (as music director from 1929 to ’33), the Cleveland Orchestra (1933 to ’43), the NBC Symphony (which he created in 1937), the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, as it was then known (1943 to ’47) and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for a single, tempestuous season after that.” – The New York Times

Koester funded his recording company by selling jazz and blues records at his store. He “was a pivotal figure in Chicago and beyond, releasing early efforts by Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam and numerous other jazz and blues musicians. He captured the sound of Chicago’s vibrant blues scene of the 1960s,” among many other achievements. – The New York Times

Basically, it owns both: Some shows use “a hybrid format, which Spotify calls ‘shows with music’ or ‘music and talk, that allows creators to incorporate full songs from the service’s vast catalog into their podcasts free of charge. (Spotify takes a 30 percent cut of ads set up through the service.) The format gives podcasters easy access to music that would be difficult or too costly to attain on their own and presents listeners with a seamless interface for learning more about a song or adding it to their library.” – The New York Times

 “If reopening the Bowl is like riding a bike,” the L.A. Phil president and CEO says, “the organization has swapped out a Tour de France Cannondale for a unicycle.” – Los Angeles Times

Paul Meecham comes to the job after leading the Utah Symphony & Opera for three years and a 10-year run as CEO of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. His résumé also includes two years at the Seattle Symphony. – Tucson.com

“Only the males can vibrate a section of their abdomen called the tymbals to make either phaaaaaroah drone sounds or chchchchhwhhhs noise waves, depending on the species. For any mating to happen, though, the females must respond with a quiet but audible flick of their wings, leading the males on to successive sounds only if this flick happens at exactly the right time after the male stops vibrating. The orchestration is incredibly precise,” writes David Rothenberg, who likes to take his clarinet out to a field and play along. – The New York Times

The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, located on the downtown waterfront, seats up to 10,000 people and (because it’s San Diego and they can) will be used year-round. It hosts a livestream with selected orchestra members on May 21 and will have its first full orchestra concert, under music director Rafael Payaré, later this summer. – The San Diego Union-Tribune

At the beginning of this week it was announced that the conductor (who was, when he was younger, hailed as a new Herbert von Karajan) was not offered a contract renewal at the orchestra and opera house in Dresden. It turns out that his term as music director at Wagner’s own opera house in Bayreuth expired on Jan. 1, and his name and title have reportedly disappeared from the festival’s website. Bayreuth’s spokesperson says only that Thielemann has a contract as a guest conductor for one opera this summer and beyond that “there is no decision yet.” (in German; for Google Translate version, click here) – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (DPA)

The book’s subtitle, New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition, makes its soft boundaries clear. As managing director of London’s Barbican Centre, and former director of the Proms, controller of Radio 3 and music critic of the Observer – and therefore a colleague and friend to those of us in the business of classical – Kenyon has heard and programmed as much music as anyone. – The Guardian

“Let’s set the scene. It’s February 28, 1903, and 12 musicians from the Imperial Household Orchestra are seated in front of a gramophone horn in a Tokyo hotel room. The needle slowly lowers onto a spinning blank disc and the session begins. What follows is a recording of the sound of gagaku, the oldest continuously performed orchestral music in the world that had, till then, been the reserve of Japan’s imperial court for over a thousand years. This recital is the first ever to be committed to disc, a glimpse of the past captured with a machine from the future.” – Atlas Obscura

“2020 had all been about crypto art. We believe that Betty’s Notebook is the birth of crypto music. It makes music truly ‘crypto native’,” meaning the piece is designed and meant for consumption on the blockchain, instead of simply being added to it as a NFT. “You can’t have Betty’s Notebook without the blockchain.” – Dallas Morning News

“Members of the company’s orchestra and chorus, joined by prominent soloists and led by its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will give two concerts at the Knockdown Center in Queens on Sunday. … The concerts will go on despite continuing labor tensions at the Met, which have threatened the intended reopening of its Lincoln Center home in September.” – The New York Times

“The union, the American Guild of Musical Artists — which also represents soloists, dancers, actors and stage managers — is the first of the three largest Met unions to reach such a deal after months of sometimes-bitter division between labor and management over how deep and lasting the pandemic pay cuts should be.” – The New York Times

The culture ministry of the German state of Saxony has announced that Thielemann’s contract as music director of the Staatskapelle Dresden, one of Europe’s oldest and most admired orchestras, and the Saxon State Opera (aka the Semperoper) will not be renewed when it expires in the summer of 2024. The contract of Semperoper superintendent Peter Theiler, which expires at the same time, won’t be extended, either; culture minister Barbara Klepsch says the government wants to chart a new course for the institution. Thielemann has been in Dresden since 2012; this will be the first position he has not left by his own choice. (in German; for a Google Translate version, click here) – MDR (Leipzig)

Andres Orozco-Estrada hasn’t been back to Texas to conduct his orchestra for a year, but he had been planning to return for concerts May 7-9 and May 14-16 to close his next-to-last season in Houston. (He’ll step down in the summer of 2022.) But the U.S. government’s National Interest Exemption on pandemic travel restrictions for certain artists expired in early March, exceptions are no longer being considered, and Orozco-Estrada learned at the last minute that he wouldn’t be allowed to enter the country. David Robertson is filling in for him. – Houston Chronicle

Last month, Midia Research, which specializes in music and digital media, released a study, “Rebalancing the Song Economy,” that was commissioned by Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus. It includes some surprising findings — in a survey, twice as many streaming users said a song mattered more to them than the artist who performed it, rather than the opposite — and sounds an alarm about the need to reform the economics of streaming to better support songwriters. – The New York Times