Max Brod, the friend who disregarded Kafka’s dying request to burn all of his writings, heavily bowdlerized the author’s personal journals before he published them. A new, complete edition �...
Opera, too, is no stranger to intersections of camp and politics, and some of Eurovision’s campest entries have been sung by opera singers. – Van
The superstar conductor, currently of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and soon to be of the New York one, spent spring break week with a specially assembled orchestra of 95 students from public sch...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/arts/music/student-orchestra-dudamel-philharmonic.html#new_tab
“The orchestra’s associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, and the principal oboist, Liang Wang, are each suing the Philharmonic and the musicians’ union Local 802 after being ousted fo...
Kim Noltemy’s appointment comes at a pivotal time for the L.A. Phil, which must find someone to take the reins as the organization’s music and artistic director when Gustavo Dudamel leaves ...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/entertainment/l-phil-names-kim-noltemy-204017154.html
There has long been a disconnect between how music critics and Swifties consume Taylor Swift’s work, but never before has that split been so pronounced. – The New Yorker
More and more, science is allowing us to understand our attraction to music and what it does for us — and consequently, what makes us human. – San Francisco Classical Voice
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/what-we-know-and-want-know-about-physicality-music
“Puccini is typically seen as representing the end of a tradition, but might he actually have sown the seeds of a variety of new traditions? We can hear nods to his style in works by Janáček...
https://bachtrack.com/feature-puccini-anniversary-modernism-composer-20th-century-may-2024#new_tab
“We had the framework of the Nativity story, so we didn’t have to worry a great deal about devising a new narrative structure. … Over a period of several months, we met several times with ...
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/04/24/the-art-of-the-libretto-john-adams/#new_tab
After 34 renowned seasons and acclaim around the world, the SLSQ will disband as an ensemble this year, but its members will remain active at Stanford University, where the Quartet has been in r...
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/st-lawrence-string-quartet-disband
“A headline tour usually comes out with a deficit. The only thing that we ever make any kind of profit on is festivals, because the fees can be higher, but any money left over just goes toward...
https://theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make-on-tour-taylor-swift
“Music provides an opportunity for people to process trauma in a different mode of expression.” – The New York Times
Some instruments needed to be treated rather like field dressings for soldiers. – The Strad
Hundreds of artists signed a letter objecting to the out of control secondary market for tickets, which is bad for fans. On the other hand, there’s actually good news: “Live music sales are...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/concert-tickets-broken-1.7185987
Adiescar Chase: “Some of it’s scary, but it’s really fun.” – BBC
Billy Bragg has been putting in the hard work for literal decades. And “here he is in the seaside retirement resort, still fighting the good fight.” – The Observer (UK)
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/28/billy-bragg-interview-progressive-patriot
The report was widely heralded as a turning point. Finally, the boys’ club of the music industry was laid bare. But on Friday, April 19, the government issued its response to the report’s...
I think the simplistic stereotype of my European colleagues assuming that American general directors are kicked around mercilessly by unconscionable wealthy donors is as wrong as the American pe...
https://van-magazine.com/mag/anthony-freud-leaving-lyric-opera-chicago/
A statement from station management said, “After years of observing audience data, it is clear that listeners are not staying for music programming. The KJZZ news and information programming h...
“At Curtis, it’s just the music, but we tell you you’ll know something about how the music business works and we think you should know something about risk-taking. … And now we’ve ex...
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/san-francisco-conservatory-musics-audacious-bet-its-own-future
The self-organized group of musicians playing under the No Name Pops banner is negotiating with the family of late pianist and conductor Peter Nero to acquire the Philly Pops name. – Philadel...
Anthony Roth Costanzo, 41, has a history with Philadelphia going back almost 30 years. His first appearance at the Academy of Music was in 1996 at the tender age of 14, performing the Shepherd ...
https://whyy.org/articles/opera-philadelphia-anthony-costanzo-general-director/
“On May 1, the Washington National Opera will recognize transgender singer Katherine Goforth as the inaugural recipient of” the True Voice Award, to be given triennially and “intended to h...
For people familiar with Cage’s work, McWhorter’s argument appeared antithetical to the spirit of “4’33.” Cage’s conception of silence, though heavily and often debated, went beyond ...
https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2024/04/john-cage-columbia-proteters-pro-palestine/
Romanian conductor Christian Macelaru, who holds prestigious posts in Europe, leading both the Orchestre National de France and the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, Germany, will succeed the ve...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/arts/music/cristian-macelaru-to-lead-cincinnati-symphony.html
“It’s a basic instinct, … the urge to figure out what you thought of it and why. It’s an impulse I believe I share with just about anyone reading this. … Did you find the music excitin...
The SA Phil is the fledgling orchestra founded by members of the San Antonio Symphony (which had been a Tobin resident) after that group’s board shut it down. The other group is called The Orc...
https://sanantonioreport.org/the-orchestra-san-antonio-tobin-center-new-resident-orchestra/#new_tab
Much of the publication obviously focuses on UMG’s extraordinarily successful 2023: A year in which it posted USD $12 billion in total revenues, with annual adjusted EBITDA just north of�...
It is well known many musicians work simultaneously in arts and non-arts roles, often to create some income security. Less understood is just how well the extensive skillset developed in music t...
We have entered a culturally risk-adverse period. Our present age of anxiety — which includes post-pandemic economic challenges to the arts, diminished attention spans and audiences seeking es...
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-04-19/la-opera-la-traviata-noahs-flood
To Zev Feldman, “solving a case means discovering a concert recording that has been gathering dust in an archive for decades, or studio sessions that were once thought to be lost and gone fore...
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-20/the-jazz-detective-who-finds-lost-music-treasures.html
The Japanese bamboo flute is familiar to audiences who play video games and watch Japanese movies. “It is the sound of the earth. … The sound of the wind passing through a bamboo forest. It�...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/18/arts/sound-earth-new-directions-an-ancient-instrument/
Portugal’s song tied for last, but coup planners needed a signal on the radio. The first song suggested was censored, and too obvious. So the coup organizer “suggested that the announcer cho...
With a universal definition hovering out of reach, the discourse concerning noise often starts with the personal. – The New Yorker
There are now 26 million videos on YouTube and TikTok videos featuring Epidemic Sound music, and the company reports that its tracks receive 40 million plays daily on music streaming platfor...
With the introduction of the stand-alone audiobooks offering, Spotify is now able to pay lower music-licensing rates for the music-and-audiobook bundle, introduced in the U.S. in November 2023....
“The New York Philharmonic, which has been facing an uproar since a recent magazine article detailed allegations of misconduct against two players it tried and failed to fire in 2018, said on ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-investigation.html#new_tab
Although specific events are not yet planned, in his role as artistic ambassador, Kellogg will engage with opera audiences through post-show Q&As, panel discussions, podcasts and other community...
“I will truly believe you mean your support and sympathy when I stop seeing ads featuring these people as star attractions at your concerts; when you offer the same protections and sympathy to...
https://annemidgette.com/blog/f/an-open-letter-to-the-classical-music-field?s=03
Cellist and composer Niles Luther, 27, “is kicking off his residency by composing three musical arrangements to accompany the exhibition ‘Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo’ (feat. Taka...
The funding received from Arts Council England (ACE) was cut by 35%, which led to WNO performances in Liverpool being cancelled in 2022, while operas in other English cities went ahead as plann...
The bank said more than 600 of its customers had come forward to report being scammed, losing an average of £332 each – with some losing £1,000. It added that 90% of the reported ticket scam...
Although streaming remains the dominant music format, physical media has been a growing niche where the industry can cater to so-called superfans, who express their dedication to artists by she...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/arts/music/taylor-swift-albums-versions-vinyl.html
The current superintendent of La Fenice in Venice, Fortunato Ortombina, will take over in Milan this September. For the first year, he will work alongside outgoing La Scala superintendent Domini...
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fortunato-ortombina-named-la-scala-095440051.html#new_tab
The company saw reduced support from the Arts Council of Wales and lost all funding from Arts Council England, which helped pay for tours to several English cities. Planned runs next year in Bri...
Bell has announced the extension of his tenure as music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) through to August 2028. He began the role in 2011, after first working with Nevi...
A flop year remains valuable for the feedback it gives us. Remove the noise of a once-in-a-lifetime, Beychella-esque headline performance and you can take stock of the tradition as a whole. �...
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/15/coachella-women-acts-doja-cat-lana-del-rey-kesha
In the wake of last week’s Vulture/New York magazine article reporting details of an alleged drugging/rape while the orchestra was performing in Vail in 2010, Philharmonic management has confi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-misconduct.html#new_tab
GenAI can benefit musicians as well as the general public. Songwriters are no longer limited to the instruments they can play or a recording process they know, and beginners can more easily lear...
The audio streaming company is developing tools that would allow subscribers to speed up, mash up and otherwise edit songs from their favorite artists, according to people familiar with the di...
Even now, “some employees, particularly female employees, continue to feel unsafe. A current member of the orchestra told me about an incident this past February in which her male colleagues s...
“What might a young music director mean to an orchestra and to a city when an amazing crop of international and, for the first time, diverse young maestros and maestras is upon us? The implica...
“Here it’s looked on with great suspicion. That drives me nuts, I have to tell you. England is a haven for culture whether it is pop culture or classical culture, literary culture, theatrica...
On April 30, Kosman will flip his critic’s notebook closed for the final time, retiring from the newspaper at a crucial juncture for classical music in the Bay Area. – San Francisco Chronic...
Many people are willing to lay out a lot of money for the experience and party in the VIP section, but it’s possible to get by on a budget, too. – BBC
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240409-how-much-it-costs-to-attend-coachella
The five-concert tour to Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai, led by outgoing music director Jaap van Zweden and running from June 27 to July 3, will be the first visit by a full U.S. orchestra to t...
Where barely one million new vinyl albums were sold in the United States in 2006, that figure has grown every year since, soaring to just over 49 million units in 2023. – The Conversation
The saint is worshiped alongside the divine, and in many faiths, the line between the two is blurred. In the world of classical music, we effectively worship the Great Dead Composers as saints, ...
https://van-magazine.com/mag/canonizing-great-dead-composers
It seems clearer that creatives using AI tools as a part of their own processes is considered more acceptable than administrators using AI to create or embellish creative work. – Opera America...
Cultural memory—for untold centuries, a precondition for creativity and appreciation of the creative act—risks becoming a stack of flashcards processed as media clips. Will sustained immersi...
“Their level of experience ranged from novice to veteran, as quantified by the number of public performances they had given. The researchers placed electrode caps on their heads to record thei...
TikTok began life as Musical.ly, an app to film oneself lip-syncing to songs. Interacting with pop music was a core function of TikTok. Fans and artists shared music they loved, grafting it onto...
“TikTok is how you get the word out about a new song — and now you’re muting someone’s entire catalog? The labels say TikTok is so important and push their artists to , and now they can�...
https://variety.com/2024/digital/opinion/universal-music-tiktok-battle-hurts-artists-1235929689/
In an attempt to tackle fraudulent activity on the platform, the digital music service now also requires a minimum number of unique listeners for royalties to be generated. In addition, the leng...
Although distributors and streaming services frequently use language that places the blame on the artist for fraudulent activity detected on their accounts, it has become clear that artists are...
Said the 82-year-old this morning, “I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning to get ready for rehearsal and I thought, what am I even doing? I was wobbly on my feet, and then I thought, I just shou...
Kedrick Armstrong, a 29-year-old “Black queer kid from Georgetown, South Carolina,” starts the job immediately, but his first concert will be next October’s season opener. In this Q&A, he ...
https://oaklandside.org/2024/04/09/oakland-symphony-music-director-kedrick-armstrong/#new_tab
The Russian republic of Chechnya has banned dance music it deems either too fast or too slow, in an attempt to quash a “polluting” western influence on the conservative majority-Muslim reg...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/09/chechnya-bans-dance-music-either-too-fast-slow
The Pasteur Institute has made advancements in another field — the musical arts — as some of its scientists have formed bands and other acts involving colleagues as well as students who have...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/style/pasteur-institute-music-bands.html
“Reframe the task and it could become very attractive for a particular kind of musician. The key is to take a cue from the sports pages, where the concept of ‘rebuilding’ is well understoo...
Troublingly, a backlash regarding this appointment has quickly gained momentum—let’s call it “Klaustrophobia.” Unlike Mr. Dudamel’s early days in L.A., when nary an unkind word was spo...
Eiko Ishibashi says that in scoring Ryûsuke Hamagachi’s new film, she felt his raw emotion – “anger that felt directed towards the way humans work, the unfairness of this whole world” �...
Her climate change studies were getting a professor down. So she turned to the University of South Florida’s school of music. “Composition professor Paul Reller worked with students to map...
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/04/1242001322/algae-bloom-florida
Whether you love him, hate him, pay him or his music no mind, or pretend he doesn’t matter — you cannot escape Philip Glass. His impact on composers of succeeding generations, whether they a...
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/theres-no-escaping-philip-glass-160009158.html
Violins like Ayoung An’s, made in the tradition of Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, require about two months of work and sell for about 16,000 to 17,000 euros, or $17,500 to $18,500. “I can...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/arts/violin-italy-antonio-stradivari-ayoung-an.html
A comprehensive study spearheaded by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics provides evidence that people tend to show a...
“In August, after Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 ends the summer at Tanglewood, Rowe, 49, will take her final bow with the orchestra, which will probably also be her final bow as a professional ...
Something in his brain shifted; later, he would tell people that it was as if someone had turned over a deck of cards to reveal the hidden faces behind the plain backs. Over the next several yea...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/04/beethoven-code-dynamics-manuscript/677964/
This moment represents a new low for music journalism as a whole. But it’s in times like these that prefigurative visions come more clearly into focus. – Boston Review
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/whats-next-for-music-criticism/
“This campaign is going to solve a major problem that the symphony has wrestled with for years, of not having a big enough endowment to help balance its budget. It’s giving us future stabili...
“Michael, 49, was chorus master at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, then has held the same job at Oper Frankfurt since 2014-15. He spent 10 years assisting the chorus master at the a...
https://apnews.com/article/met-opera-michael-chorus-71bbf9f1ea99b817036f4fe93e23c106#new_tab
Carlo Fuortes, who turned around the disastrous finances at the Rome Opera and then headed Italy’s state broadcaster, RAI, was appointed superintendent of Florence’s debt-ridden opera house....
https://www.gramilano.com/2024/03/carlo-fuortes-florence-opera-house/#new_tab
Both the Concertgebouw and the Chicago Symphony are orchestras at the very highest level, and they deserve a conductor’s full attention. The definition of a music director has undergone a muta...
It’s reportedly because of audiobooks. Spotify added audiobooks to its service last year on a trial basis. The price increase is how the streaming service will pay for letting subscribers acc...
https://gizmodo.com/spotify-is-raising-prices-again-audiobooks-to-blame-r-1851383925
Two hundred musical artists, including Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, and the estate of Frank Sinatra call on AI developers, technology companies, platform...
“Raffaele Cardone, the founder and long-time general and artistic director, … said the main reason for closing the company was, no surprise, money difficulties. … The upstart troupe provid...
Classical music has an image problem that feels like an existential threat. The pernicious idea of “elitism” — a word that was only coined in the 1980s — spread like Japanese knotweed th...
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name/
“I better warn you. I do talk a lot,” she said last Saturday night in Los Angeles. “I have 10 songs and the rest is chat.” In fact, Adele performed 16 songs that night, but she was true ...
In some ways he seems the archetypal modern man, prone to anxieties and constantly on the move, pushed around by world-historical forces. – The Telegraph (UK)
“A Finn who turned 28 in January, Mäkelä has had an astonishing rise in the music world. … Mäkelä will become CSO music director designate immediately and start a five-year tenure in 202...
“The financial crisis (is) so dire that the leadership is willing to take this huge public black eye (Salonen’s departure) rather than let it go on a minute longer. … The perception that t...
“Puccini’s universalism was sincerely felt, even if it’s unfashionable today, and it deserves to be appreciated rather than cynically apologized for — as some opera companies seem to do ...
One in six live music venues closed in the past year, according to figures from the Music Venue Trust. But amid the gloom, there are venues opening, too – albeit with a broader remit than focu...
For the past 20 years, he has been releasing album after album of songs with the object of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for. These include hundreds o...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/magazine/spotify-matt-farley.html
The catch is that he left it, and a lot more, with a friend, and never returned. So “the fate of hugely valuable collection of stage costumes, notebooks and never-before heard music is about ...
“No matter how you feel about Cowboy Carter, this is a historic moment. Not only is Beyoncé using her enormous platform to deliver an artistic statement and raise the profile of other Black c...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2024/03/31/beyonce-cowboy-carter-black-opry/
As amanuenses, copyists, assistants, rehearsal pianists, and performers, Vally Lasker, Jane Joseph and Nora Day did the countless necessary parts of the work of composition which Holst, who suff...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/arts/music/holst-the-planets.html#new_tab
In short: There can be no history of operatic modernity that is not also a memorial, no production of new opera that does not account for generic death, no opera written that does not, in its ow...
https://van-magazine.com/mag/john-cage-europeras-detroit-opera-review/
Carl St.Clair is currently the longest-serving music director of a major American orchestra, and under his baton the ensemble has flourished: It’s now the largest U.S. orchestra founded in the...
But not too much — just “a moderate level of syncopation to the point where our brain can still extract the periodic beat from the melodies. (These researchers) contend that the brain is ess...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-some-songs-makes-everyone-want-to-dance/#new_tab
The venue has an annual grant of £344,206 from Arts Council England (ACE) but John Gilhooly, Wigmore Hall’s artistic and executive director, says that it is “already 97% self-funded”. �...
Given these “significant financial pressures,” where does the multimillion-dollar Davies renovation project stand, certain to pose challenges even if the cost of application and licensing is...
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/sf-symphony-discloses-some-details-its-troubled-finances
“It’s (Josh) Kantor’s job to punch up the action when it’s going well on the field and soothe fans’ frayed nerves when it’s not. Through … social media, he interacts with fans in r...
People bought 43 million vinyl records last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That’s 6 million more than the number of CDs sold in 2023, marking the s...
The term “blockchain” has dropped out of the public consciousness since the calming of the NFT frenzy of the early 2020s. But the technology – essentially data hosting by verified authors ...
How did the opera get past censorship, when it utilized the same script of Hugo’s banned play? Well, this was thanks to the genius of Giuseppe Verdi. – El Pais
Study author Maria Chiara Pino and her colleagues noted that people with formal musical background i.e., individuals who had formal musical training tend to show better working memory functionin...
“We would love nothing more than to be able to immediately restore the number of SoundBox performances, semi-staged productions, and new commissions; to resume touring; and to reinstate Concer...
“The possible choice for the opening ceremony of Aya Nakamura, a superstar French-Malian singer whose slang-spiced lyrics stand at some distance from academic French, has ignited a furor tinge...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/world/europe/france-olympics-aya-nakamura.html#new_tab
Subscription streaming revenues grew by 11.2% YoY last year, accounting for 48.9% of the global market, which in dollar terms, means that subscription streaming revenues reached $14 billion...
“The report contained personal accounts that showed not only that inequality is still pervasive in the world of classical music, but that women are enduring an unacceptable level of sexual abu...
Yes, his various Passions are common right now – but he’s everywhere, all of the time. And “indirectly, we are also indebted to Bach for the ability to attend public concerts.” – El Pa...
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-24/the-endless-legacy-of-johann-sebastian-bach.html
Meanwhile, “events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered to half-staff and television entertainment and advertising were suspended,” and relatives waited for word to com...
Truly, so-called generative AI isn’t there yet on the composing side. “I’ve played the basic chord progression from ‘Soul Of The Machine’ — and variations of it —countless times. S...
https://www.theverge.com/24103840/generative-ai-artwork-suno-music-industry-musicians-copyright
According to the data, 1,250 artists generated over $1 million each in recording and publishing royalties in 2023; 11,600 generated over $100,000 and 66,000 generated over $10,000 — numbers th...
https://apnews.com/article/spotify-loud-clear-report-8ddab5a6e03f65233b0f9ed80eb99e0c
In Los Angeles, 11 technicians work long hours repairing 6,000 public school instruments a year. “One of the last programs of its kind in the U.S., it has struggled to stay afloat over the ye...
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/last-repair-shop-donations-1.7149746
A Danish man has been sentenced to prison in a “historic” case after being found guilty of fraudulently profiting from royalties on hundreds of tracks on music streaming sites. – The Guard...
“We are devastated by this decision, which we believe is a fundamentally regressive move for the college, the choral community in Cambridge, and the wider arts provision for women in the UK.�...
The report points out – with some perspicacity – that there is a view throughout the industry that whilst opera is an expensive art form, there are ways of producing first-class work that do...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opera/what-to-see/arts-council-england-report-english-national-opera/
“Few details were available on the initiative, which picks up on the joint venture that brought Charlie Parker’s Yardbird and We Shall Not Be Moved to the stages of both companies. No commis...
“Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed off on legislation designed to protect songwriters, performers and other music industry professionals against the potential dangers of artificial in...
Johan Röhr is behind over 2,700 songs that have been released under various fake artist names on Spotify. His music across all of these pseudonymous artist accounts on Spotify, according to�...
The American Youth Symphony, which shut down on Friday, is — or rather was — one of the few large national organizations involved in the vital transition between studying and starting a c...
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/financial-challenges-shut-down-american-youth-symphony
“Choose-your-own” subscription packages, in which attendees can opt for a handful of performances instead of an entire series, and membership models, wherein attendees pay a flat rate for ac...
Piano lessons for children were all the rage not too many years ago, but that trend seems to have withered, while lessons in traditional instruments like the Chinese zither, bamboo flute, and th...
“The board now presents the San Francisco Symphony as a survivor forgoing experimental treatment and in need of a cautious caretaker. … What has changed over the years is that many boards ha...