The public nature of Xue’s allegations has shaken the classical music world in China. And while these allegations are unproven, they highlight structural issues that make abuse of power and co...
https://van-magazine.com/mag/corruption-chinese-music-conservatories/
A small cottage industry of DJs, musicians and producers have been twiddling with TTPD since its release last month, and adding their own twists. – Washington Post
While it’s too late to restore the first of the string quartet’s scheduled performances there, the second, for Saturday night, was reinstated with additional security measures and an earlier...
“Across cultures, (an international team of 75) researchers found, songs share certain features not found in speech, suggesting that Darwin might have been right: Despite its diversity today, ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/science/universal-music-evolution.html#new_tab
The Canadian-born soprano/conductor will begin, as of August 2026, a three-year term as chief conductor and artistic director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She remains principal guest condu...
Do you consider yourself more of a music person or a lyrics person, and why? – Dirt
“Music labels, even if they’re small, still have such a hold over artists who can’t afford to pay for production themselves. You’re always owing someone something.” – The Guardian
“‘We’ve been trying to program Hockney’s Turandot for 30 years,’ said Rupert Hemmings, vice president of artistic planning for L.A. Opera, which … has spent $80,000 to rent the produ...
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/34-years-david-hockneys-magnificent-100059341.html#new_tab
The concert hall (not to be confused with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, a separate organization) called off the performances in the wake of demonstrations against Israel’s war against Ham...
Krishna Thiagarajan, president and CEO of Seattle Symphony, said the Symphony’s search for Dausgaard’s successor began in earnest between one-and-a-half and two years ago, and today, it’s ...
That signed Stravinsky photo will set you back £1,850. For a collection of eight lavishly illustrated Ballets Russes souvenir programmes or a copy of Porgy and Bess signed by George and Ira...
“Wagner, who turns 46 on May 21 and is a great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, became co-head of the festival in September 2008, along with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier. Katharina then...
https://apnews.com/article/germany-bayreuth-festival-wagner-bba2093d2d00c8f4d5b353876eb0bbcd#new_tab
“To me this highlights something sometimes missed about musical expression: AI doesn’t need to experience emotions and life events to successfully express them in music that resonates ...
Since the era of Napster, digital music has lacked robust metadata frameworks, leaving compositions vulnerable to misattribution and exploitation. I believe we urgently need comprehensive datab...
With the institution now in a state of crisis, the administration and the board face a crucial test: They must stabilize the organization, reassure worried donors like me and set a clear, positi...
https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/05/11/san-francisco-symphony-financial-crisis/
The music venue, whose opening has been delayed three times by everything from power supply problems to “part of the ventilation system becoming detached,” has now completed inspection and p...
“‘It is the most insane thing that has ever happened to me,’ the 24-year-old vocalist said at the post-event press conference. ‘The Code’ explores the artist’s nonbinary identity in ...
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/11/1250788997/switzerland-nemo-eurovision-2024-protests-israel
Police said they’re “investigating a man ‘suspected of unlawful threats’ toward a Eurovision employee and had passed a file to prosecutors to consider charges.” That man is Joost Klein...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/11/arts/music/eurovision-joost-klein-disqualified.html
Evidence shows that even in the early post-pandemic days, music recovered more quickly nationally than other performing arts disciplines, and the losses during COVID weren’t as severe. – Cul...
https://www.cultureoc.org/post/classical-music-is-booming-theater-not-so-much
The soon-to-be-renamed venue “will now boast significantly improved acoustics, state-of-the-art new audio, visual and lighting systems, new aisles and seats angled to face the stage — plus a...
“(Eden Golan) was one of 10 acts who made it through Thursday’s semifinal, which was decided by votes from Eurovision viewers around the world. … Bookmakers say she is likely to finish in ...
This will be one the first occasions, if not the first, that all of Bach’s works have been performed live and in-person in a complete cycle. A project like this is possible in Worcester becaus...
Chair of the inquiry, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said there was “compelling evidence” that the government needed to intercede to stem the rising cost of overheads music festivals org...
The L.A. Phil has had an uncharacteristic amount of worry, and Gustavo Dudamel has been at the center of it. Little has seemed right since his announcement last year that he would exchange the...
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-05-08/gustavo-dudamel-absent-la-phil-tour
A composer cycle is no mean feat – for both musicians and audiences. But there is something remarkable about hearing works from the same series performed by the same musicians, which is why co...
https://www.classical-music.uk/features/article/the-virtuous-cycle
Philly’s program is swimming, while Pittsburgh’s, after making initial waves, is treading water. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“This is a cautionary tale of performing-arts nonprofits, of board burnout, of soaring costs in a post-COVID world, of the precarious state of philanthropy. The primary cause of death was that...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/collapse-american-youth-symphony-behind-193412723.html#new_tab
“Conductor Anthony Parnther and the Musicians at Play Foundation speedily formed a new training orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Los Angeles, and scheduled an inaugural concert for April 28, on t...
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/civic-orchestra-los-angeles-home-171245896.html#new_tab
Puccini died before composing the final scene, and many find the standard ending by Franco Alfano unsatisfying. This alternative by composer Christopher Tin and librettist Susan Soon He Stanton ...
https://apnews.com/article/opera-turandot-new-ending-24432174560d555b39a858114135f260#new_tab
I’m not a medical person, but we do know that sound is about vibration. The body is like a resonating chamber; every part of our body can be affected by sound. opening the body up as a resona...
Musicologist Sarah Caissie Provost lays out the evidence. – Slate (Yahoo!)
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bluey-powerful-secret-weapon-just-222430850.html#new_tab
Derek Ash, whose great-grandparents, Sam and Rose Ash, opened the first Sam Ash store in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in 1924, said the company’s 42 locations could not compete in the e...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/business/sam-ash-music-closing-stores.html
From the company’s opening in 1883 to eight years ago, there were only Sarah Caldwell (1976), Simone Young (1996), Jane Glover (2013), and Susanna Mälkki (2016). From April 19-26, 2024, there...
“The orchestral sector and the opera and ballet sectors are facing a funding crisis at the moment, which might mean that the focus is not really on changing the culture but just on survival. B...
“The suggestion that the 45-year-old Abravanel Hall could be demolished or altered has been floated as Smith Entertainment Group — the company … that owns the Utah Jazz and the state’s n...
https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2024/05/06/fans-abravanel-hall-speak-up/#new_tab
Kyu-Young Kim cited “recent organizational decisions and shifts in priorities” for his decision, though he will continue as concertmaster. Subsequently, the 28 members of the SPCO musicians�...
Sorey takes honors this year after having been a finalist last year for his Monochromatic Light (Afterlife). Adagio, which “moves at a glacial pace, (yet) holds its subject in steady focus,”...
At 78 minutes, Cowboy Carter is nearly as long as composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s epic Seventh Symphony (1941) and has structural similarities to symphonic music too. There are clear “movemen...
At a time when orchestras are eager to connect with a broader swath of their communities, Alsop’s struggle to score a position at the very top of the field attests to the persistent lack of bo...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/arts/music/marin-alsop-conductor-classical-music.html
“Music on its own does not stand for anything except itself. The greatness of music, and the Ninth Symphony, lies in the richness of its contrasts. Music never just laughs or cries; it always ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/opinion/daniel-barenboim-beethoven-ninth-symphony.html
The reason conductors have changed is that the musicians they lead have changed. And the reason the musicians they lead have changed is that the societies those musicians inhabit have changed. T...
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blogs/article/conductors-are-just-human-beings-who-knew
“Matthew Muckey, associate principal trumpet, and Liang Wang, principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, have filed federal lawsuits against both the orchestra and the musicians’ union ...
The Thekla “started life as a cargo ship transporting timber around the Baltic Sea,” but now it’s had four decades of hosting music – and even becoming a canvas for Banksy. – The Guard...
Chad Smith: “The critical decisions we’re going to make will set us up for the next 50 years.” – Boston Globe (MSN)
For instance, “construction staff at the venue warned others back in February that works were as much as 35 weeks behind schedule.” Thirty-five. Weeks. – BBC
His Persian style lives “on account of something internal to his virtuosity: a sublime rubato that penetrates beneath the level of surface and releases melodies that cultivate and nourish the ...
That answer is something a little different whether you’re talking what you’re listening to – or music copyright law. – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/arts/music/song-copyright-sheet-music-ed-sheeran-marvin-gaye.html
“Widely interpreted as Beethoven’s plea for a global ‘brotherhood,’ the fourth movement has been incorporated into ceremonial events sponsored by international organizations such as UNE...
“I had reached a point where I didn’t have the physical time to digest everything that was going on in my professional and personal life. I wasn’t happy, and I think that was the main reas...
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 ...