Graduates of the country’s El Sistema program can be found on concert stages and in top-flight orchestras all over the world; conductor Giancarlo Guerrero suggests that perhaps musicians are Venezuela’s top export. But with political uncertainty there and Trump’s visa restrictions in the US, will the talent keep pouring out? - WBEZ (Chicago)
Afghanistan’s National Television, a broadcaster controlled by the Taliban, reported on Tuesday that morality police in Parwan had gathered the instruments over the past year from the provincial centre and surrounding districts. The report said a Taliban committee later set the items on fire. - Afghanistan International
“Classical California has launched a unified statewide brand, consolidating KUSC, KDFC and nine additional stations under a single identity. The move follows the unification of on-air programming between the University of Southern California’s KUSC Los Angeles (91.5) and KDFC San Francisco (90.3) in October.” - Inside Radio
For some Ukrainian musicians, the new reality they have chosen is “no Russian words from my lips, no Russian music from my hand”, as Nazarii Stets, one of the players of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra (UFO), founded and conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, puts it. - The Guardian
Lamplighters Music Theatre, the Bay Area’s Gilbert and Sullivan specialists, has called off its spring 2026 production of Patience. Company leaders blame not only the rising costs and shrinking audiences many organizations have experienced post-pandemic, but also the expenses caused by the personnel law AB5. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
People have relished music for so long that we have evidence, from forty thousand years ago, of humans making a flute-like instrument out of a vulture bone. We feel that even wordless music reflects our moods. - The New Yorker
It’s hard to imagine creativity without divergent thinking. How are you being exploratory? How are you being adventurous? A theme and variations is a very overt demonstration of that process, because the whole idea is to generate novel versions of the same source. - The New York Times
“After the loss of its musical director, the cancelation of multiple concerts and a dispute locking it out of what was touted to be its permanent performance space, the San Antonio Philharmonic has scrapped the remainder of its season, according to an email sent to its musicians.” - San Antonio Current
Basically, it means the CSO shows more scheduled performances than other orchestras in the comprehensive concert listings on the classical-music website Bachtrack. However, both Bachtrack’s editors and CSO management say that it’s not as simple as that description sounds. - Chicago Tribune
Olivia Newton John and John Denver might be mostly known for the mildness of their music, but at one point they were two of Nashville’s untouchables. - Slate
Many worry that a kind of “canned” creativity will take over much of what originates from real people today, pushing a broad swath of lab technicians, ad writers, studio musicians, and commercial artists out of jobs and into unemployment lines. - Christian Science Monitor
“You know, when I said I was going to do Salome a couple of people told me that this was the perfect opera for me because it’s the closest to those ‘90s plays. And then in some ways I was a bit disappointed, because then I was wondering whether I was typecasting myself!” - Bachtrack
Gaza showed how power brokers from the White House on down seem eager for pretexts to punish dissent in ways that create a chilling effect, and that the hottest rhetoric from activists can be exactly that pretext. - The Atlantic
The embarrassment comes in what can all too easily happen when classical music tries to get down with the kids with new formats. Visuals! Apps! Short excerpts instead of whole symphonies! All of which can patronisingly say: we’re just like the pop cultures you love: we’re groovy too! - The Guardian
