“A protester carrying a sign criticizing the policies of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia climbed over the orchestra pit and onto the stage at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night as the diva Anna Netrebko took her curtain call after performing the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta.” (includes video)

“[Music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s] current contract runs through 2017, which means the new five-year deal extends his tenure to 2022.” With the president/CEO and board chairman having extended their terms as well, the Philadelphia Orchestra has the stability it will need to do the major fundraising it also needs.

“It’s not about toggling between tabs, one for streaming music, one for chatting with coworkers, and another for checking bank statements. It’s about experiencing music as an artifact, and really listening.”

“Come to think of it, Petty is more like a musical Mark Rothko, in that he usually paints with only a few big splotches of solid color. Just because he’s famous for doing it, does that really mean nobody else is allowed to?”

“The unequivocal fact is that in the last eight financial years the ENO has run an unrestricted surplus of £2.4 million. Our total audience for 2013/14 was up by 11% and audience numbers for the 2014/15 season to date remain stable.”

Anando Mukerjee: “If it is done, if it is packaged right, if it is not diluted, if the artistic integrity of the music is not diluted, and it is given an Indian narrative and an Indian context, then there is no reason to suppose why it can’t work. … You can certainly have something like Carmen which is a great opera set in Spain, being set in India, Rajasthan. So you’re not masalafying it, you’re not chutnifying it, you’re not making it into a kind of fusion experiment. You’re simply contextualizing it to the Indian setting.”

“Carnegie Hall will celebrate its 125th anniversary next season not only with its customary assortment of the world’s leading orchestras and performers playing long-cherished masterpieces but also by starting a new project to commission some 125 new works over the next five years.”

“Those countries have been stuck in a six-year depression, with unemployment rates of around 25 per cent. Yet their principal opera companies have somehow come through the valley of austerity with no debt, full and lively artistic programs, and higher standing in their communities. They have done far better, in fact, than some companies in wealthier European states.”

“Opera Atelier is already the busiest touring opera company in North America, but its 30th season will enhance that reputation even further. Already a regular guest at the Opera Royal at the Palace of Versailles in France, the Toronto company will now make it official, appearing at Versailles every other season.”

“The company survived the drama of its board leadership and longtime director trying to kill it and opened its 50th season Saturday night … with La Bohème. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to wake you up, and if the company had an elitist identity before its near-death experience, it now promises to become the community’s opera company.”

Rising young Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra and mid-career Australian maestra Simone Young discuss learning and shaping a score, keeping your head about you on and off the podium, and why they’d rather not have to deal with the woman-conductor thing. (audio)

“Today the disruption is being disrupted: Digital track sales are falling at nearly the same rate as CD sales, as music fans are turning to streaming—on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and music blogs.”

“Living mostly in Europe these days and having to play the role of explaining just what is going on in contemporary American music to my composer colleagues there, I’ve run up against the opinion that seemingly everything is probably minimalist and if not, it’s loud and ambiguously tonal with orchestral tutti upon orchestral tutti, European orchestral music is taut, lean, precise, sophisticated, timbral, and we can go on.”

“Gergiev is known to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gergiev not only voiced his support for Putin after the leader passed anti-gay legislation, he also recently offered a quote to The New York Times Magazine regarding Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”

“Soldiers who had come back from World War II didn’t seem to be as interested in the more complex, challenging kind of popular song, the more jazz-based song. Sentimental ballads and, yes, novelty numbers, suddenly was much more appealing.”

“The current situation, of a fragile status quo, and an orchestra having to run ever harder and harder to stand still, is too precarious to sustain in the medium and longer term.”

“Vetro has lived through the rise of Auto-Tune, and he says it’s never had an impact on his business. He asserts that proper technique and vocal maintenance are still crucial for working artists, and that many singers and producers who record in fancy studios still push to get the most genuine vocal performances possible.”

Be sure to follow the link to the full Twitter conversation about the entire category. To quote one participant, “Sibelius was $1,600. No one got him either.”

Although the term “protest music” conjures images of Baez, Dylan, Marley, Molotov, and many more, its roots lie in the classical traditions represented by La Solfónica, a rabble-rousing group that plays at demonstrations across Madrid.

“The board for the bankrupt New York City Opera said Thursday that it still wanted to sell the company’s name and few remaining assets to its preferred suitor, even though another bidder offered $250,000 more for them at an auction in court earlier this week.”

With promises of a “revolutionary piano” and its strapline “Sound Beyond Time” (I have literally no idea what that means) comes the Bogányi piano, named after its creator, the Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi.

Helga Schmidt, who has long been criticized for lavish spending – on her lodging and travel expenses as well as on such expensive artists as Lorin Maazel, Plácido Domingo and Zubin Mehta – has been accused of manipulating contracts and accepting commissions on artists she engaged at the Palau de les Arts, part of the futuristic arts-and-sciences complex designed by Santiago Calatrava.

“The chairman of [ENO], Martyn Rose, will step down from his position on 15 February, reportedly because he believes that a full-time commitment is required to guide the organisation through its £5m drop in Arts Council England funding.”

“I think the organization is extremely well positioned right now,” Fine said. “It’s financially solid.” The orchestra spent about $3.1 million in the fiscal year ending in 2013, according to audited financial statements. It reported a surplus of about $1.8 million for the year. Fine said the orchestra is forecasting another surplus for the current year.

“When one of these kinds of bands sells 1000 LPs, it’s doesn’t look like much in the scheme of the entire music industry. But in terms of the personal economy of the sort of band I’m talking about, it can be significant. That’s why this sector doesn’t need to grow to 1970s levels to be a small but significant part of a healthy music business ecosystem.”

The Inspiring Performance campaign, launched quietly in 2007 and publicly in 2012, raised $172.9 million to “fund world premieres, new productions of established operas and the company’s first staging of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung.”

“The orchestra had been facing closure but a deal was announced this week to provide funding – reportedly in the region of £400,000 – giving the body a reprieve.”