“Under new regulations that began to take effect in February, musical instruments that have even the smallest amount of ivory are banned from entering the U.S. unless it can be proved that they were purchased before 1976. That includes any violin bows with a small piece of ivory at the tip, and also some bassoon […]
“Sources reported that Vänskä was hired on a two-year contract to rebuild the orchestra. Vänskä held the post for 10 years before resigning last October during the longest labor dispute in the history of U.S. orchestras. His previous contract extended through 2015.”
“Kahane, 57, is the ensemble’s fifth music director since the group was founded in 1968. He assumed his post in 1997. The conductor, who is an L.A. native and currently lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., is also an accomplished pianist and continues to perform and conduct with ensembles around the world.”
“At his peak during the 1990s, Heppner was in demand around the world as one of the few tenors able to succeed in the demanding heroic tenor roles of German opera, as well as in Italian works such as Verdi’s Otello and Puccini’s Turandot.”
“‘The most wholly repellent woman ever to sing songs of love,’ spewed Cintra Wilson, ‘I think most people would rather be processed through the digestive tract of an anaconda than be Céline Dion for a day.’ Bitch, excuse me? We’re not talking about Bernie Madoff or the Abu Ghraib torture team.” Novelist Mary Gaitskill has […]
“Jonathan Pell, The Dallas Opera’s artistic director, has been the company’s resident taste-maker for three decades, making important decisions about everything from which operas get staged to who stars in them. This morning, TDO announced that Pell will be leaving the company at the end of this year. Well, sort of leaving.”
“Several sources on the front lines of the cultural business say the TSO deal has been made, the contracts have been drawn up and the staff know Jeff Melanson is on board. That’s a huge step forward because he is known as a great fixer — and there’s no organization more in need of a […]
“Admittedly, no one actually bestowed upon me the ability to be a new music critic. Such is the greatness of the internet: anyone can hang out a shingle.”
“The Nashville Symphony has paid off $2.5 million of its restructured $25.3 million debt. … However, with $22.8 million of debt on its books and labor negotiations looming with musicians, there’s still work to be done, including reaching its fundraising goal.”
“The symphony’s musicians will get a 2.85 percent annual raise under terms of the four-year deal, which will take their annual salary from $86,840 today to $97,240 during the 2017-18 season.”
Mariss Jansons, who has been the chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for nearly a decade, plans to resign his post there after the 2014-15 season, the orchestra announced on Tuesday.
“No one blinks when an experienced corporate manager earns a six-figure salary in this city. But an opera singer? We still romanticize the image of the starving artist. We like to think that talent will eventually fill dinner plates and checking accounts. But in real life, people who can’t pay their bills often put aside […]
Revisiting the furtive, constrained, vibrant, heady early days back in the USSR with people who were there from the very beginning in 1970s Riga and Leningrad.
“Resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the symphony’s Youth Orchestra since 2009, [Donato] Cabrera became music director of the Bay Area’s California Symphony and the New Hampshire Music Festival last year. He’s also music director of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Symphony, a post he’s held since 2011.”
“The composition – written in its earliest form exactly a century ago – toppled Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2, which had reigned for three years in the annual Classic FM Hall Of Fame list. The Lark Ascending last topped the poll in 2010 and three years ago it was named the nation’s favourite Desert Island […]
“As it prepares to re-enter labor negotiations with its musicians, the Nashville Symphony has reduced its debt to less than $23 million, lowered operating expenses by $10 million a year and set a new ticket sales record.”
“As recently as 2008, only 2.9 million LPs were sold in the United States, representing about 0.7 percent of annual album sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Last year those sales climbed to 9.4 million, representing 3 percent of all albums, and the independent, off-the-grid nature of many of those sales may […]
The New Hampshire orchestra abruptly canceled its last two concerts and let its music director go. Now it’s planning to reopen in the fall with new musicians, a new music director, and a new venue.
“I think that classical music is always going to be here, as long as there are human beings. But I think that everyone has to think about what is the right way to take care of classical music. It is not the first time when there are problems. I don’t know if there has ever […]
Karen Cohn, the board chairman who presided over the sudden plan to dissolve the company, stormed out of the meeting, as did several other members as well as general director Ian Campbell and his deputy and ex-wife, Ann. Carol Lazier, who gave $1 million toward saving the company, is now acting board chair, and she […]
The Awl charts the entire course, from the Conception Phase and Underground Phase, through the Indie and Hipster Phases, into and out of the Top 40, to the Shame Phase and beyond. (Not to forget the karaoke afterlife.)
“If you are close to a sound source – such as a speaker – you are close to a lot of pressure waves. Direct sound exposure often doesn’t cause capillaries to burst, it’s the pressure.
“Live opera is as physical as art gets, though you would never know that from sitting in any major opera house. In the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, you can feel singers’ breath on your face; you can hear their inhalations as well as their sung exhalations, the scratch as well as the sustained tone of the […]
In part three of a series on what’s ailing America’s flagship opera company and how to cure it, Dawn Fatale looks at engaging the public and at casting – and says the Met must stop casting five to six years in advance.
“Alexander Pereira, who is scheduled to take over the Milan opera house on Oct. 1, signed an agreement to buy four productions for La Scala from the Salzburg Festival, where he is the director, without the approval of the Italian authorities.”
In an analysis of the most popular country songs over six decades, Jason Eastman and Terry Pettijohn II of Coastal Carolina University finds top hits are “lyrically more positive, musically upbeat, and use more happy-sounding major chords during difficult socioeconomic times.”
“They may need the buy-in of more than 800 members of the opera association, people who donate at least $100 to be part of the company.”
“There’s definitely a novelty value with cassettes at the moment, particularly as we suspect a high proportion of them are collectibles sitting on a shelf and never played.”
“A sharply reduced budget, innovative programming and a list of donors who will step up if San Diego Opera’s current leaders are replaced might be enough to rescue the company from shutdown in two weeks, … [said] Carol Lazier, the San Diego Opera board member who pledged $1 million to save the company.”
Music psychologist Elizabeth Margulis found that she could make ordinary listeners respond positively even to Berio by simply adding repeats to it. Why did that work? (includes audio)