Music

There are no further meetings between the sides scheduled at this time. CSO President Jeff Alexander said that after no progress was made after lengthy sessions on Friday and Saturday, both sides agreed it would be “good to take a pause” in negotiations. On a small note of optimism, Alexander said that “there is room for movement” on the salary element of the contract. The CSOA is currently offering a 5% increase over a three-year contract while the union seeks a 12% increase over the same period. – Chicago Classical Review

“As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your back up copies.” Boing Boing

Last fall, Swiss researchers exposed nine wheels of Emmentaler in an aging cellar to various types of music: classical (Mozart’s Magic Flute), rock (Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”), techno (Vril’s “UV”), hip-hop (A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got)”) ambient music (Yello’s “Monolith”), and, as controls, steady high, medium and low tones and silence. All were on nonstop loops, with mini-transducers transmitting the sounds directly into the cheese wheels. After six months, the wheels were taken out and taste-tested — and here are the results. (So why was the classical music used Mozart instead of Mahler, Monteverdi, Stravinsky, or Steve Reich?) – Smithsonian Magazine

“The Teatro alla Scala in Milan on Monday decided to return more than three million euros in funding to Saudi Arabia, amid growing criticism that Italy’s premier temple of music should not accept money from a country with a jarring human rights record. Mayor Giuseppe Sala said the theater’s board of directors had deliberated over the issue and ‘unanimously decided to return the money.'” – The New York Times

Every way possible. In this video, the folks at Wired dig into research and find out things like “why the prefrontal cortex shuts down during improvisation. ‘It’s not just something that happens in clubs and jazz bars. … It’s actually maybe the most fundamental form of what it means to be human.'”- Wired

The scheme is slated to cost nearly £300 million and is London’s volley in an intercontinental game of high culture one-upmanship, which in recent years has produced Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and Jean Nouvel’s Philharmonie in Paris. This arms race for cultural dominion has, in London however, reached new levels of absurdity with the decision to build the new 2,000 seat concert hall less than 300 metres from an existing 2,000 seat concert hall. – dezeen

Says Alexander Neef, general director of Canadian Opera Company, about Christine Goerke, “People can’t get over the sheer power of the voice — and I don’t mean only the volume. … It’s not only that she hits all the notes and she hits them powerfully. It’s that there’s always an element of storytelling that really allows her to connect with the audience.” – The New York Times

“Keith C. Elder, whose career as a performing arts administrator has included stints with such prestigious organizations as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Eastman School of Music, has been named the new executive director of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra.” – Tulsa World

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says that if Spotify pays this cut it has to “artificially inflate” its prices “well above the price of Apple Music.” But if it doesn’t pay, Apple applies “a series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions” that make Spotify an inferior experience. Ek also notes that Apple “routinely blocks our experience-enhancing upgrades,” including locking Spotify and other competitors out of Apple services like Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch. – The Verge

For instance, on the simplest task, if someone was generally not prone to boredom, they tended to perform better when listening to the most complex form of music than with either simple music or complete silence, albeit when the volume of the music was relatively low.  If the volunteer was prone to boredom however, the opposite was the case, and silence was the best condition. – Forbes

“They’re moving us to a swamp, with no opportunity to grow our vision,” said Sami Scott, who helped organize a petition drive against the orchestra’s proposal. That petition has accumulated 300-plus signatures. – Sarasota Herald Tribune

While music directors usually stay silent about orchestras’ labor-management disputes, Muti said to the assembled media, “I am here with my musicians. … We try to get a better situation for their life, their pension, their work. Some people, they want to read my position with the musicians as against the board. This is not true. I would just like them to listen more carefully to the musicians, who represent one of the great orchestras of the world.” – Chicago Tribune

“About six months ahead of expiration of the current labor contract between the Philadelphia Orchestra Association and its players, the two sides have reached an agreement on a pact that keeps the peace for the next four years.” (Yannick, left, is very relieved.) – The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Music was really profitable for convents: it brought in money from the community, donating to hear mass on their behalf, while a great musical reputation brought in girls of higher status and wealth.” Cloistered life meant choirs sang together for many years, and while only aristocrats could hear the chapel choirs of royals and nobles, while anyone could listen to convent services — so the best nuns’ choirs became genuine tourist attractions. – Bachtrack

There’s a big difference between no-platforming and not promoting. I know that’s obvious, but it feels like this distinction isn’t stressed enough in debates about free speech. Spotify was right to remove Kelly from its featured playlists because that equals promotion. And it was right not to ban his songs altogether because that gets you into really dangerous territory: it turns the likes of Spotify into a moral arbiter and opens up a can of worms about who deserves to be banned next. – The Guardian

“Yotam Haber is an established composer and pianist, an assistant professor at the University of New Orleans, a former artistic director of New York’s MATA festival and winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and a Koussevitzky Foundation commission, among many other honors and awards. Since childhood, though, he has had another dream: to race sled dogs in Alaska. Last week, Haber’s dream came true” — but at quite a cost. – The Washington Post

The show that night was billed as the Thelonious Monk Trio. Monk, 35, was already a prolific composer and piano innovator, yet it would take a decade for his brilliance to be fully appreciated by mainstream America. The trio was rounded out by Charles Mingus, 31, on standup bass and the youngster Roy Haynes, a 28-year-old hotshot drummer everyone called “Snap Crackle.” – The New York Times

For the past two years, withdrawals from the endowment reached 9 percent: Shilvock said that trend cannot continue and deficits must be controlled: “To bring expenses into line with realistic revenues, we determined that expense budgets need to be reduced by $5M per year, and that we cannot affect our core mission: [presenting] compelling, inspiring opera at the highest level of excellence.” – San Francisco Classical Voice

It’s Brexit Week (or maybe it isn’t; find out as the week goes on), so here are some artists to help add music to politics: “We could call this explosion ‘woke’ folk – though there’s much more to this disparate collection of acts than a slogan. … They sing in recognisable voices, without varnish and sheen, delivering messages straight and sure about who we were, and who we are now.” – The Observer (UK)

Music writer David Hadju says that though the musician bore some resemblance to Mahershala Ali’s Oscar-winning portrait of him in the movie Green Book, there was a lot more to the man – including this exchange: “I asked him how he would feel about being portrayed on screen. ‘Damn foolishness,’ he said. ‘I want nothing to do with it!’ – The New York Times

The chair of the negotiating committee for the union said in a statement, “Beginning at 8 a.m. Monday morning, March 11, picket lines will stretch across all of the doors of Orchestra Hall through 8 p.m. daily until a contract that is fair to the musicians is reached. It is requested that no orchestra, performer or patron cross the line.” The main issue? Wages, of course, and also pension contributions. – Chicago Tribune

It’s bad – and far worse in poorer areas. “One in five primary school teachers reported there was no regular music lesson for their class, and only 12% of schools in deprived areas have an orchestra, compared with 85% of independent schools.” – BBC

Pinar Toprak was the first woman to score a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, a brass ring that she won after an extraordinary effort: “I went and hired a 70-piece orchestra and did a big production of it so that they could see me in front of the orchestra conducting, and I did another video inside my studio where I talked about the character and the theme.” – Vulture

The musicians are not happy with management’s offer on retirement benefits. Time is running out: “The CSO musicians voted to go on strike Sunday if a new agreement is not reached by 3 p.m. The musicians’ current contract extension expires Sunday night at 11:59 p.m.” – Chicago Classical Review