The harsh crackdown on comedy is bad enough, but now it's getting bad for musicians as well. "The problem is that those making the decisions here are keen to be seen to be imposing the Party's will more enthusiastically than rival bureaucrats." - BBC
Jon Mirsalis says, "If you see a title on the screen, there are probably 30 different ways you can read the title. With the music it becomes a different experience, a different art form. The marriage of music and film can be very powerful." - Washington Post
And they're all women. Director Maggie Contreras: "When you asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, John Williams was my answer. I would wave the wooden spoon wanting to be him. I didn’t have a Marin Alsop to name." - The New York Times
Rafael Viñoly was at a dinner party with Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, who complained about the challenges of a standard keyboard for someone with a small reach. Viñoly asked if a curved keyboard would be better; they said, "sure, try it" — so he designed one. - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
The recordings of joint concerts with Eric Dolphy at New York's Village Vanguard were stumbled on by a Bob Dylan researcher. They've now been remastered and will be released in June on a 2-CD set. - NPR
From out-of-body experiences to entering a dream-like state, Swift's fans - or Swifties as they prefer to be known - have taken to social media in recent days to reveal their guilt at not being able to remember key moments from the Eras tour. - BBC
"This summer, Louis Langrée wraps up his 21-year run as music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival and its orchestra. Next year, the 30-year-old Jonathon Heyward begins a three-year contract at the head of an ensemble with a new name and a new profile: Lincoln Center Summer Orchestra." - MSN (Vulture)
"The Maggio Musicale in Florence may sell its large archive in a desperate attempt to find €8.5m by July, part of a huge debt left behind after Alexander Pereira resigned (as superintendent) last February. Without this sum the company … risks closure, putting its 300-strong workforce out of work." - Gramilano (Milan)
Some orchestra members said they were unnerved, too, but others — including those who have lived through such changes before — said they welcomed a new chapter. - The New York Times
Stravinsky, right now, is in freefall. In 2021, few summoned much enthusiasm for an anniversary retrospective that was quickly quelled by Covid. - The Critic
Over the past few years, as the San Antonio Symphony slowly fell apart and the new San Antonio Philharmonic was born, firefighter-turned-administrator Paul Montalvo has gradually built the Classical Music Institute, whose chamber orchestra quickly grabbed the contract to accompany opera and ballet when the Symphony closed. - San Antonio Report
"The Metropolitan Opera failed to properly safeguard the credit card numbers and other personal information of more than 45,000 patrons and employees compromised in a massive computer hack during 2022, says a class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court." - New York Daily News
It was an era of artistic manifestos, and in 1917 Pfitzner outlined his views in a pamphlet titled The Danger of the Futurists. It was written as a reply to Ferruccio Busoni, who argued in a futurist spirit that music should be liberated from all rules and conventions. - New Criterion
Things are happening quickly — Thomas Guggeis starts as the general music director of the Frankfurt Opera this fall — but he is trying to maintain a steady development that some of his peers have abandoned in favor of peripatetic celebrity. - The New York Times
"At a Lagos cultural centre, a rapt audience listened to baritone John Onosolease perform an operatic song in the Yoruba language about a hapless soldier being admonished for his failure to cook a flavoursome dish of beans." - Reuters
