“’What will it take to keep Curtis tuition-free?’ asked Curtis president Roberto Díaz in 2016, when the Institute was still in the early days of a major fundraising campaign. Now the small music conservatory has answered, raising nearly $200 million for endowment, musical instruments, programs, and another building.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Steven Lass: “L.A. is not scary. You could be in a bad place at the wrong time, but that can happen anywhere.” Jason Roblee: “They did cancel our brunch reservation though.” Lass: “I lived in Hawthorne during the riots, so if all the buildings aren't burning, everything is good.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
San Francisco ‘60s utopian counterculture, psychedelic drugs, defying authority, breaking rules, and a general sense of severing from the past for a brighter future all led to an explosion of new ideas,” says California native and instrument luminary Roger Linn. - Music Radar
Indeed, many of them report that they’re having larger audiences and healthier finances than before COVID. The AJC reached out to ten orchestras of various sizes throughout the state to find out how they’re doing, and here are the responses. - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The company sold 72% of capacity this past season, the same as 2023-24 but below projections. General manager Peter Gelb said that attendance was down in April and May, when overseas visitor numbers to New York fell sharply. - AP
The company announced that the Board of Directors chose Jen-Pierre Primiani, who currently serves as Chief Philanthropy Officer, for the position and will begin Nov. 1, 2025. - OperaWire
The researchers calculated each individual's "listening radius"—roughly how far they roamed across genres and artists. They found that people living in larger urban areas also tend to listen to a broader variety of music, expanding their personal musical repertoire. - Phys
The increase in music majors may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It turns out people turned to music in their time at home, and they came back — just a (f)lood of people who had really committed themselves to it and wanted to be serious about continuing it." - The Daily Cal
"The 'Main Title' music from Jaws has inspired generations of commercial and cultural riffs and rip-offs — since filed under a larger surge of Jaws-inspired content termed ‘sharksploitation’ — that have dulled its bite a bit.” - Washington Post (MSN)
“It was a time in French history when you could change your birth status with money. The nouveau riche included industrialists and bankers. You could also move up in society with an education, which was the case for opera architect Charles Garnier.” - NPR
After 18 years, Suzi Gomez-Pizzo, 64, a fast-talking native New Yorker, is retiring this month from the Met. She has garnered a reputation as a calm troubleshooter with a knack for defusing last-minute sartorial snafus. - The New York Times
“Employees continued to picket on the day after Wednesday night’s walkout when, during a Suzanne Vega concert, they protested ‘an unacceptable level of hostility and mismanagement’ by the new leadership. … On Thursday evening, the management team headed by new CEO Joseph Callahan responded by firing some employees involved.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Gatti, currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and formerly music director of the Rome Opera and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, is succeeding Zubin Mehta at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which encompasses both Florence’s famous spring music festival and its opera house. - ANSA (Italy)
“The orchestra has informed subscribers that the contemporary music series will be ‘paused’ for the 2025-26 season. There was no public announcement or acknowledgement. The CSO series presented just two MusicNOW concerts this current season, most recently in March.” - Chicago Classical Review
“I think it’s crazy that 20 years in, we still offer music for free. We’re the only service that doesn’t have a free service. As a company, we look at music as art, and we would never want to give away art for free. - The Hollywood Reporter
