The impact of video game music has helped the music industry by creating a new audience for the classical orchestra. Popular concert cover albums of game music have generated dedicated fandoms and conventions. - The Conversation
"Members of the Musicians’ Union and Equity will walk out on February 1. … Members of both unions have voted in favour of strikes after they accused the ENO management of planning to make chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant and re-employ them for only six months a year." - The Independent (UK)
"After weeks of rumors, Universal Music Group has confirmed that it will be laying off an unspecified but significant number of employees in the coming weeks. The company’s recorded-music division is said to be receiving the brunt of the layoffs." - Variety
Building the world’s greatest stereo would mean transforming the very space that surrounded it — and the lives of the people who dwelt there. - Washington Post
In the fall, the Pittsburgh Symphony averaged about 1,000 listeners per concert, or less than half of the capacity of Heinz Hall. This is at odds with how well the orchestra is playing lately. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The streaming ecosystem, say critics, is easily gamed. For $20, artists can buy an annual subscription to a music distributor, a company that can instantly post songs to dozens of streaming platforms. Unfortunately, bad actors have the same opportunity. - The New York Times
The conservatory's "response to a student’s report of sexual assault and stalking 'violated Title IX at every stage' and was 'deliberately indifferent,'" the investigation found. - Inside Higher Ed
What the Prototype festival brings to audiences: Anything from Biblical translations to "a kind of nostalgic reminder of the loud, messy, nudity-filled, often self-serious, generally baffling shows that were once fixtures of downtown New York." - The New York Times
The company "will be vacating the entire bundle: administrative offices, costume shop, rehearsal space, parking lot and all." Where will it go? That's not yet clear. - Oregon ArtsWatch
This recalibration of the rules of engagement between artists and labels is also a result of the democratisation of information about the byzantine world of music contract law. - The Guardian
Previous recipients of the prize, now in its 50th year, have included Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, André Watts, Midori, Joshua Bell, the Emerson and Kronos string quartets, flutist Claire Chase, and, most recently, clarinetist Anthony McGill. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
The 70-year-old has been charged with "arranging/facilitating a child sexual offence and sexual communication with a child." He has had a major guest-conducting career and held chief conductor positions in Moscow, Mexico City, Porto, Bruges, and elsewhere: he's currently music director of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. - The Standard (London)
The Austrian conductor, now 63, announced that he will not renew his current contract when it expires at the end of the 2026-27 season. By that point he will be, at 25 years, the longest-serving music director in the orchestra's history. - Cleveland.com
The words "virile" or "virility" were constantly used in reviews of the music of the late 19th-century Irish-French composer Augusta Holmès. What's more, "Holmès's virile lifestyle, as much as her works, put Ernest Hemingway’s to shame," writes Julia Conrad, who ranks the composer's works in order of virility. - Van
