The open-sided Hunter Pavilion, where the Chicago Symphony performs every summer, has had changes made both for the audience (fewer but wider, ADA-compliant seats) and the orchestra players (LED lights and new ventilation to reduce onstage temperatures, improved onstage acoustics). - AP
The 88-year-old two-time Oscar-winner and acting legend says music was his first love, and Decca will release his first album, Life Is a Dream, on August 21. The disc, performed by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel, includes pieces composed over the entire course of Hopkins’s adult life. - The Hollywood Reporter
The jury of the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, which Dudamel (in his first time leading a fully professional orchestra) won in its inaugural edition in 2004, decided not to name a winner for only the second time in the event’s history. The €20,000 second prize went to 31-year-old Polish conductor Jakub Przybycień. - Moto Perpetuo
“The tents are the new home of the Gaza branch of Palestine’s national conservatory, dedicated to teaching classical, popular and traditional music. The institution, founded in 1993, once enjoyed well-equipped offices in Gaza City, three pianos and storerooms full of instruments and musical scores.” - The Guardian
Joe Hisaishi developed his huge following with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films for Studio Ghibli. Yet he’s long had a parallel career as a conductor of standard orchestral repertoire in Japan. Now he’s shifting his focus to classical music, and he’s been appointed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. - The New York Times
One of the key features is the dramatic spiral roof, which takes cues from an unfurled Chinese folding fan, a space that is accessible to visitors and serves as an observation deck overlooking the Huangpu River and the city's skyline. - New Atlas
“America’s obsession with celebrity has morphed into this really weird, parasocial thing, where people feel incentivized to be deputized defenders of that person and are there to attack anybody who says anything at least a little bit negative about them.” - Washington Post
In 1976, “the centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Javid from Afghanistan “said the festival in the idyllic Bannau Brycheiniog national park had been his first ever experience of a music concert. Under the Taliban, he said, ‘There is no music, and it’s banned to listen to any music.’” - The Guardian (UK)
Doug Shadle: “As I listened to the symphony — a strange yet monumental work with a choral finale eclipsing Beethoven’s Ninth in scope — the sonic confluences that have given shape and vibrancy to our national culture for 250 years rushed at me for over an hour.” - Early Music America
Spotify has removed more than 500,000 registered streams from Malcolm Todd‘s Earrings, after the song’s rise to No. 1 on the platform’s daily US chart was tied to bets placed on the prediction market Kalshi. - MusicBusinessWorldwide
"My teachers made it clear that music was sacred. But after I got into the LA Philharmonic at 19, playing the most celebrated music with the most celebrated musicians of our time, the sacred was hard to find. I started asking inconvenient questions: was the concert hall the only sacred space?" - The Strad
Born on July 4, 1826, Foster’s legacy is as influential, and as mixed, as that of his nation. Some of his songs were written for minstrel shows, but many of his lyrics were progressive for their time and place, and one key to their success was their ambiguity. - The Conversation
“Planned restoration work (at the Palais Garnier) that was supposed to take two years is now projected for five, with evaluation for the best method to extract the lead to be undertaken this summer.” - ARTnews
