Why do teachers get so many pedestals - and so, so many opportunities for abuse? “Being perpetually curious is hard work. Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work.” - The New York Times
“For a century now, country music has been a parallel universe of hitmaking that didn’t always register on the national pop charts—for data reasons more than popularity reasons.” Streaming is changing everything. - Slate
Teens and 20-somethings are, again, driving the shift back (related: so are K-Pop bands). One fan, on switching out phone for CD player: “It gives me a different feeling. … I feel like I’m listening to an artist’s work. It brings me joy.” - The Guardian (UK)
The contract expires at midnight tonight (Sunday, August 23). That’s not to say there will be a strike, but the musicians are supportive of a potential strike, which would be the first in the BSO’s history. - WGBH
What has surprised me, looking back to 1976 (when I started writing for a tiny magazine that sadly went out of business this year) is how much of the classical music landscape has survived, despite the economic pressures that you don’t need reminding about. - BBC Music
Hard as it may be to believe today, Graceland was not an instant hit when it came out, and Simon received criticism for what’s now called cultural appropriation and for violating sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa. Now its influence is widespread enough that it can be hard to perceive these decades later. - The Guardian
Founder Martin Ludlow, a former City Councilman, hoped that his star-studded multi-day event could ultimately become a peer to the great jazz fests in New Orleans and Montreal. Instead it came out looking more like Fyre Festival, and some say Ludlow was very much the wrong person to organize it. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The Swedish maestro, who was hospitalized in May after partially collapsing and being taken from the stage during a San Francisco Symphony concert, has now withdrawn from his September appearances at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. He recently cancelled October dates in London and Tokyo as well. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
In a new paper in Nature Machine Intelligence, three University of Cambridge researchers used AI to help better define the musical tics of 20 of the most celebrated jazz pianists of all time. - Scientific American
Canadian baritone Philippe Sly, currently starring in the Salzburg Festival’s production of Messiaen’s six-hour opera St. François d’Assise, is staying at the Kapuzinerkloster, a monastery across the Salzach River from the venue, eating with them in the refectory and attending every prayer service he’s available for. - The New York Times
“This crisis largely seems unconcerned with serious musical issues, such as the quality of the playing and the choice of repertoire.” Lloyd Schwartz reminds us that those issues are what really matter here — and that they don’t militate in Andris Nelsons’s favor. - WBUR (Boston)
In one British McDonald’s, a hot spot for fighting and generally antisocial behavior, “measures were brought in including a playlist of classical music in the evenings.” - BBC (Yahoo)
A Nick Jonas concert “reminded me of an obscure phrase coined by a 19th-century sociologist – Émile Durkheim’s ‘collective effervescence.’ … Individuals who are normally preoccupied with their personal concerns get swept up into a kind of electric, communal intensity.” - The Guardian (UK)
Soprano Asmik Gregorian: “This feels very strange and empty. … It was planned by Markus Hinterhäuser, and we are all here because of him. It feels a bit like a boat without a captain.” - The New York Times
