Paid attendance and box office income are both nearing pre-pandemic levels, though they're still slightly below those of 2019. Says CEO Jeff Alexander, "We're building our way back. … We're happy. We could be happier." - Crain's Chicago Business
With that sprawling stylistic range and its technical mastery, its enthusiastic curiosity about eminent and student composers alike, its precision and passion, the JACK has, since its founding in 2005, become one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles. - The New York Times
Ideally, music festivals serve two purposes. They engage audiences by focusing on some topic in concentrated fashion and they generate interest in a given organization by presenting something out of the ordinary. But when they do neither, they mostly make observers wonder what went wrong—even when much went right. - The Wall Street Journal
The academic music sector is fractured, especially in relation to classical music. This mirrors wider cuts or proposed cuts to English National Opera, BBC Orchestras and other institutions, and needs major shifts in government policy if the situation is to be reversed. - The Critic
People "accept that a 'challenging' painting—or modern dance work, or play, or independent film—can be exciting, mind-expanding, really cool, and sort of out there precisely because it’s challenging. Why in classical contemporary music do so many people equate challenging with intimidating?" - The Atlantic
A study shows nearly a third of professional musicians report poor mental health. Why? "Despite high levels of education and training among professional musicians, ... more than half the respondents have to work multiple jobs to keep up with the cost of living." - The Guardian (UK)
In Britain, it's definitely the latter: "At least 240 people in the UK have had rap music used against them as criminal evidence in court in the last three years." Wait, what? - Irish Times
It's nearly impossible to write about instrumental albums and "the inarticulable narrative created by the changing relationship between sounds." - The Atlantic
Research has shown that most people in Western countries use music to self-soothe. “They know that there are certain kinds of music that will put them in a good mood,” he said. “Christmas music is a reliable one for a lot of people.” - The New York Times
You may like Davies or not, and there are some valid concerns about aspects of it, but the SF Symphony’s major problem is not the number or nature of seats in the hall but finding and maintaining enough ticket-paying bottoms to sit in them. - San Francisco Classical Voice
Now forced to operate at a distance from most of their fan bases and, in many cases, labeled traitors by their government, they are adopting touring schedules that hew to the new geography of the Russian diaspora as they try to keep their careers moving forward. - The New York Times
The company claims the updates will drive an additional $1 billion toward artists, by re-directing the payments that had previously gone to fraudulent streams, noise content or distributors that do not distribute royalties below a certain amount. - Variety
Google head of global partnerships Don Harrison confirmed Spotify paid a 0 percent commission when users chose to buy subscriptions through Spotify’s own system. If the users picked Google as their payment processor, Spotify handed over 4 percent — dramatically less than Google’s more common 15 percent fee. - The Verge
Article 285 will put into copyright law the “right to a fair and equitable remuneration” for all “agreements entered into by authors, composers, performers, directors and screenwriters with respect to their faculty of public communication and making available to the public of phonograms and audiovisual recordings”. - The Guardian
