The violin, made in 1714 by master craftsman Antonio Stradivari, belonged to virtuoso Toscha Seidel, who not only used it on the score for the 1939 "Wizard of Oz" Hollywood classic, but also no doubt while teaching his famous student Albert Einstein. - Yahoo!
Throughout the country, radio hosts play a key role in bringing classical music into the everyday lives of listeners and connecting them to the classical community. - Strings
The resolution was reached with help from two attorneys who read about the plight of the fired quartet members – cellist Myles Jordan, violinists Ferdinand “Dino” Liva and Lydia Forbes and violist Kirsten Monke – and wanted to support them. - Portland Press Herald
You cannot tell the history of jazz in America without also telling the history of jazz from Detroit. From the mid-20th century until the present day, Detroit has been one of the primary feeders of talent to the national scene. - Jazz Times
Born in 1520 to (most likely) a Portuguese father and African-descended mother, Vicente Lusitano published three volumes of highly accomplished sacred works and music theory. (Performers call his motets "top level polyphony," "opulent," and "really gorgeous.") Why was Lusitano forgotten? It wasn't only racism ... - BBC
"(Historical performance has) been ebbing, flowing, and growing in Nashville for nearly 20 years. The city is home to two HP ensembles ... (and) there are (two) churches ... that serve as regular venues for early-music performances, along with choral groups that routinely perform Renaissance and Baroque music." - Early Music America
Oliver Mears: "Notwithstanding their subject matter, these operas are masterpieces. Instead of cancelling them we should find creative ways to live with them. ... Vigorously diversifying across the board, rather than ghettoising particular singers in particular totemic operas, feels like by far the best way forward for the art form." - The Guardian
"Benoit Fader Keita never intended to make electro music. But after a sell-out first show in Dakar last month, the singer believes the genre could be key to saving his beloved language from extinction." - The Guardian (UK)
By 1922, the powerful cante jondo ("deep song") of tradition had been cutesified into the cante chico heard in cafés — and a group of Andalucians led by Manuel de Falla wanted to save it. They organized a competition, the Concurso de Cante Jondo, that's remembered today as Spain's Woodstock. - BBC
Yes, it's videogame music. "When we hear this music outside gameplay, it can prove unusually moving. The first time I caught the London Video Game Orchestra in concert," one writer says, it felt like a hymn: "nostalgic and weirdly rapturous." - BBC
In December, 300 students and teachers from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music who had escaped the Taliban government arrived in Lisbon. After half a year, they're relieved to be safe and determined to preserve their music, but struggling to adjust and worried about their families. - PRI's The World
After the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, musicians agreed to a 25% salary cut, with pay rising to 90% of previous levels by the end of next season. But the orchestra is in better financial shape than hoped, so full compensation will be restored starting in September. - The New York Times
Sure, that's down from the last full season, which was 2018-19. (Think about that.) What's more, tourists, who used to account for up to half of sales, aren't back in their usual numbers, especially from abroad. Nevertheless, the Met got through the season without missing a single performance, despite Omicron. - AP
"It's long, flat and electrified, with strings stretched over frets along a wooden body. Beneath them are black and white markers corresponding to the notes on a piano. ... A note sounds only when a string touches a fret, and that's done with any number of fingers." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"With an unlikely fusion of loose, stream-of-consciousness forms and old-school contrapuntal technique, he constructed monoliths of sound, then obscured them. ... I felt I'd found a mentor who related to music the way I wanted to: with curiosity, open-mindedness and little regard for historical period or genre." - The New York Times
