Robert Beaser, who was chair of the school's composition department from 1994 to 2018, was placed on leave last Friday, following a report in VAN detailing numerous allegations of misconduct. Juilliard had investigated claims against Beaser twice in recent decades. - Yahoo! (AFP)
Culture in Boston was encrusted in past practice and inflated self-esteem. The musicians did not take kindly to proposed changes or hard truths. Artistic director Anthony Fogg, a James Levine loyalist, stiffened their resistance. Music director Andris Nelsons was not open to her ideas. - Slipped Disc
Debate in the Lords focused on the term “grand opera”, which fans of lyric theatre believe was deliberately used by ACE to imply that the art form is overblown and irrelevant. - The Observer
"It's the best thing I've done in my career, in terms of bringing people to the instrument," says Anna Lapwood, who has 420,000 followers on the video app, including a few major classical music figures and even a rock star or two. - The New York Times
Six in ten professional musicians say they are worse off financially now compared to the same time last year. Nine out of ten are worried about affording food over the next six months, with 84 per cent concerned about paying their mortgage or rent. - The Strad
"The Guardian took every Christmas song that had charted in the UK Top 100 since 1952, and selected the 100 most popular of those on Spotify. Two-thirds were released at least 30 years ago." Which is to say: "all we want for Christmas is mid-20th-century nostalgia." - The Guardian
"That complicated history of 'Carol of the Bells' has embodied a grim motif since its inception. ... Then as now, Ukraine was under threat from Russia, a shadow of an anxious past that still extends over the country." - The New York Times
We don’t need more itinerant maestros who draw big salaries in multiple cities. We need more directorships along the lines of ones in which a conductor focusses on a single city and puts down roots. This is how American orchestral culture unfolded before jet travel. _ The New Yorker
"Welsh-born Jo Davies, 52, an award-winning director of opera, theatre and musical theatre in the UK, Europe and North America, will join Opera Australia CEO Fiona Allan in what is believed to be a world first: two women in charge of a major national opera company." - The Sydney Morning Herald
"Classical performance tradition is immediately undermined when the performer enters wearing a sleeveless pink top, red trousers, and a brown messenger bag ... and stands, silent, between a lidless grand piano and a table covered with realistic tree models." - Guernica Magazine
"What makes a room’s acoustics hard to assess is that they depend as much on the music, the musicians, and the listener’s location as they do on the arrangement of surfaces along the way." - Vulture
Commercial radio normalised popular music’s relationship to advertising. But the collapse between content and advertising exemplified by TikTok prompts us to consider how music making and music listening are shaped by promotional contexts. - The Conversation
AI-generated music is already an innovative enough concept, but Riffusion takes it to another level with a clever, weird approach that produces weird and compelling music using not audio but images of audio. - TechCrunch
Gail Samuel, who came to the BSO from the Los Angeles Philharmonic in June 2021, will formally leave the orchestra on Jan. 3 — an abrupt end to a brief tenure. No reason was given for Samuel’s departure. - Boston Globe
A committee of Cardiff's city council has approved in principle an operating lease of St. David's Hall — which hosts the BBC National Symphony of Wales and the Cardiff Singer of the World competition — to Academy Music Group, which manages rock concert venues. - BBC
