This year's ubiquitous musician in these categories is Yannick Nézet-Séguin, performing as conductor or pianist on five separate nominated recordings. - WRTI (Philadelphia)
"One of the main lessons we can learn ... is the ability to maintain musical traditions while also responding to the surrounding culture. While the primary goal of show-style bands is to put on a show, their point of departure is still first and foremost great musicianship." - I Care If You Listen
Seattle was a thriving, energizing, musical city. It was synonymous with Sub Pop and KEXP. It was home to literally hundreds of rock, pop, hip-hop, soul, hardcore, metal, and experimental acts. Now, venues are dark. Musicians are moving away. - The Stranger
Jonathan Cohen, a 44-year-old cellist, harpsichordist and conductor from Great Britain, begins his term next season. He currently leads his own London-based ensemble, called Arcangelo, as well as Les Violons du Roy in Quebec City. - MSN (The Boston Globe)
Parker brings more than 25 years of experience in leadership roles at a range of arts organizations. Most recently, he was the president of Decca Records US at Universal Music Group. - Louisville Courier Journal
The team found that all violins produced combination tones, but the oldest instruments produced the strongest ones. The magnitude of the most prominent combination tone for the oldest violin, made in Bologna in 1700, was about 75 per cent larger than the one from a modern mass-produced instrument. - New Scientist
Researchers in Japan played Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K. 448) for 10 rats, and tiny wireless accelerometers affixed to the animals’ heads revealed that the rodents subtly nodded in sync with the musical beat. - The Wall Street Journal
There was the case of the vanishing Beatles hit, the decision around "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead" after Margaret Thatcher's death, and the whole question of a tie. - BBC
"Handel was a prolific composer of many other fine pieces, too: chamber music, organ works, 120 cantatas, 42 operas and 29 oratorios" - and a lot of them are in this interactive online crossword. - Oregon ArtsWatch
But she added that "she was pleased that contemporary artists seemed better equipped to express the feelings of loss and sorrow that she explored on landmark albums like Ladies of the Canyon (1970) and Blue (1971)." - BBC
During lockdowns, technical staff found other jobs. And "with so much current demand, venues are booked solid, gear is quickly rented out and tour buses are already reserved. Meanwhile, gas prices are exorbitant, nevermind plane tickets." - CBC
"It’s all compounded by the fact that country music, like all genres, is struggling to adapt to the future of streaming, confronting a touring industry that was crippled by the pandemic and struggling with how to break new music stars." - Washington Post
Arseny Avraamov's work, written and performed in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan for the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution, "included the entire Caspian flotilla, cannons, locomotives, artillery regiments, hydroplanes, factory sirens, bells, foghorns, brass bands and a massive choir. Avraamov wasn't just conducting an orchestra, he was conducting a city." - BBC
At the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam last week, members of the activist group Extinction Rebellion interrupted Verdi's Requiem, shouting "We are in the middle of a climate crisis and we are like the orchestra on the Titanic that keeps playing quietly while the ship is already sinking." - Classic FM (UK)
"As the director of the relatively small-scale Regents Opera, I am acutely aware of the risk attached to any attempt on Wagner’s epic saga. Yet, like the lustful dwarf Alberich, so tempted by the Rhinegold that he steals it and forges it into a magic ring, I find myself irresistibly drawn." - The Guardian
