ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

MUSIC

Please Stop Filming Concerts

Why? Well ... "Your videos are terribly lit. The room you are in is very, very dark. ... That’s before we even get into the audio quality. Even concerts recorded by professionals with high-quality equipment often don’t sound all that great." - The Verge

In Seattle, Taylor Swift Fans Cause A Mini Earthquake

Well, OK, "seismic activity," anyway. Turns out "it’s actually 'quite common' for humans partying to create such vibrations, sending 'a lot of energy into the ground.' That energy travels as sound waves through the Earth."  - Washington Post

How “Emo” Music Took Over The Popular Culture

From the start, the word was often deployed as a slur, a way of mocking bands for dealing in “soft” subjects, like heartbreak. To this day, multiple waves and revivals later, the term is still shorthand for immature, melodramatic angst. - The New Yorker

Scott Joplin Never Got His Opera “Treemonisha” Produced. Perhaps Now Its Time Has Come.

"Treemonisha experiments seem to be everywhere these days: Three very different versions have recently been presented, in the United States, Canada and France. Their timing is a coincidence, and all were envisioned before the widespread calls for diversifying the canon over the past few years." - The New York Times

Musicians Have The Same Issues As Actors, Writers. So Why Aren’t They Also On Strike?

All the fears and complaints that Hollywood actors and writers have are a reality for musicians and songwriters, too. Yet the rockers, pop singers and hip-hop artists are not on strike to protest their paltry royalties or AI inroads. One big reason? They’re not unionized. - Los Angeles Times

New Ways To Use Old Instruments

 New music for old instruments is, of course, nothing new. Nor is the engagement by composers with varying degrees of historically informed performance. But in scouring the internet, there appear to be new directions revealing unknown aspects of old instruments. - Early Music America

Bay Area Musicians Fight Back Against The Gig Economy For A Living Wage

With each musician guaranteed $200 for an hour-long set, “we’ve presented about 400 concerts featuring 500 musicians, reaching about 18,000 listeners." - San Francisco Classical Voice

What Was Remarkable About Conductor Carlos Kleiber

Like Kleiber, Klaus Tennstedt and Leonard Bernstein seemed to harness everything they knew in the heat of the moment. But Kleiber also had structural rigour and brisk tempos that gave his performances an infectious buoyancy. - Gramophone

Spotify’s Stock Is Tanking This Week. Why?

Spotify said recent price increases are expected to have “minimal impact” on the company’s total revenue in the third quarter. - CNBC

English National Opera Gets An Extra £24 Million And More Time To Leave London

"The ENO will move to a base outside the capital by March 2029 – three years after originally envisaged. Before then, it will develop an artistic programme in its new city, while transitioning to a new business model that allows it to deliver a substantial season every year in (London)." - The Guardian

Is Today’s Pop Music Getting Too Simplistic?

"I think the average listeners ears are becoming more attuned to ever-greater simplicity and every-greater economy in music." - Music Radar

Unprecedented: The Bayreuth Festival Is Expanding Its Repertory (By One Opera)

"The Bayreuth Festival intends to present Rienzi in 2026 for its 150th anniversary, going outside the canon of Richard Wagner's final 10 operas for the first time. Wagner's family still runs the festival in Germany, and until now has limited it to only what are considered his mature works." - AP

Berklee College Of Music’s President Is Out After Unexplained Leave of Absence

Erica Muhl, who became the school's leader two years ago, went on leave abruptly last month and put her house on the market; this week, the board announced that she won't be back. Students and faculty, who say they rarely saw her on campus, want answers. - MSN (The Boston Globe)

Why Mozart Still Captivates After Two-And-A-Half Centuries

"His letters show how he savvily wrote with an eye toward the market, hoping to delight listeners at every level of society. And pleasure was political in an age when some of the boldest advocates for free speech and personal choice were libertines." - MSN (The Atlantic)

Eight Ways Taylor Swift Has Changed The Music Business

She’s an advocate, a style icon, a marketing wiz, a prolific songwriter, a pusher of visual boundaries and a record-breaking road warrior. And she sells a ton of albums. - Billboard

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');