Category: music

The cars get, let’s say, preferential treatment at the new La Bohème. “The unintended genius of English National Opera’s modern-day, 90-minute staging of Puccini’s opera is to spread the class politics from stage to audience.” – The Guardian (UK)

The size of the previously undisclosed settlement “casts doubt on the strength of the company’s case had it gone to trial. Mr. Levine’s contract, which had been amended over the years but was essentially based on agreements struck decades ago, lacked a morals clause.” – The New York Times

Melinda Bargreen talks about the journey: “Music presenters often overuse the phrase ‘a concert like no other, but for once, that was exactly what we got: a Symphony concert recorded earlier in the week in Benaroya Hall, watched on the park’s big drive-in screens, and streamed through a dedicated FM channel into the car radios. There’s never been an opening night like this one.” – Seattle Times

When Justice Ginsburg’s death was reported Friday night, tributes poured in from everyone associated with the art form. “She saw her first opera — a condensed version of La Gioconda — in 1944, when she was 11, and was immediately hooked, becoming the kind of aficionado who goes to dress rehearsals, and then opening nights, and then closing nights, too, for good measure.” – The New York Times

In Darwin, people are leaving them on the curb as they clean out their houses before “cyclone season,” but in Hobart, the older ones are more common, and perhaps slightly more tunable. A piano tuner says, “Unless it’s a Steinway it’s not worth fixing.” – ABC (Australia)

The siblings, including the cellist who played at the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, just recorded an album “aimed squarely at children. It is all part of their mission to demystify classical music, especially for young people.” – BBC

Back when we bought vinyl albums or CDs, writes Lukas Krohn-Grimberghe, we gave particular music and musicians both money and shelf space in our homes, incorporating them (at least a bit) into our identities. (“Remember browsing through someone’s record collection? That’s what I am talking about.”) Online streaming may give us almost unimaginable choice for little money, but, argues Krohn-Grimberghe, it changes both the listening experience and how we relate to the pieces we hear (as well as severely reducing the amount of money going to the musicians), and music becomes something like a utility. But there are ways that problem can be addressed. – WQXR (New York City)

“Among the smartest recording labels, one-composer programs — the norm since the arrival of the LP record in the early 1950s — are giving way to conceptual collections of music that juxtapose the ancient and modern, progressive and retrogressive, as well as the familiar and the obscure. … Is this fusion cuisine, classical music style? I prefer the term ‘conceptual virtuosity,’ since these programs often have an intellectual depth that goes beyond any Spotify algorithm.” David Patrick Stearns examines some recent examples. – WQXR (New York City)

“Music venues, theaters, and movie houses help make cities desirable, interesting, and economically humming—but they simply cannot operate in a pandemic. Following one of them through the past six months reveals a lot about how America’s economic relief left many kinds of businesses behind—and how much worse off these places will be unless a presently gridlocked Congress does something.” – Slate

For 116 years, the ensemble (a term loosely applied, at least musically) has been both beloved and disdained for its un-march-like on-field scrambles; its sometimes witty, sometimes tasteless, always irreverent satirical routines; and its on-campus pranks. This week, more than 20 members voted “unanimously and enthusiastically” to shut the group down for its history of “sexual misconduct, assault, theft, racism and injury to individuals and the Columbia community as a whole.” (Some observers are hoping that this, too, is a prank.) – The New York Times