It’s bad from the singer side – 51 percent of the top 100 songs were by solo male acts, and only 19 percent were by solo female acts – but it’s shockingly horrible from behind the scenes, where 80 percent of the songwriters were male. One songwriter: “To see that women feature so low across the board in this industry is devastating and something I feel every day working in music.” – The Guardian (UK)
Category: music
The LA Phil Tries The Online Route
The Hollywood Bowl couldn’t have audiences – but the musicians could be there, distanced, and the orchestra took advantage of its city’s geographical advantages. The concerts were only “possible in the age of the novel coronavirus because the [Hollywood Bowl] stage is about 5,700 square feet— more than twice the size of the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage — and completely outdoors, but for the partial cover of the shell. All participants, including artists and tech crews, were tested for COVID-19 prior to filming and stayed at least 6 feet apart onstage.” – Los Angeles Times
Live Music, And Music Venues, Won’t Survive The Virus Without A Lot More Help
In the UK, for instance, with social distance requirements in full force as they should be, “only around 100 of the country’s 900 small music venues would be able to operate.” And it’s not as if music venues can expand. – The Guardian (UK)
Nothing, Absolutely Nothing, Can Beat Live Music
The first concert since lockdown is definitely special (not that it’s weird to be masked and distant anymore; it’s simply exciting to be there). “It’s been difficult but clarifying to see how mightily classical music struggles in an online-only format. Experiencing sound in person, among others, turns out to be even more essential than I’d assumed. This art form has long been devoted to recordings — but always as a counter, an implied (or screamed) comparison, to real performances.” – The New York Times
Collective Of Black Classical Musicians Takes To Social Media To Detail Issues
“Almost every aspect of classical music, as it is currently, cultivates a toxic and racist culture. That doesn’t mean that every participant in classical music is racist, obviously. The specific aspects that sustain institutional racism are: hero worship; classism and elitism; unbalanced power structures (like the relationship between students and private teachers; the fear-based mentality that your teacher can “make or break you”); access to quality education and opportunities, especially for lower socioeconomic students—classical music is cost prohibitive for many prospective practitioners; respectability politics and classical musician stereotypes that serve to flush out individuality (for example, the flak that Yuja Wang gets for wearing short skirts is endemic of classical music’s respectability politics rooted in the intersections of classical music and Christian worship—the altar, god-figures, etc.); the way classical music history is taught as a sanitized, sexist, queerphobic, whitewashed, and white supremacist version of history; lack of reporting protocols for racism; the way orchestras are funded and governed by “pay-to-play” boards;
“outreach programs” that are missionary-like PR campaigns. We could go on…and it is our page’s work to address all of these issues.” – Grammy.com
Singers Can Reduce COVID Danger By Singing More Softly, Says Study (But There’s A Big Caveat)
Researchers at the University of Bristol used 25 professional singers of various genres as subjects, having them speak and sing at various levels, and found that singing at a conversational level produces only slightly more aerosols than speaking normally does — more volume of sound equals more volume of potentially virus-carrying droplets on the breath, basically. The caveat? The researchers are chemists, not virologists, and the study has not yet been peer-reviewed. – BBC
Dreamstage – A New Virtual Concert Hall
The design of Dreamstage simulates a traditional live event with virtual ticket offices, an entrance for the audience, artistic entrance, and a post-performance lounge. Ticket proceeds will go to musicians. – The Strad
Now This Is Zoom Opera That Works — And It’s For Young Kids
“Admittedly, preschoolers, Zoom and opera don’t immediately sound like the makings of a successful project, but each installment I watched of Opera Starts With Oh! — helmed by director, choreographer and teaching artist Emma Jaster and Opera Lafayette community engagement manager Ersian François — kept its grid of budding opera buffs rapt with an action-packed half-hour of activities, performances and assorted operatic antics.” – The Washington Post
Berlin Medical Institute Study Says Concerts And Operas Could Safely Have Full Houses — Then Institute’s Board Disavows Study
“Earlier this week, leading German epidemiologists from the prestigious Clinic Charité published a revised study suggesting that the opera houses and concert halls should allow every seat in the audiences to be occupied. …
However, in a major twist, the Charité’s Board of Directors … stat[ed] that ‘the paper on the resumption of opera and concert operations under the COVID-19 conditions had not been coordinated and did not reflect the position of the board.'” – OperaWire
Putting An Orchestra Onstage While Maintaining Social Distancing Is A Puzzle (In More Than One Sense)
First, there are the obvious issues of placement: how far apart the string players must be, how much farther apart for the winds and brass, placing the conductor where everyone can see. In Los Angeles, there’s been a complicating issue: the union for the L.A. Phil and L.A. Chamber Orchestra worked out one set of rules while the union for studio musicians (which has jurisdiction over some of the Phil’s and LACO’s work) had already worked out another. Jim Farber reports on how it all got solved. – San Francisco Classical Voice