Category: music

Bethany Schoeff-Cotter is a classically trained oboist and married to the symphony’s general manager – and was the personnel manager for 11 years. In her tweets, she “referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as ‘a disease on this country’ and suggested the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis is a hoax designed to influence this year’s elections. Schoeff-Cotter also called those who wear masks to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus ‘idiots’ and accused Microsoft founder Bill Gates of a plot to force vaccines and microchips on the American public.” – The Spokane Spokesman-Review

It wasn’t a great look for the massively popular K-Pop band Blackpink, and their Hindu fans let them know immediately. They weren’t “cancelled” or anything like that, but they listened, or their management did. “The swift re-editing of the Blackpink video illustrated how K-pop fans, who are deeply invested in the mythmaking of their musical idols, use the internet to spread their messages, reach the artists (and their management) almost instantly and get quick results.” – The New York Times

Since the Covid-19 numbers are looking worse, not better (not by a long shot) in the US, Peter Gelb says that the Met has to push the envelope with new content, even if it mostly employs those who are already stars. “If there’s no Met to come back to, the jobs of our furloughed artists will be lost. … I have to ensure that the Met can earn revenue.” – The New York Times

Fisk joined the Richmond Symphony in 2002 from the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland and has led the orchestra through many ups and downs, including the closure of the Carpenter Theatre that left the Symphony essentially homeless and performing in area churches from 2004 to 2009. – Richmond Times-Dispatch

David Patrick Stearns: “Only a minute or two long, but repeated 840 times, Vexations is alternately called minimalist, Dada-ist, or Outsider Art when it resurfaces every few years. … [Igor] Levit’s late May performance, streamed from Berlin, is perhaps the highest-profile outing for this ghostly wisp of a piece that was posthumously discovered among the composer’s personal effects. Considering that [it] could easily have been dismissed as some discarded sketch, Vexations has achieved a degree of cultural clout that is, to say the least, highly unexpected.” – WQXR (New York City)

He currently serves as the CEO of New York’s Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, a position he has held since 2012. He also served as executive director of the Ojai Music Festival, and according to Friday’s statement, has previously worked with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Aspen Music Festival. – Chicago Sun-Times

“For me, his work stands with Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Ellington and Stravinsky in achieving that rare fusion of heart and mind. … His meticulous craftsmanship and ear for orchestration, harmony, melody and rhythm resulted in music that was perfectly balanced; as with all master composers, every note was there for a reason. Change one note, one rhythm, one rest, and there is diminishment.” – The New York Times

Up to this point, music was primarily a shared experience: families huddling around furniture-sized Philcos; teens blasting tunes from automobiles or sock-hopping to transistor radios; the bar-room juke; break-dancers popping and locking to the sonic backdrop of a boom box. After the Walkman, music could be silence to all but the listener, cocooned within a personal soundscape, which spooled on analog cassette tape. The effect was shocking even to its creators. – The New Yorker

This is what I saw with the livestreams: our traditional modes of live performance are not a good fit for the new world we find ourselves in. Rather, as we continue to create live performance in the months ahead, we must seek new modes of performance that actively engage with the technologies we’re using. – Howlround