Category: music

“Coming on the heels of similar announcements from the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, the decisions make clear that there will be few, if any, large-scale performances before 2021 in one of the world’s musical centers.” Carnegie, expecting multi-million-dollars deficits for both this past season and the next one, is also furloughing 50 of its 274 remaining employees. – The New York Times

Klaus Mäkelä, a 24-year-old Finnish cellist and conductor who is already at the helm of the Oslo Philharmonic, starts in his Paris position in the fall of 2022. He succeeds Daniel Harding, who left the orchestra for “artistic reasons” last summer after only three years and started working as a commercial airline pilot. – Gramophone

It might seem an extraordinary thing that a late 19th/early 20th century French composer — and one whose music has had a history of having been dismissed for its seeming simplicity, seeming naiveté and seeming single-mindedness — resonates so effectively in our confused, upside-down world. But, then, in his strange music, his irreverent prose, his inexplicable mannerisms, his radical attitudes and his incomprehensible inconsistencies, Satie may just be what we need. – Los Angeles Times

“With most of the room cut out, there are fewer distractions. When three dimensions collapse into two, there’s a weird intimacy. You can get up close, like ballroom dance partners. You can demonstrate without replacing students in the chair. And you can take copious notes while they play, marking the music like an over-caffeinated octopus. They can’t see that.” – WBUR

Tazewell Thompson, creator, with composer Jeanine Tesori, of Blue, which the Music Critics Association of North America has named best new opera of the year: “I wrote it from an obsessive need and sense of responsibility to tell an intimate story behind the numbing numbers of boys and men who are killed. But here we are now: art imitating life, life imitating art. Unfortunately, the themes in Blue have no expiration date. … Our eyes will never be free of tears.” – The New York Times

“Basically,” he says, “we needed to create something like ESPN or The Food Network.” You mean, I ask, you talk to chefs about the politics of food, but you don’t do the cooking? “Exactly, that was the premise.” – Art and Seek (KERA)

“Woodstock 50 organizers are suing their former financial partner Dentsu Group and several of its affiliates, accusing the company of ‘destruction of the festival’ and ‘sabotage.’ … The [event, planned for last August,] was marred with a number of publicly aired setbacks and legal battles, including Dentsu and the festival legally severing ties last April, when Dentsu pulled its financial backing and also initially canceled the festival, which festival organizers argued Dentsu did not have the legal right to do.” – Rolling Stone

Schott/EAM, a publisher of contemporary composers, recently posted an inspiring list of works from its catalog appropriate for social distancing. Universal Edition put out an intriguing selection of opera and symphonic reductions. In a livestreamed panel discussion on Thursday, several innovative chamber orchestras will share repertory ideas. – The New York Times

“Young people who break the rules, who don’t want to conform, are natural social scientists. They’re natural philosophers, questioning what’s around them. You might not be channelling that in the right way right now – but I bet you’ve got the type of mind that we can talk to.” – BBC

“Outgoing director Stéphane Lissner dropped a bombshell Thursday, saying Europe’s biggest opera and ballet company was ‘on its knees’ and he would be leaving seven months early in January. But his successor Alexander Neef said Friday he knew nothing of Lissner’s early exit, and cast doubt on whether he would be able to immediately step into his shoes just as the opera faces one of the biggest crises in its 350-year history.” – France24 (AFP)