Category: music

“Life as a freelancer is already touch and go. We can’t really count on work to begin with, we don’t know what our schedules will be more than 3-6 months in advance, there’s always the risk of something falling through at the last minute, and there is no safety net. Yet there’s some strange consistency in that. You know how it goes and what to expect and you know you have some control over what you do and don’t do. In this instance, we are totally unprepared and without control.” – NewMusicBox

There are a lot of small regional organizations on this list who are stepping up despite finances that are precarious even in good times, but the only big-name company there is Houston Grand Opera. And though Lincoln Center Theater is included (for its now-cancelled production of the new Ricky Ian Gordon-Lynn Nottage opera Intimate Apparel), the Metropolitan Opera is definitely not. (Across the Atlantic, English National Opera will honor at least one month of contracts.) – The Middle-Class Artist

Of the dozen or more such articles that we’ve seen so far, this one from David Patrick Stearns is our favorite so far — not only because it offers a lot of options, but also because of his sense of humor and compassion. – WQXR (New York City)

“The few people present in the hall … were asked not to applaud because such meager clapping would sound pallid to listeners tuning in from elsewhere. But for those who were there, it was confounding to have the orchestra standing to receive phantom applause that wasn’t there,” reports David Patrick Stearns. “The atmosphere, though, was hardly grave.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

With the rest of the company’s summer season in Sydney cancelled, including the popular and lucrative outdoor Opera on the Harbour, CEO Rory Jeffes said, “suddenly we were in a position where we had to show [the board] that we could refund all our tickets sold for the future and have no income from ticket sales for the foreseeable future.” – The Sydney Morning Herald

“We believe the Centre for Music’s potential transformative power for music is equal to that of Tate Modern’s impact on the London visual arts scene.” The centre will occupy the current Museum of London site after the museum reopens at Smithfield Market in 2024. Construction will take about four years. – Arts Professional

Until Gov. Pritzker on Sunday ordered all bars and restaurants in the state to shut down at close of business on Monday night through March 30, the jazz clubs kept on swinging — albeit with smaller audiences and less energy than just a week ago. – Chicago Tribune

And then there’s the social-media-scheduled applause for hospital workers as well. In Rome, one neighborhood sang the anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao.” And “elsewhere in the city, pop triumphed over politics, as a neighborhood came together to perform the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest’s third-place winner ‘Nei Blu, Dipinto di Blu,’ a.k.a. ‘Volare.'” – Slate

In an act of generosity to millions stuck at home with no entertainment options during the rest of the month (or longer), the Met “will stream a title from its Live in HD series each night through the duration of the closure. The performances, originally captured as live broadcasts in movie theatres worldwide, will begin at 7:30 PM from the company’s homepage.” (And then, if you like what you get for free, you can of course subscribe to the opera’s full streaming service. Clever!) – Playbill

This isn’t a small issue: “The Met is the largest performing arts organization in the nation: It is a $308 million-a-year operation, but a fragile one. The high costs of mounting opera, coupled with weakness at the box office and a relatively small endowment, make it highly dependent on donations. Now, it will lose millions in ticket revenues.” – The New York Times