Category: music

Sheku Kanneh-Mason has had quite the life in recent years, what with winning the BBC’s Young Musician Award in 2016 and performing at the wedding of Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle. He says, “A lot of musicians like a beer after a performance. I don’t know why exactly – maybe it’s because they enjoy more what’s well-deserved. The classical composers were often drinking a lot and doing crazy things, but I don’t think their music came out of alcohol – it’s more to do with musicianship often not being a well-paid thing, and also that music can take up so much of your mind, thoughts, passion.” – The Guardian (UK)

What makes sense on TikTok might not make sense on the old platforms. TikTok distills music down to a brief snippet you can sing along to, or dance along to or perform a comic sketch to. Its needs are different, which is changing how professional songwriters working in studios around the world are thinking about their craft. – The New York Times

Walker, who died in 2018 at age 96, was one of America’s most distinguished composers. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1996. He was a superb pianist and an esteemed academic. His shelves and walls were overloaded with the awards and honorary degrees that go with a legendary career. He wrote around 100 pieces, and many of them have been recorded. No history of American music is complete without Walker, and that means many a standard history of American music is incomplete. Who among classical music lovers, let alone the general public, even knows who George Walker was, much less has heard his music? – Los Angeles Times

“In 1997, a group of German classical musicians moved to the village of Klein Jasedow, a tiny, nearly abandoned hamlet close to the Baltic Sea. The performers were looking to escape the careerist rat race, and hoped to find a place that united community, art, and nature — which they found, along with suspicion, fierce resistance from the locals, and even accusations of witchcraft. Can music bridge the divides between people? A report from an ongoing cultural experiment.” – VAN

“Deborah Dugan, who took over as Recording Academy president/CEO on Aug. 1, has been placed on administrative leave just over a week before the 2020 Grammy Awards due to ‘serious concerns’ brought to the board of trustees’ attention.” Those “concerns” include “including a formal allegation of misconduct by a senior female member of the Recording Academy team.” – Billboard

“Gov. Larry Hogan has asked the Maryland General Assembly to rescind a promised $1.6 million for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra — the second time in two years the governor has attempted to block emergency bridge funding aimed at stabilizing Maryland’s largest cultural institution.” – The Baltimore Sun

He will begin in the spring of 2021. Gilbert will combine his new position with the post of Chief Conductor at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the position which he took in the fall of 2019. – Operawire

“The four-year extension … maintains what has proved a winning formula: the pairing of a conductor whose fame extends beyond the classical music world and is a powerful audience draw with an orchestra that has developed perhaps the strongest reputation in the country for innovative programming and community outreach.” – The New York Times

“As he lay bleeding on his kitchen floor in Bedford, the snow blower that lopped off the tips of three of his fingers still sputtering outside, the same question kept rattling around in Murray Daniels’s head: Will I ever play piano again?” – The Boston Globe