Category: music

Radio in particular – and Portland’s All Classical in particular. There’s a lot of media nowadays, and a lot of choices to make – perhaps too many. “Radio cuts through all that. You make one decision – tune to a station – and then passively take in whatever it has to offer. Maybe it’s a bunch of Haydn or Mingus, maybe it’s an hour of spooky Irish music, maybe it’s interviews with local composers you’ve never heard of playing music composed by kids who go to school with yours.” – Oregon ArtsWatch

Ireland is reopening in some ways, but arts venues are expecting a third wave of coronavirus infections and another shutdown after Christmas. How should they plan? “Covid-19 has profoundly changed parts of our world. Business travel has been killed by the Zoom call. The absurdity of the daily rush hour has been exposed by home working. Some of these changes may turn out to be permanent. But when it comes to art and culture, lockdown has revealed a contrary truth: live will always be better than livestream.” – Irish Times

Survive monetarily, that is. And psychologically. “There’s definitely a part of me that puts myself in these risky situations just to feel some sense of normalcy. My sister, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, agrees. She says the damage this apocalyptic Groundhog Day is doing to performers’ psyche is as bad, if not worse, than the financial hardships we’re facing. After all, for many of us professional entertainers, our work is also intertwined with our social lives. It’s much more than just a paycheck.” – Slate

The gala will star Placido Domingo, Roberto Alagna and Jonas Kaufmann on the night of its traditional Dec. 7 season-opener, instead of the planned staging of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” in keeping with restrictions imposed to stop the coronavirus’ deadly spread. – AP

Oral histories suggest that jazz musicians have related to each other with more ease than can be found in other parts of the culture. At the same time, there’s no doubt that venues in general were hostile to racial mixing. So the degree to which jazz — the music and the business — contributed to a progressive model of race relations is an open question, one that generates many different opinions. – ArtsFuse

Richard Danielpour’s oratorio, performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta. was nominated in three categories; the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Gershwin’s opera received two nods, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s release of the complete symphonies of Charles Ives, Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto (with Kirill Gershtein and the Boston Symphony), and composer Ted Hearne’s staged oratorio Place. Both Adès and the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas have two different recordings among the nominees. As usual in recent years, contemporary classical music has a major presence in categories beyond its own. – Los Angeles Times

Music is not one thing. It’s something that people react to. But your question — “Is that good or bad?” — it depends on circumstances and individuals and timing. The invention of something starts out being more or less value-neutral. – The New York Times

Currently HGO is overseen by artistic and musical director Patrick Summers and Perryn Leech as managing director, with both reporting to the board of directors. The company’s new leadership structure will result in a new general director who will serve as a single point of leadership, to whom Summers will report as HGO’s artistic and musical director. – Opera News

“If you think of Classical Music as a vast and imposing monolith, with both words capitalized, it isn’t an easy thing to take on within a single encounter. Individual pieces, on the other hand, are like people — each one quirky and distinctive, and each one carrying the promise of a lifelong acquaintance.” – San Francisco Chronicle