Germany’s First Post-COVID Classical Concert With An Audience Was On Monday. Here’s How It Went

At the State Theater of Hesse in Wiesbaden, bass Günther Groissböck and pianist Alexandra Goloubitskaia gave a recital of Schubert and Mahler before about 200 people in a 1,000-seat auditorium — with plenty of hand sanitizer around the building and intermission snacks outside the front door. (Thank heaven the weather was good.) The audience, such as it was, “was ecstatic.” – The New York Times

Texas Ballet Theater Cuts Budget, Salaries, Season Due To COVID

The company, which performs in Fort Worth and Dallas, is reducing its total budget from $10.8 million to $8.5 million, reducing dancer and staff pay on a scale from 5% to 20%, changing dancer contracts from 40 to 38 weeks, and postponing the start of next season until the holiday run of The Nutcracker, thus cutting programming from five to four productions. – The Dallas Morning News

Cleo Parker Robinson Talks About 50 Years Of Her Dance Company In Denver

“Long ago, both jobs and respect were hard to come by for choreographers and dancers. This was especially true for women of color, as well as for modern dance. Respect went more easily towards ballet. I wanted to balance all my interests, to be in Denver and the world at the same time. When you find your true voice, the funding will follow.” – Dance Magazine

Why Did Shostakovich Join the Party?

One of the most controversial acts in the ever-controversial life of Dmitri Shostakovich was his tortured decision in 1960 to join the Communist Party. It is not mentioned in Testimony (1979) – the composer’s influential memoirs, collaboratively written with Solomon Volkov. But Volkov offered his own view, for the first time, in a Zoom chat the other day produced by PostClassical Ensemble. – Joseph Horowitz