Tag: sjm

“What we have here, in other words, is the painful and all-too-familiar story of two creative dynamos in the same house, only one of whom was allowed to give full rein to their artistic impulses. Yet the music that Clara did produce is astonishingly fine.” Joshua Kosman fills us in on what most of us have been missing. – San Francisco Chronicle

The African American and Black musicians who make up the Re-Collective Orchestra recorded a chamber-music version of Black Panther‘s “All the Stars Are Open.” Hans Zimmer heard it, and then he asked the musicians to record the score for the Disney behemoth’s live-action version of its massive 1994 hit. For bassoonist Lecolion Washington, the experience “felt like an acknowledgement that who makes art, and the stories they bring, holds as much value as the art itself.” – WBUR (Boston)

Brin Solomon: “In casting a trans man to play a trans woman, the Stonewall creative team have botched things so spectacularly … It’s difficult to convey how bizarre this casting choice is. It’s like writing a character who’s a lesbian, casting a gay man to play her, and then boasting of writing a homosexual character for a homosexual actor.” – I Care If You Listen

“Some … found new voices, either with the help of hormones or through retraining. Others kept the voices they had built their careers on — even if it meant continuing to perform in the gender they had left behind. Now some are getting higher-profile roles — and upending preconceptions about voice and gender. … We spent time with four of the artists at the forefront of this new wave.” – The New York Times

It received funding from Arts Council England’s Change Makers initiative to become more accessible and inclusive. Alongside organisational changes like disability awareness training, BSO created a disabled-led ensemble, BSO Resound, and supported a training placement for its Director, conductor James Rose. – Arts Professional

“When our society is having to confront the murder of women, how can we dare to applaud the killing of a woman?” said Cristiano Chiarot, the head of the opera house, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. – Sydney Morning Herald

Lyndon Terracini was responding to a call from Australian composers, directors, musicians, and vocalists, who have called for a ”revolution” to remove what they describe as gender bias, sexism, and dramatised acts of violence against women in opera. – Sydney Morning Herald

More than 60 organisations, including some of the UK’s highest-funded companies and prominent performing arts conservatoires, have promised to take positive action towards equality. The Keychange project is the brainchild of charitable funding body the PRS Foundation. It was launched in 2018, when 180 music festivals committed to programming gender-balanced line-ups by 2022. – The Stage

Jeremy Dutcher incorporates in his live and recorded music an unusual and affecting act of legacy, playing transcribed wax recordings from 1911 by an early anthropologist of a tribal elder singing and speaking, and following the melodies with his own heldentenor voice and mellifluous keyboard compositions.  – San Francisco Classical Voice

“I had never done an opera with five protagonists before. I had to figure out how to do that. I was fascinated by group singing. Then I began thinking about that period in time, Take 6 and a lot of the boy groups that were popular in that time. I started looking at what I could do with close harmony for five voices.” – The Washington Post