Category: music

Curtis Institute Screwed Up Responding To Sexual Abuse Charges. Now It Has Hired Investigators

A leading expert in the field said Curtis needs to do more: “The problem here is, what the public needs is full transparency. Frankly, I would be very concerned if my child were attending the Curtis Institute right now,” she said. Violinist Lara St. John, who made the charges, on Thursday said that the fact that there would be an investigation had her feeling hopeful. – Philadelphia Inquirer

Opera’s Woman Problem: There Just Aren’t Enough Of Them In Decision-Making Roles

The Stage senior reporter Georgia Snow talks to women working as directors, designers, and administrators in opera in the UK — who tell her that things are getting better, but not fast enough. (Opera companies are, after all, large, expensive, slow-moving machines.) Says English National Opera’s new artistic director, Annelese Miskimmon, “Unless we reflect our audience we can’t serve them. According to every statistic I have seen, it’s women who buy opera tickets. So it doesn’t matter what people’s own feelings are – it’s sensible economics.” – The Stage

Leonardo And His Lovers: The Opera

The new piece by composer Alex Mills and librettist Brian Mullin, titled Leonardo and premiering this weekend at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, focuses on da Vinci’s relationship with two of his assistants, the rambunctious working-class youth Gian Giacomo Caprotti (whom Leonardo called Salaí, meaning little devil), and the young Milanese noble Francesco Melzi (whom Leonardo called Master Francesco). – BBC

The Massive Embezzlement Scandal That Nearly Brought Down Barcelona’s Most Beautiful Concert Hall

It was ten years ago that the Palau de la Música Catalana’s name was all over Spain’s newspapers: €24 million had disappeared from the hall’s bank accounts in a corruption and kickback scheme that involved the Palau’s director; the president of Orfeó Català, its resident choral society; the transportation and infrastructure giant Ferrovial; and one of Catalonia’s major political parties. Here’s the story of how the crime was discovered and solved and how the Palau and Orfeó redeemed their reputations. – Bachtrack

Ted Gioia: Music As A Cultural Storage Medium

What people don’t understand is that, for most of history, music was a kind of cloud storage for societies. I like to tell people that music is a technology for societies that don’t have semiconductors or spaceships. If you go to any traditional community, and you try to find the historian, generally it’s a singer. Music would preserve culture; it would preserve folklore. Well, nowadays, we rely on cloud storage to be the preserver of these same things. And I think there’s a strange shift. – Medium

Everything It Takes To Put On, And Get Through, Philip Glass’s ‘Akhnaten’ At The Met

Says Anthony Roth Costanzo, who plays the title role, “It brings you back to the most fundamental things about your technique. And if your house is not in order, you’re not going to get through it.” Joshua Barone looks at preparations for the challenging three-hour opera, from designing and assembling the “weird fever dream” costumes and sets to teaching the chorus to juggle to waxing off all the star’s body hair to conductor Karen Kamensek’s karate chop.” – The New York Times

Philip Glass Has Zero Interest In A Legacy (But Lots Of Interest In ‘Selling Out’)

“If the question is whether, a century from now, his operas will get new productions, his symphonies will circulate more frequently, or pianists will take on his études, Mr. Glass couldn’t care less. ‘I won’t be around for all that,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.'” As for commercial versus noncommercial work? “My attitude has been that they’re both the same. Why is it better to get a check every week from a university than to get royalties? Of course I’m a sellout. What else would I be?” – The New York Times