Category: music

Last fall the orchestra celebrated the arrival of its new music director with the app-cum-game “Bravo Gustavo,” a sort of conducting Rock Star. Now they’re introducing a special app just for the Hollywood Bowl, with everything from concert schedules and ticket sales to videos to GPS driving directions.

“[T]he sun has set on the Empire, we’re rubbish at football and banks, but we really can and should be proud of the way we present opera. I would even claim – not altogether idly – that penny for penny, night by night, we perform it as well if not better than anyone in the world, without the high levels of public subsidy that obtain in France, Germany and Italy.”

The citywide piano project “Play Me, I’m Yours” “is intended as an exploration of mass creativity and shared public space,” but “[m]usicians are piggybacking on the project to promote themselves and their music. They’ve planned marathon performance routes, … worked their way into TV news footage and mustered their own video teams.” Oh: And they’re busking.

“The tangible relationship between music and emotion is no surprise to anyone, but a study … suggests the minor third isn’t a facet of musical communication alone – it’s how we convey sadness in speech, too. When it comes to sorrow, music and human speech might speak the same language.”

“Fon der Choope” (“From the Wedding”) by Abe Elenkrig’s Yidishe Orchestra (1913); “Canal Street Blues” by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band (1923); and the Metropolitan Opera’s 1935 “Tristan und Isolde” are also among the 25 recordings to be preserved by the Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry.

The 1,000-seat venue, which hosts a variety of musical events and theatre as well as opera, will close from July 4 through September 29 as an emergency cost-cutting measure following a €300,000 loss for the fiscal year ended in March. The Opera House completed a €2 million renovation just one year ago.

“Monday was the first day on which 60 pianos could be played on street corners and in parks around the city as part of a public art project called ‘Play Me, I’m Yours.’ There were double-takes as people walked by: A piano? Anyone can sit down and play anything?”

“I suspect one factor is that on some level, an orchestra still functions as a signifier of high quality. Even people who don’t gravitate toward classical music may have a general idea that performance by an orchestra is the highest level to which music can aspire.”

“The work – a collaboration between Melbourne’s Chamber Made Opera, multimedia arts organisation Aphids, Amsterdam digital art clique Champagne Valentine and Speak Percussion – defies what many of us might consider a staid medium.”

“An interesting phenomenon is occurring as fewer and fewer CDs are being purchased: Artists who appeal to older listeners are showing up surprisingly high on the list of best-sellers. Why? These days, adults buy most of the CDs. Younger people, on the other hand, tend to download specific songs.”