Category: music

“For better or for worse, the Web, Twitter, Facebook, the iPad, and various iterations thereof are here to stay, and Tilson Thomas is determined to put his famed post-graduate fellows at the forefront of technology’s latest bells and whistles.”

The popular young Californian – whose online virtual choir made a YouTube clip that has tallied more than 950,000 views – has signed an “exclusive, long-term recording contract” with Decca. “His debut album for the label, ‘Light & Gold’, will be recorded in August, and will feature Whitacre conducting choral works including three world premieres.”

“Opera represents the pinnacle of prestige among the performing arts, but the high-brow reputation intimidates audiences who have grown up with raucous Chinese opera and don’t know that the Western variety is equally fun to watch. As a result Hong Kong’s opera scene is tiny,” which worries the people who will be running the new 2,000-seat opera house in the West Kowloon Cultural District. “Cue Hong Kong’s most active opera evangelist.”

In the wake of the abrupt departure of longtime music director Jorge Mester, the orchestra “has hired an artistic advisor – and, for two October concerts, a conductor – in James DePreist, who led the Oregon Symphony for more than 20 years and is current director of conducting and orchestral studies at the Juilliard School in New York City.”

“The word ‘pleasurable’ comes up often in jazz talk with Woody Allen, a telling trait given his famously skittish personality. But he’s increasingly alone in this adulation: Today, few performers specialize in traditional jazz, and even fewer listeners seek it out, which makes his loyalty all the more notable.”

For nearly a decade, Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano has been championing a group of composers often referred to as the “Atlanta School” – Jennifer Higdon, Michael Gandolfi, Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis. “In a reversal of usual box-office patterns, [ASO] concerts with music by Atlanta School composers typically sell at about 84% of capacity, … versus an average of 78% for other classical events.”

During the mid-20th century, using grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Louisville Orchestra commissioned more than 150 scores. What happened to all that music?, asks Andrew Adler. “[The] broader issue of sustaining and renewing interest in this exceptional project brings up an undeniable reality: First performances come easily; second performances don’t.”

In the wake of an engineering report saying that the venue’s stage machinery is in such bad shape that it poses a danger to performers, and that an $800 million [Aus] renovation is necessary, the New South Wales government is reportedly planning to allocate $130 million [Aus] over two years for repairs.

“Wouldn’t it be great, if you were playing a concert and you look out and you see all dogs?” thought Anderson. She hopes to live that dream this weekend at the Sydney Opera House when she performs Music for Dogs, a 20-minute piece pitched at high frequencies audible to canines but not humans.

“The cash crisis is so desperate, performers’ lives are at risk from ancient stage machinery because there is no money to update it, damning internal reports reveal. … Opera House chief executive Richard Evans has confirmed it may have to close permanently if state and federal governments do not give $800 million for a renewal project….”