Category: music

“With over 350,000 [student] instrumentalists and choristers scattered among 215 regional centers known as ‘núcleos,’ … you might think that Mr. Dudamel is not unique, and you would be right.” Under the tutelage of Claudio Abbado, two more gifted young Venezuelan conductors are making an impression at the Lucerne Easter Festival.

The conductor showed up for rehearsals of the Met’s current Traviata without knowing the music properly. He admitted as much on his own website, writing that “since everyone else in the house knew it, I would learn a great deal from the masters.” The result: “I have seldom heard such faulty coordination between a conductor and a cast at the Met,” says Anthony Tommasini.

“Departing from the printed program, it gets listeners to sit up and take notice, speculating on what’s to come, trying to figure out what they’ve heard. In a way, it puts the audience into a more active role” — even as tradition says “that critics don’t review encores — indeed, often enough, that they leave the auditorium before them.”

“The past three months have seen the renowned Easter festival engulfed by allegations of corruption which forced the resignation of one director and coincided with the apparent suicide attempt of another. With its reputation on the line after weeks of lurid headlines, the 43-year-old Osterfestspiele will attempt to pick itself up: 85% of tickets have been sold and the show, organisers say, must go on.”

“Over the last 100 years, composers and musicians have walked separate paths. But today’s percussionists may be changing that already.”

“Having just turned 85 on Friday, he is no longer feared but feted as one of the great men of music, present and past, in a town that knows what that means. Boulez celebrated his birthday by conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in its ornate, historic home, the Austrian capital’s Musikverein. Future musicologists will no doubt mark the splendid occasion.”

“It came at a time when the Met is sorely in need of cash,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in an interview at his office on Friday. “We really need it, and we need a lot more than that. We have been in a position of significant financial challenge.”

“I’ve been experiencing a creeping sense of dread recently when it comes to iTunes, a dark hunch that technology has impoverished the actual experience of listening to music.” As a kid, “I considered listening to an album an activity in and of itself. It was not something I did while working on homework, let alone while checking e-mail or thumbing out text messages.”

“On top of the slow economy, live karaoke clubs are losing some of their bread-and-butter wannabe pop stars and off-duty office workers to living room video games and online streaming services. At the same time, karaoke record companies are struggling with sky-high licensing fees while the traditional karaoke CD market is being throttled by illegal online downloads.”