Category: music

Here’s the list of artists and songs named in the Freedom of Information Act request for records of music the United States used in torture.

Violinist Aaron Rosand, now 82 and retired, has sold the instrument he played for more than 50 years, the 1741 “ex-Kochanski” Guarneri del Gesù. “The buyer was a Russian billionaire whom Mr. Rosand declined to identify” but who will allow other violinists access to the instrument.

The American soprano, currently one of the world’s leading Verdians, has spoken publicly for the first time about a 2002 operation to remove a node from her vocal cords – a node that had been there since childhood and throughout her training and early career. (“I was written up in all these medical journals.”)

“[N]o black tenor has ever sung the role of Otello in a professional British production of Verdi’s opera – until now. Trinidad-born, Guildhall-trained Ronald Samm is to take the role in December for Birmingham Opera Company….”

“A relatively young and unknown French Canadian conductor will take the baton at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, signaling the next era for the regional ensemble. Jacques Lacombe, 46, succeeds Neeme Järvi, who held the position for four years before his departure last spring.”

The $50,000 (Can) prize “celebrates the artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement by a Canadian performing artist in the realm of theatre, dance or music.”

After he closed the Amato Opera Company last spring, “Anthony Amato sold the Bowery brownstone that housed his company, but he did not sell his productions; he has given some 30 of them – sets, costumes, props and all — to Amore Opera,” which has just announced its inaugural season.

“It’s a science, it’s an art, it’s impossible to pin down, and it always seems to be open to debate. Is the Kennedy Center Concert Hall really that bad?” And can the National Symphony Orchestra blame its performance troubles on it?

“As the union tells it, Lyric management ‘walked out of negotiations July 7’ and didn’t return until September 4. On September 25, with the season set to open the next night, Lyric made an abrupt ‘final’ offer: a one-year contract with salaries frozen at current rates. … The musicians voted it down” and are “now working without a contract.”

“Like the great architect and city planner Daniel Burnham before him, Muti” — the CSO’s music director designate — “is making no small plans. When he spoke of taking the CSO into Chicago neighborhoods to reach minorities and incarcerated and at-risk youth, he revealed a civic and humanitarian vision Burnham surely would have admired.”