Category: music

“Marin Alsop, the dynamic American conductor who became the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s 12th music director in September 2007, will remain in that post until 2015 under the terms of a five-year contract announced Thursday. That contract will begin when her initial three-year deal ends in September 2010.”

“Ray Chen of Australia has won Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth Competition, which this year was for violinists. His prize includes 20,000 euros, concert engagements, a CD recording contract, and the loan for three years of the 1708 ‘Huggins’ Stradivari.”

“Rain damage to the roof of a warehouse built in the 1930s has delayed the world premiere of the ambitious new opera, The Children’s Crusade, by composer R. Murray Schafer, as crews scramble to repair the structure and rebuild sets.”

“The show, titled Flatpack, offers answers to questions such as ‘Why is my bookcase called Billy?’ ‘What is domestic harmony?’ and ‘What do our homes have to say about us?’ … Four classical singers, a cellist, a pianist, an accordionist and four percussionists, plus a cast of actors and dancers – many dressed in traditional Ikea yellow and blue  – are performing the opera in front of an unsuspecting audience for four nights only.”

“[W]e need to stop fixating on the young audience and focus on reaching an audience, period. … So how do you reach a bigger audience, period? What can you do to make people realize that this kind of music is exciting, interesting, fun? No one has the whole answer to this; a lot of people are working on it. But I think this is the question to be asking.”

“The DSO has received a million-dollar grant from the New York-based Ford Foundation for fund-raising and marketing initiatives around music director Leonard Slatkin. The three-year gift is designed to help the DSO expand its donor base.”

“[O]pera is practically written for teenagers: it’s all about big wild uncontrollable emotions expressed in very loud voices, and speaks directly to the teen experience. Half of opera’s heroines, after all, are young teenagers with rather naive and overblown views of love and life.”

“[A]fter absorbing lessons from visiting volunteer luthiers and a three-month apprenticeship in Italy, Mr. Shelaldeh, 18, has his own instrument repair shop. It is in a former garage around the corner from the [Ramallah] music center, Al Kamandjati (‘the Violinist’). He has learned to fix instruments and replace the hair on bows. He has already made two violins, one with a tiny Palestinian flag on the tailpiece, which anchors the strings.”

“A shoulder injury sidelined Samuel Martin from playing his violin last fall. […] The result of Martin’s time off – the Three Bridges International Chamber Music Festival – will be held at various locations in Duluth June 7-18.”

The history of pop music “fixates on origins and breakthroughs, magic years of transformation, cusp points when undergrounds go overground. It gives far less attention to those stretches of time between the upheavals – years of drift and diaspora, periods without an easily discernible ‘vibe,’ zeits devoid of geist.”