Category: music

“Politicians use classical music rather like they use white-tie galas and red carpets. It adds dignity and intensifies an occasion, making it more serious and profound. But the music heard at political events is all too often ignored, despite its often huge symbolic importance. What message is there in Gergiev’s choice of Shostakovich’s wartime potboiler for an Ossetian victory concert?”

“Now that Apple has opened up the platform (both the old and new versions) to third-party applications, musically savvy users can choose from several intriguing programs. All of them can be downloaded from the App Store via iTunes, which works whether you are Windows- or Mac-based. Many are free; others tend to be nominally priced.”

Speight Jenkins, general director of Seattle Opera, goes so far as to claim for his company the highest per capita attendance of any opera company in America.

“As the oldest of the city-sponsored downtown music festivals [the Chicago Jazz Festival] has struggled to break out of well-worn habits to create fresh new formats. The question is whether the pace of change has been brisk enough to keep the Chicago Jazz Festival competitive in a rapidly changing music world.”

“Although the Chinese version leaves out some percussion accents that Peter Breiner calls for, it distinctly emphasizes elements that make Breiner’s version so individual. Musically, it advertises the very features that best confirm the theft.”

“Cracks have been turning into chasms at Opera Australia as it responds to scathing criticisms of its musical and vocal standards, misuse of young singers, neglect of older women and ill-judged casting decisions.”

“Opera has long revelled in its highbrow glamour and artistic mastery but increasingly, here and overseas, the art has been drawn towards a bigger, more mainstream appeal. And that means playing up its stars’ sex appeal, attracting a potential new audience that might otherwise find opera arcane or intimidating.”

“Much of what we heard struck me as science fiction crossed with faith healing and there were no ultimate conclusions other than a decision by the scientists to confer by email, select the one field where music might have the greatest benefits to medicine – and then blitz it with research.”

It’s David Amram. “My musical contributions will include `Three Songs for America,’ settings of speeches by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy for bass voice and orchestra,” Amram said.

“It’s fitting that the Beaux Arts Trio is returning to Tanglewood, because that’s where it all began. The group gave its first public concert there on July 13, 1955. And for 53 years, one member of the Trio has remained constant: pianist Menahem Pressler. He’s 84 now, but he still vividly recalls how that first concert launched a career for three separate musicians who quickly grew into a single musical unit.”