“Less than an hour after Watkins Glen International speedway announced it was no longer hosting Woodstock 50 on Monday (June 10), in separate announcements the event’s producer CID Entertainment issued a statement saying it was ending its involvement with the anniversary festival and the New York State Department of Health gave word its permit application was being rescinded.” – Billboard
Category: music
Following Death Of Founder, San Antonio’s Alamo City Opera To Close
“‘We had several options, and this was the one that was viable … because he had that incredible imagination and powerful talent that a lot of people don’t have,’ said Carol Karotkin, chairwoman of the board. Richter, who launched the company in 2012 under the name Opera Piccola, died April 28 at the age of 51.” – San Antonio Express-News
Utah Symphony’s Thierry Fischer To Succeed Marin Alsop At São Paulo State Symphony
Alsop, who is currently music director of the Baltimore Symphony and begins as chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony this fall, steps down from Brazil’s leading orchestra at the end of this year. Fischer, who will remain the Utah Symphony’s music director through the 2021-22 season, begins in São Paulo next March, after the summer break there. – Gramophone
How iTunes Saved The Music Business
Music played an outsize role in the evolution of the internet. As Larry Lessig put in Free Culture: “Filesharing music was the crack cocaine of the internet’s growth. It drove demand for access to the internet more powerfully than any other single application.” Jobs became the first licensed dealer in that drug and iTunes provided the saddle that enabled Apple to ride the tiger. – The Guardian
Tchaikovsky And His Clever Auditory Illusions [AUDIO]
“Deep into the symphony, Symphony No. 6, there is a paradoxical passage that, when played, no one will be able to hear. This is because Tchaikovsky scored it to contain a musical illusion. We uncover the mystery of why he put it there.” – Slate
Dear iTunes, Thanks For Saving The Music Industry From Itself
In 2001, the music industry “faced an existential threat” because its “vanquishing of Napster turned out to be a pyrrhic victory: the genie had escaped from the bottle. Dozens of filesharing systems had come into being.” iTunes (even though it’s now bloated and terrible and leaving) “was a revelation,” and made paying for music online a norm. – The Guardian (UK)
The Met Scales (Way) Back On A Production Whose Technological Demands Just Can’t Be Met
The opera will go back to concert productions of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust next year, because, well, the production that was scheduled was way too demanding. The Met “decided not to revive the production after officials realized that they would need to revamp some elements of it to meet newer industry safety standards, refurbish some of its automated mechanical systems, and update video projections that are more than a decade old.” – The New York Times
Anthony Davis Builds Operas From Headlines
“The words ‘Trump’ and ‘opera’ occurring in the same sentence might seem far-fetched, but for composer Anthony Davis, whose latest work, The Central Park Five, has its world premiere at Long Beach Opera on June 15, inserting a Trump figure was, in fact, integral to the story. Based on the notorious case of a quintet of African-American teenagers falsely accused and convicted of rape and assault after a 1989 attack on a white jogger — one in which presidential hopeful Donald Trump played an infamous role — the opera tops off a series of so-called ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ works that Davis has composed in his decades-long career.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Shifting The Opera Gaze
“Women in opera need to be not only acknowledged for their work, their passion and dedication to the artform, but placed front and centre, asked for their opinion, introduced as a driving force in the industry. The championing of the representation of women in opera, inviting women in, making space, and creating opportunities, enriches the opera ecology exponentially. Women in all facets of the opera creative industry – composers, directors, designers, conductors, singers, writers, producers – need to be recognised, supported and seen.” – Limelight (Australia)
An Explosion Of Concerts And Music Venues In America
The concert business, according to Pollstar, set records in 2018 with more than 152 million tickets moved and $10.4 billion in sales nationally. The live industry’s growth was necessary to offset lost record sales. Those peaked in 1999 at $40 billion and were less than half that last year at $19.1 billion, with just under $9 billion coming through streaming. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette