Christine Goerke (Brünnhilde) and Greer Grimsley (Wotan) talk about working on, with, and around director Robert Lepage’s big, complicated contraption — and how it’s been changed in the sixe years since it was new. (For one thing, it’s much safer, and so, says Goerke, “it’s really kind of fun.”) – New York Observer
Category: music
San Antonio Symphony’s Music Director Announces Departure, Gives Orchestra $100K
Sebastian Lang-Lessing will finish up a successful, admired (if sometimes difficult) ten-year tenure at the end of next season. But he says he means to stay involved with the orchestra in his emeritus position — and he’s backing it up with a $100,000 challenge grant. – The Rivard Report (San Antonio)
Court Throws Out All But One Of James Levine’s Defamation Claims Against Met Opera
“The ruling came just over a year after the Met fired Mr. Levine, who had been its music director for four decades and who had recently assumed an emeritus position … Mr. Levine, who has denied any wrongdoing, sued the Met for breach of contract and defamation; the Met countersued him, accusing Mr. Levine of decades of misconduct.” – The New York Times
Two Chicago Ensembles Make A Mission Of Programming Female Composers
Oboist Ashley Ertz started the group 5th Wave Collective especially to perform and promote music written by women. “Since April 2018, the volunteer-based group of more than 115 musicians has performed works by more than 50 female composers via 12 concerts throughout Chicagoland.” And the Chicago Sinfonietta under composer Mei-Ann Chen — who perform more female-authored music in a single program than the Chicago Symphony manages in several seasons put together — has just released a recording titled Project W: Works by Diverse Women Composers. – Chicago Tribune
The Recovery Orchestra – Service Organization For Recovering Addicts Starts Ensemble For Its Clients
“The Recovery Orchestra was set up by Bristol Drugs Project (BDP) to help individuals using their services. It encourages people to take up an instrument or use the skills they already had in a joint musical activity. The group, funded by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, will perform at a Bristol church this week.” (video) – BBC
Culture Shift: How Women Conductors Are Changing Orchestras
In a world that expects hierarchy and venerates individual genius, some musicians prefer to see their conductor not as a collaborator, but as a dominant, almost dictatorial leader. Many male conductors have been not only famous for their musical prowess, but infamous for their unflinching ways and bad tempers. A sexist double standard makes such shows of “temperament” taboo for women. – New York Review of Books
Tchaikovsky – Experimentalist Avant Gardist?
The idea that Tchaikovsky anticipated the experimentalism of the Symbolists and Surrealists runs counter to his conservatism as a person and as an artist, his reverence for the music of eighteenth-century composers, reliance on the number format in his operas, general adherence to the diatonic system, and predilection for German augmented sixth chords. But he embraced these things in order to counter them, or to highlight and enhance them with his own unmistakable signature. – Times Literary Supplement
Where Classical Music Has Become An Obsession
Inna Faliks: “Seventy-five percent of my students at UCLA are Chinese or Chinese American. Pianists from China, after graduating from the best music schools in Europe and the United States, return home to pass on classical music traditions in their own distinct ways. This musical exchange is exponentially growing. Concert halls may remain empty in our nation’s cities, especially when traditional classical recitals are offered by a non-household name, but in China, playing a Beethoven or Chopin program is not boring or unhip. Chinese audiences are hungry for more.” – Washington Post
A Scandal Engulfing The Shiny World Of Korean Pop Music May Transform The Country
Yes, it’s about sex tapes. But in a music world of K-Pop dominance, it’s time for a reckoning: “The Burning Sun scandal, as it’s been called, comes in the midst of a national conversation about misogyny and power — as well as spy-camera porn epidemic — and the momentum behind it has the potential to dramatically transform Korean society, or at least put several powerful men in serious legal trouble.” – Vulture
Trend: Symphonies Playing New, Non-Film Music By Film Composers
Sure, you’ve got your Harry Potter scores and your Star Wars celebrations (that’s all John Williams, of course), but the real hot trend with film composers now is getting their non-film work into symphony halls. “Adventurous programmers are seeking new works by established film composers in hopes that audiences have developed a thirst for similarly melodic, even exciting, music by names they recognize even if there are no images to accompany them.” – Variety