A reporter travels to the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to meet the conductor and musicians of the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra and its choir as they rehearse Mendelssohn. (video) — Deutsche Welle
Category: music
Cleveland Orchestra Is Making Digitized Archives Accessible In Two Ways
First, the orchestra is gradually making all its historic scrapbooks (with concert flyers, program booklets, newspaper articles, etc.) available online. Second, a new touch-screen terminal called the “Magic Box” will make background materials on current concert programs available to audience members at Severance Hall. — The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
A New Single-Day Streaming Record On Spotify
Chart Data reported that “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” released in 1994, was played 10.8 million times on Spotify on Monday. The song bested the record set by rapper-singer XXXTentacion, who logged 10.4 million streams with “SAD!” a day after his death in June. – Washington Post
Royal Opera House Asks: Does Opera Hate Women?
The opera house, which has been strongly criticised over the treatment of women in at least one recent production, has pledged to lead the way in making the art form fit for the future, with a series of debates about misogyny on stage. – The Telegraph
105-Year-Old Music School For The Blind Is Being Evicted — By A Famous Nonprofit For The Blind, No Less
“The Lighthouse Guild sent a letter to students in June — in large print, for the visually impaired — notifying them that [the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School] would no longer be part of the Guild’s future and that it must leave the Guild’s building on West 64th Street [in Manhattan].” — The New York Times
‘Merry Jinglelog’, ‘Cinnamon Hollybells’, And Other AI-Generated Christmas Carols
“[The Swedish firm Made by AI] fed 100 Christmas songs into a neural network, then waited for the bells to start ringing. While the resulting tunes are kind of a jingly mess, the titles are genius.” — Smithsonian Magazine
Rock ‘n Roll Has Stalled. Can It Recover?
This year, rock and roll seems bored with itself. The most successful acts of the past few years have been bands bristling at the boundaries of the guitar, bass, and drums setup. The genre’s best-selling album of 2018 was Las Vegas electro-rockers Imagine Dragons’ summer 2017 full-length Evolve, a work that prefers humming synths and suspenseful atmospherics to the growl of a six-string. – New York Magazine
Doctors Perform Brain Surgery While Patient Plays The Guitar
The technique, known as “awake craniotomy,” allows doctors to operate on delicate areas of the brain — like the right frontal lobe, the site of Mr. Manzini’s tumor — without causing damage. Presumably, had he hit a wrong note, it would have been an immediate signal for the surgeons to probe elsewhere. – The New York Times
The Christmas Classic You’ll Never Hear At The Mall
It’s “Green Christmas,” by Stan Freberg. “When it was released by Capitol Records 60 years ago, the song caused a huge backlash from major advertisers, many of whom threatened to pull radio ads in protest. A young DJ at the time—one George Carlin—was almost fired for playing it on the air.” – The Atlantic
‘Silent Night’ Is Turning 200 [VIDEO]
Yes, there is a Stille Nacht Museum in the town in Austria where the carol was first sung in 1818. (And it does have the original guitar on which it was played.) – BBC