For Michael Morgan, “art and politics are, to varying degrees, indivisible: There’s no either/or. In the end, he’s interested in community, in blending cultures, the power of diversity, and the intersection of music and well-being, imagination, and hope. His obligation is to find that intersection over and over again — that’s his revolution.”
Category: music
English National Opera To Project Ads Onto Its Stage’s Safety Curtain
“The company, based in the Coliseum in London, has submitted a proposal to Westminster City Council that would see its safety curtain repainted to incorporate a ‘plain white painted area’ … [which] would be ‘used as a projection surface pre-show and at the interval to project films showing the ENO forthcoming opera seasons’. It is not clear whether this could be extended to external advertisers in time.”
Is Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra A Hopelessly Quixotic Enterprise?
“The group’s deceptively simple premise — that getting musicians from groups [Israel and the Arab world] that have been opposed for decades to play together would foster understanding — seems even more ambitious in this polarized age.” (Indeed, the orchestra’s current tour of the U.S. nearly collapsed when the Trump administration withheld visas for some of its members.) As the conductor told reporter Michael Cooper, “When I’m with [the musicians], it doesn’t feel quixotic at all. When I talk to you, I know it is quixotic.”
Report: Poor Are Losing Out In Music Education In The UK
Children in low income households were half as likely to take music lessons. The report suggests only 19% of children from families earning less than £28,000 learned a musical instrument, compared with 40% of those in high-earning households. This is despite similar levels of interest from both groups of children. The report also suggests higher-earning parents were twice as likely to want their children to learn an instrument.
Conductor Antonio Pappano Was Set To Leave London’s Royal Opera House — Here’s Why He Changed His Mind
“I was due to leave Covent Garden in two years’ time … Once I realised the company would be rudderless, musically speaking, I had no choice. I couldn’t walk away having given so much blood, sweat and tears for so long, only to see all our collective efforts wither.” He will not remain as the Royal Opera House’s music director through at least 2022-23.
A. Margaret Bok, ‘Matriarch’ Of Curtis Institute, Dead At 98
“Though mostly a behind-the-scenes presence at the school, Mrs. Bok, known as ‘Stormy,’ stepped into leadership positions at Curtis at critical times. … She is best remembered, though, for her many decades as a loyal supporter of the small school started by her mother-in-law, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, in 1924. … It was during her most active period at Curtis that it shifted from being an inward-looking institution that relied on its own endowments and only selectively opened concerts to the public to one that routinely sends its students — and fund-raisers — to concert halls around the world.”
How The Recorded History Of Ecuador’s Folk Music Was Saved
“Daniel Lofredo Rota is an Ecuadorian DJ and musician on a quest to unravel a decades-old family mystery. His eccentric grandfather has left a clue: a grimy, battered suitcase filled with old tapes. Inside are songs, secret loves, and the resurrection of a long-lost record label.” (podcast)
Are The Days Of Stadium Rock Concerts Over?
After a decade of pop acts dominating the hallowed ground – the only artists to have headlined this year being Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran – is it too late? Has the era of stadium rock been unplugged and relegated to smaller venues?
Wait, Why Isn’t Most Of The ‘A Star Is Born’ Music Eligible For The Grammys?
It’s the number one soundtrack everywhere, but filmmakers wouldn’t release the soundtrack before the movie – not even the five days before that would have made it eligible for the Grammys this year. Why not? “The soundtrack really is the story of the film. There are multiple tracks in there that are soundbites from the film and so it was really important that people experience them simultaneously.”
The Locked-Up Russian Opera Director, Working From House Arrest 1400 Miles Away
In Zurich, Kirill Serebrennikov directs Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, but not with ease. “Through a relay process that can seem closer to international espionage than traditional theater-making — involving files swapped on USB sticks, a lawyer acting as a courier, and extraordinary patience — the Zurich Opera has found a way for the director to retain artistic control from captivity, 1,400 miles away.”