Category: music

“Even more than most creative endeavors, jazz is surrounded by a rhetoric of intuition and inspiration, especially with regard to the central role of improvisation. Yet now another endeavor once thought to be our own exclusive cognitive province has, it would appear, been colonized by faster, smarter, ever more complex computing systems.” – Feed

The life of one of Italy’s most controversial politicians is being made into an opera. The rise and precipitous fall of former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who died in exile in Tunisia almost a year ago, has provided the inspiration for B.C, an ‘opera oratorio in three short acts’. – The Guardian

Opera is 400 years old and still going strong. “One way in which opera stays healthy is by reinventing itself every generation or so. The old stereotypes – plump matrons impersonating tender young consumptives, tenors strutting their high Cs at the footlights – are so yesterday. Audiences are more demanding of opera now. It’s no longer enough just to have great singing; people expect a total visual, dramatic and musical experience for their buck. – Chicago Tribune

For all its musical riches, London’s concert venues are decidedly second-rate acoustically. Except for one place – Wigmore Hall. It’s hard to describe what the Wigmore means to those of us who play there. It has partly to do with the acoustics — which are perfect, as good as you’ll find anywhere — and partly to do with the intimacy. When you’re on stage, the audience feels incredibly close.” – New York Times

The BBC’s Tony Hall is about to become the new head of London’s Royal Opera House. But “with three changes of ROH director in as many years, Hall will need to be motivated by something more than his love of opera if he is to take on what some see as the art world’s poisoned chalice. What can he be thinking of?” – The Guardian

“As composer, arranger and conductor, John Rutter has become the musical equivalent of Dickens, synonymous with the season. But it is as a writer of carols that he has really made his mark. He has written around two dozen. At this time of year, it is hard to escape his hummable, jolly, accessible songs.” – The Guardian

When it opened in 1981, Dublin’s National Concert Hall took the city off the list as the only European capital without a major concert hall. But “ask the individuals for whom it was designed as a workplace and you’ll pick up the strongest strand of dissent. It wouldn’t be far off the mark to say that there’s a feeling among the members of the National Symphony Orchestra that the hall may qualify as a ‘sick’ building.” – Irish Times

A group of Greek monks released a CD last summer and it quickly caused a sensation in Greece, going platinum. Now they’ve made a video warning about the dangers of technology. “The video features a gold-garbed man who represents an evil computer user, armed with personal data. The bearded monks belt out the lyrics to ‘Tsipaki’, or ‘Little Computer Chip’: ‘I’m a chip, so small, that will lead you to slavery’.” – San Francisco Examiner (AP)

Franz Xaver Ohnesorg was controversial as the head of Carnegie Hall. But news he’s going to run the Berlin Philharmonic is being greeted by the Germans as a coup.  He was first considered for the job with Berlin’s leading orchestra in 1996, but withdrew because the Berlin Senate’s regulations seemed too restrictive. He believes that cultural institutions need to be managed as business enterprises, as “cultural service providers.” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded Chen Yi, a prolific composer who was born in China and became an American citizen last year, as the second winner of the Charles Ives Living, a $225,000 prize awarded every three years. “The Ives Living, which is the largest prize available exclusively to composers, was established in 1998, and is paid in three annual installments of $75,000.”  – New York Times