Category: music

– are due for a drubbing over their management of the company as new government investigation into the opera’s affairs is completed. – BBC

The Netherlands Opera closed out last year with a new opera, the premiere of Louis Andriessen’s “Writing to Vermeer.” It opens this year with another premiere, and much praise. – Financial Times

Musicians from the “high” and “low” ends of the spectrum are increasingly experimenting on one another’s turf with sometimes interesting results. – Singapore Straits Times

– comes in six flavors. The city’s smaller houses are distinctively different and very successful. – Die Welt

Chief executive of Covent Garden downplays crisis over his building and says problems are to be expected of any new performance hall; that the Opera House will work magnificently. Further, ticket sales are on target to fill 97 percent of the house, and he’s confident in the company’s choice of repertoire. – Financial Times

South Africa’s National Symphony Orchestra plays its final concert. The rest of the country’s orchestras are teetering and may follow the National out of business within a month or two. Critics wonder if this signals the general collapse of the country’s arts institutions. – South Africa Daily Mail and Telegraph

• A changing era and a changing culture. – New York Times 02/01/00

Pondering the mysteries of the “standard repertoire.” Is it a matter of quality? Why do good composers like Dukas or Orff or Mussorgsky have one of two pieces that are performed but nothing else? – Philadelphia Inquirer

The Dallas Symphony will hit the web playing. Orchestra to webcast performances in $10 million web initiative. – Dallas Morning News

Why is it that certain tunes – and bad tunes at that – get stuck in our heads? As a student of Freud’s put it: “Whatever secret message it carries, the incidental music accompanying our conscious thinking is never accidental.” – Feed

If it’s January and it’s really cold outside, it must be Winnipeg. It used to be necessary to marvel at the enormous crowds that flock to the Winnipeg Symphony’s annual festival of contemporary music in January. But after eight years, one of North America’s most successful new music festivals has firmly established itself. – Toronto Globe and Mail