Category: music

The 23-year-old Italian-Canadian won four of the five categories in which she was eligible: she took first place (women) in both the general competition and the zarzuela category and garnered the audience award and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (for Wagner and Strauss).

The station Kol HaMusica broadcast Act Three of Götterdämmerung in a 1991 Bayreuth performance led by Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. Because of the composer’s anti-Semitic beliefs and the co-optation of his music by the Nazi regime, there has been an unofficial but sternly defended ban on performing or broadcasting Wagner in Israel for the country’s entire history.

The US company or its subsidiaries control some of the country’s biggest outdoor live music events including Latitude, Isle of Wight festival, Reading and Leeds, Parklife and Lovebox. The AIF said Live Nation had a 26% share of the market for events with a capacity of more than 5,000 people, compared to its nearest competitor, Global, with 8%.

I suspect we may be at the end of the age of the canon, for now at least. For all those mixed bills at festivals, and playlists that place Beyoncé next to Black Midi, I suspect best-ever lists, from here on, will be specialised. They are more likely to go by genre, in specialist titles: the best hip-hop album ever, the best metal album ever, the best electronic album ever. It’s simply easier to do it that way than to attempt to evaluate the relative worth of Lemonade against Led Zeppelin IV.

“[Sergei Rachmaninoff] refused to allow his live performances to be recorded or broadcast; the recordings we have of him were all made under tightly controlled studio conditions. So the discovery of a recording of the great composer and pianist playing through his recently composed Symphonic Dances – almost certainly recorded covertly, literally behind the pianist’s back – is a major landmark.”

Black and Latino musicians make up less than 5 percent of orchestra members. A group made up of 700 orchestras and several nonprofits wants to change that — so the National Alliance for Audition Support launched an effort this year. It provides training and financial assistance to get more black and Latino classical musicians into auditions.

Christian Tetzlaff’s Bartók Violin Concertos won the Concerto category, with Arcadi Volodos taking the Instrumental prize for his recent Brahms solo disc. Among other honorees are a period-instrument Ravel Daphnis et Chloé (Orchestral), mezzo Marianne Crebassa accompanied by Fazil Say (Solo Vocal), the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir singing Pärt and Schnittke (Choral), and the choir Blue Heron for the last of a five-disc set of never-before-recorded early Tudor sacred music.

At the very end of last year, Cerny abruptly terminated his successful eight-year run at the helm of The Dallas Opera to head Calgary Opera — and eight months after that, at the start of this week, he announced that he was turning right back around to North Texas, taking the CEO position at the Fort Worth Symphony. In a Q&A, he explains it all to Gregory Sullivan Isaacs.

“The numbers begin to paint the picture: Over 5,000 people attended concerts in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Soweto and Johannesburg. Hundreds of students, ranging from elementary school to college age, joined performances, rehearsals and master classes with Minnesota Orchestra musicians. For many audience members, it was the first time with a live orchestra. For some it was the first time even hearing classical music. The reception ranged from amazement to rapturous applause.”

You can’t just throw out a piano. You can’t just turn one down, either. We enter a glittery fugue state that blinds us to the likelihood that no one will play this piano unless forced to. Because in this vision, it’s not us playing; it’s our kids.