Category: music

“The city has cut $100,000 from the COC’s proposed $1.6 million grant, and $50,000 from the TSO’s $1.27 million grant. … The funding adjustment was made on the recommendations of a four-member committee who had serious concerns surrounding the COC’s and TSO’s diversity, as well as issues surrounding board stability, and a declining in the perceived impact they had on Toronto’s cultural life.”

Not only does the Portuguese conductor have a new baby, but her triplets are still toddlers. She leaves the Bay Area orchestra, where she succeeded Kent Nagano as music director, after nine seasons.

“Philip Mann, who joined the symphony in 2010 as its maestro, will finish out the 2018-19 season and then pursue international conducting opportunities. … During Mann’s tenure, the orchestra has expanded its statewide presence, taken more shows on the road and added artistic programming, namely the Intimate Neighborhood Concert series that takes place in churches. Mann also led the Composer of the Year initiative that drew several world-renowned composers to the state.”

The BDS movement calls for divestment from Israel, including in the arts – and the Philly Orchestra is headed to play in Israel after this trip. Protesters do not appreciate this move from the orchestra. “Security on the tour is being increased at every turn, whether in hotels or at the concert halls.”

Charles Wuorinen is working hard on commissions, and the opera has its U.S. premiere in New York at the end of the month. But he’s not happy with how the United States is dealing with high culture in general. When he was young, he says, “it was considered essential for a civilized person to have some connection with literature or music. Now that’s completely gone.”

That’s right: Street musicians in the UK capital will take Apple Watch payments as well as the odd pound or ten dropped into the guitar case. One busker says, “I believe if street performers like myself don’t adapt to the cashless society we are edging towards, we’re at risk of becoming a dying art.”

Extensive research by Taiwanese scientists – who tested singers and Stradivari, Guarneri, and Amati violins with spectrometers – found that the old violins emit sets of frequencies that match those that form particular human vowel sounds. (The sound of Amatis matches the vowels of basses and baritones; Strads match tenors and altos.)

“Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Thursday night performance in Brussels, urging the orchestra to cancel the upcoming Israel leg of its tour. The protesters broke into a performance of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor with chants of ‘free, free, Palestine,’ and after about 30 seconds, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin stopped conducting and the music came to a halt … Security removed the protesters, and the concert resumed about 25 minutes later.”

“The Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award is aimed at assisting outstanding young U.S. conductors in furthering their careers. The Minnesota Orchestra associate conductor [Roderick Cox] will receive $30,000 toward training and career advancement, plus professional introductions to both the Chicago Symphony and the Chicago Lyric Opera [sic].”

It reports schoolchildren around age 11 who learned about the music and culture of a faraway land expressed warmer feelings toward immigrants from that country than those who did not. What’s more, those positive emotions were still evident three months after this exposure to the foreign culture.