Category: music

Last week, general director William Florescu resigned unexpectedly, just a few days before a Magic Flute production he was directing opened. (Two years ago, he had renewed his contract through 2023-24.) Now the company’s board has revealed publicly that Florescu’s departure was because of “violation of the Florentine Opera’s policies and prohibitions concerning sexual misconduct.”

Yes, there’s certainly concern over the controversial and deadly events of this week in Israel, and for weeks pro-Palestinian activists have been protesting before the orchestra’s concerts at its home hall. Even so, Philadelphia Orchestra officials insist there is no political element to the tour, and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin says, “We’re not going to these countries for the government, but to bring music to the people.”

The idea that deafness impedes the appreciation of music is gradually being debunked. In 2013, sign language interpreter Amber Galloway Gallego went viral in the US for her animated performance for rapper Kendrick Lamar at the Lollapalooza festival. Rather than merely signing the words, she embodies musical textures with her face and movements, showcasing a unique technique that she describes as “showing the density of sounds visually”.

“I’ve rediscovered the part of my brain that can’t decode anything, that can’t add, that can’t work from a verbalized concept, that doesn’t care about stylish notation, that makes melodies that have pitch and rhythm, that doesn’t know anything about zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn’t worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.”

That’s exactly what Mexican artist Gonzalo Lebrija has devised for a piece to premiere this month at the Soluna International Music & Arts Festival in Dallas. “Mariachi songs are always loud – they’re about passion and crying. It’s liberation,” says Lebrija. “And I think playing Wagner with the idea of a broken heart, it’s a different language. It’s not Wagner anymore.”

“A retired surgeon’s research into the deaths of 70 of the best-known classical composers has led him to conclude that many of them were unfairly tainted with reputations for ‘venereal disease, alcoholism or sexual impropriety’.” Says the researcher, John Noble, “The list of composers who had syphilis is short. The list of composers said to have had syphilis is enormous.”

“The 52-year-old conductor has held the [chief conductor] position since 2013 – having previously served [in] principal positions with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.”

“Had it been down to him, [director Calixto Bieito would] have called the show The Anatomy of Melancholy, after the encyclopedic study by 17th-century scholar Robert Burton, whom he calls the British Montaigne. With a nod to the box office, however, he’s gone for a title that sums up a show in which the Heath Quartet will play angsty Ligeti, while four actors draw on texts ranging from WH Auden’s The Age of Anxiety to Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society.”

“The Prize is established on a substantial endowment left at her death in 1997 by another Swedish soprano, the legendary Birgit Nilsson, who was born a hundred years ago this month on a farm near Malmö. Stemme’s voice and personality may be very different in character from Nilsson’s … but they both excel in the same repertory. Previously the Prize has been awarded to Plácido Domingo, Riccardo Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.”

The numbers are ugly and persistent across festivals, including the BBC Proms, which has taken a pledge to have 50/50 gender representation by 2022.