Sometimes, escaping an industry (especially one bent on feeding frenzies around young women) is better than fading away. Margo Guryan: “You got owned by these people. … I guess I had about enough ‘daddy’ when I was 5, and I just didn’t like being told what to do.”
Category: music
Let’s Check In With The American Running The English National Opera
So things are … interesting … for the artistic director: “Kramer, who has never before held a position at an opera house or run a major arts organization, will need all his optimistic, feisty exuberance to prove himself and rescue the company. Its subsidy has been slashed, and it has bled administrative and artistic executives in recent years, curtailing its offerings, renting out the Coliseum for longer stretches to gin up revenue, and threatening its high reputation.”
How To Win Eurovision: Do The Chicken Dance
As 200 million people watched, Israel’s Netta Barzilai overwhelmed the “carnival of camp” competition – “Denmark featured singing Vikings, Ukraine’s contestant rose from a coffin to play on an enormous flame-wreathed piano, and an Estonian opera singer performed in a gown 26 feet in diameter” – with a song that she said was inspired by the #MeToo movement.
What Jaap Van Zweden Accomplished With The Dallas Symphony
Van Zweden has taken a good orchestra and made it — most of the time, if not always — a great one. He has brought discipline and precision, a new intensity in performances and new stylistic flexibility.
Doing Sportscaster-Style Commentary On A Classical Music Competition (Yes, It Can Work)
Andrew Mellor writes about the commentary he did for the live video stream of this year’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors. “Much like a pundit pitting the poor defensive track record of West Ham against the unstoppable firepower of Manchester City, I tried to ascertain what dangers the prescribed works would pose for each contestant, and tapped the expertise of other journalists in so doing. What’s the worst thing that can happen in the slow movement from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?”
When The Rock Stars Die Will Classic Rock Die?
“The old classic-rock myth about the white-male superman who pursues truth via decadence and virtuosic displays of musicianship has run its course. The time has come for new legends about different kinds of heroes.”
Sharks Recognize Jazz, But Classical Confuses Them: Study
“Researchers at Sydney’s Macquarie University … trained juvenile Port Jackson sharks to swim over to where jazz was playing, to receive food. It has been thought that sharks have learned to associate the sound of a boat engine with food, because food is often thrown from tourist boats to attract sharks to cage-diving expeditions – the study shows that they can learn these associations quickly. The test was made more complex with the addition of classical music – this confused the sharks, who couldn’t differentiate between jazz and classical.”
Fort Worth Symphony Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya To Step Down In 2020
Over what will have been 20 seasons, “Harth-Bedoya has dramatically transformed what had been a rather rough-hewn ensemble into a well-disciplined orchestra. He led the orchestra in performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Washington’s Kennedy Center and in 13 CD recordings.”
James Levine’s Broadcasts Pulled From Met Opera’s Sirius XM Channel
In the wake of the conductor’s sexual abuse and harassment scandal, the Met has withheld from broadcast on the satellite and online radio network all of the recorded performances Levine conducted during his 40-year career at the company. Management said that Levine’s recordings “will be reintroduced to the programming at an appropriate time.”
How A Threatened Sale Is Killing Westminster Choir College
The uncertainty has already chilled interest in Westminster, where annual tuition is $37,650: the incoming class of freshmen and graduate students is expected to be half the normal size of roughly 110, faculty members estimate.