“Timpani is played by a rolling pin with spikes. A trombone slide is equipped with a mallet that hits a xylophone. A horn has a Hindustani tabla drum stuffed in its bell; it’s both blown and tapped. Rather than having a bow play a cello, the cello – strapped to a rocking chair, swaying back and forth – plays the bow. The piece is Mauricio Kagel’s Zwei Mann Orchester (‘Two-Man Band’), heard last week in the first of a series of ‘Sound Machines’ performances … The opening-night audience was slack-jawed.”
Category: music
Star Baritone Eric Owens To Head Curtis Institute’s Voice Dept.
“At the Curtis Institute of Music, where faculty members tend to stay for decades, a seismic shift is coming to the school’s storied opera and vocal studies department. Eric Owens and Danielle Orlando will assume co-equal roles as head of opera starting in the 2019-20 season, the school announced last week.”
How New-Gen Digital Jukeboxes Are Killing Dive Bars
TouchTunes made itself a visible front-runner in a jukebox revival of sorts, in part because it allows users to choose music from their phones. In March 2016, the company—which has since merged with PlayNetwork—debuted an overhauled version of its mobile application which now “allows users to be the DJ and take control of TouchTunes’ jukeboxes” in 65,000 locations across North America. Through the app, these locations delegate musical, and therefore atmospheric, control to patrons and profit in the process. For dive imitators, these devices make it harder to maintain their neighborhood-bar veneer, while actual dives start to resemble their faux peers. TouchTunes erodes the premise of quaint regionalism as bars of all kinds transform into Top 40 danceries.
Baroque Music Has Survived For Three Centuries In The Bolivian Lowlands
When Jesuit missionaries first arrived in what is now eastern Bolivia at the end of the 17th century, they found the indigenous peoples of the area to be musically inclined and taught them to sing, to make and play fiddles, harps, wind instruments and such, and to compose music in a hybrid European-South American idiom. Reporter Nicholas Casey travels to the old mission and cathedral town of Concepción to find that the tradition of music-making has remained strong – and that, to the amazement of musicologists, thousands of scores from the 18th century have survived there and even remained in use.
Conductor Karina Canellakis Gets Her First Major Orchestra
“Shortly after beginning her first season as assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra four years ago, Karina Canellakis got one of those big breaks. The orchestra’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, was injured, and she was asked to lead Shostakovich’s formidable Eighth Symphony without even one rehearsal. … Since then her conducting career has exploded, and now she is again following in Mr. van Zweden’s footsteps: Ms. Canellakis, a 36-year-old native New Yorker, has been named the next chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra – a post that Mr. van Zweden held from 2006 to 2012.”
Marin Alsop’s Music Program For Baltimore Schoolkids Has Taken Root And Grown
When the Baltimore Symphony music director started OrchKids ten years ago – with $100,000 of her own money as seed funding – 30 students enrolled. Now there are 1,300, and Alsop hopes to see 5,000 kids taking part in the next five years. Reporter Michael Cooper traveled to Baltimore to have a look.
Why Musicians Seem To Be Releasing A Steady Stream Of Singles
“Traditionally artists would go a long time between album projects, disappear and then come back as a big event,” explains Robby Snow, SVP of Global Marketing for Hollywood Records (Demi Lovato, Bea Miller). “In this day and age, we try to keep things flowing so artists almost never go away. Fans want to be engaged constantly with artists that they like.”
How DIY Opera Is Changing Opera
American opera is still primarily placing safe bets on its well-worn canon, but composers like Missy Mazzoli and David Little see a changing landscape that gives cause for optimism: institutions that think more flexibly, provide more opportunities and embrace a DIY, upstart spirit to find ways to make it work. But most importantly, they see peers writing timely works for responsive audiences.
Intrepid Arts Reporter Braves All Eight Hours Of Max Richter’s ‘Sleep’
“My first mistake was waking up early to get groceries.
Then it was a long Friday at work, followed by a piano recital and finally a sprint downtown – where, exhausted, I was in the worst possible shape to take in one more concert. Except that the performance was Sleep, Max Richters eight-hour soundtrack engineered, with the help of scientific consultants, to provoke a relaxing night. By dozing off, I’d be doing my job.” The hardworking and tireless Joshua Barone reports.
One Of Britain’s Great Wagnerian Sopranos Is At War With The Wagner Society She Heads
“Dame Gwyneth Jones has spoken out for the first time about the long running feud which has riven the Wagner Society, of which she has been president for nearly three decades. In the latest skirmish, … the society found itself at odds over a decision to cancel a sought-after public masterclass to have been held by the award winning soprano.”