Adams asks for a different kind of listening. I heard the suggestion more than once that the most becoming presentation would have been simply a single concert devoted to Adams’ ocean and desert.
That brings up the major questions about Adams. Is his a music of enlightenment or escape? Is the attraction that of having sensations heightened or dulled, a dose of uppers for the ears, or downers? Is this for tuning in or chilling? The answers have to be personal and may not even be either/or.
Category: music
A Famous Orchestra Moved Its Rehearsals Into A Poor High School. It Transformed The Community
Since then the school’s results have improved, its drop-out rates have fallen to less than 1% and the atmosphere in the wider neighbourhood has been “transformed”, according to Joachim Barloschky, a local official who oversaw a programme of renovation and regeneration in the area.
Potrait Of A Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda
An orchestra, Noseda says, “is a small example of society. Sometimes there are frictions and sometimes not. But the most important thing: You have to deal with all these things in your personal way. . . . You have to be approachable. If people want to talk to you, they should feel free to come.”
History, And Longing, In *Tristan Und Isolde*
When Jonas Kaufmann sang Tristan at Carnegie Hall, it was a longing fulfilled for New York. For the opera itself, longing – frustrated longing, in what might be seen as the central romance of Western narratives – is central.
EuroVision And The (Now Distant) Dream Of A United Europe
“The cracks seem to run deep. But at Eurovision — and the many preview events, such as the one in Moscow that I went to in April — I regularly see a vision of Europe where fans across the Continent, artists and their entourages are more connected than ever. This year’s contest, which includes two semifinals and culminates in a grand final next Saturday, will once again celebrate the diversity of European pop. It will also provide a space for outsiders, including a huge L.G.B.T. fan base and many upstart artists, to feel mainstream.”
Was It Weird For The Jim Crow U.S. To Send African American Musicians Out Into The Cold War World As ‘Jazz Ambassadors’?
Yeah, it was. But that came about thanks to House Rep Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was married to jazz pianist Hazel Scott. “As the State Department is sending some American cultural exports like the Boston Symphony, or acapella singers, or folk dancers around the world, he says, hold on, why don’t we send jazz musicians? There, an art form that’s native to the United States, that no one else can compete with.”
Leonard Slatkin Needs A Heart Operation, And Will Miss Several Detroit Symphony Concerts
The surgery comes as the conductor is about to transition from music director to “music director laureate” and will mean he misses the final three concerts of his music director tenure at the DSO. “Slatkin, who became DSO music director in 2008, said his cardiologists have assured him surgery should fix his heart issues. His recovery is expected to take about three months.”
The English National Opera Bans Food And Drink For Rock, Pop, And Musical Theatre, But Not For Opera And Classical Music Audiences
Apparently, some patrons like alcohol more than others? “English National Opera is banning musical theatre audiences from bringing food and drink into the London Coliseum because patrons have been ‘picnicking’ and ‘replacing water with gin and vodka.’ The ban, which also applies to rock and pop concert audiences, is not imposed on opera, dance, cinema and classical performance patrons, who are permitted to bring soft drinks and confectionery into the theatre.”
How Riccardo Chailly Is Remaking La Scala
Italy is supposed to be a serious country these days, burying buffoonery and hedonism among the Coliseum ruins. Even Silvio Berlusconi is seen as an archaeological relic, not to be disturbed. So Riccardo Chailly’s embrace of opera buffa in his first full season as music director provokes the kind of disquiet that we might feel if Covent Garden reinstated Gilbert and Sullivan.
New Thinking About The Context Of Classical Music
Why does the classical music industry only look to its own professionals to solve its problems? I know musical enthusiasts whose opinions are no less informed or apposite than my own and work in professions where thinking laterally and finding creative solutions is a daily requirement. Surely these people are better able to understand conundrums and see resolutions than I am.