Category: music

Rebeat Innovation is creating “HD vinyl” that the company claims will have “30 percent more playing time, 30 percent more amplitude, and overall more faithful sound reproduction.”

French law forbids the exclusion of any children, but the singer left his estimated £100 million estate only to the daughters he adopted with his fourth wife. But he made his will in California. “A judge will now have to weigh up whether Hallyday, 74 when he died of lung cancer in France, was a US or French resident, thereby deciding if his will breaks French law.”

The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra has launched a new education program, and half of the students will be Latinx and African American, by design. Executive Director Patrick Nugent said, “There’s a crisis of diversity in our field. … We will do a better job of attracting more diverse audiences if those audiences see themselves reflected on stage.”

That’s what conductor Benjamin Zander, music director of the Boston Phil, thinks. He recorded an 80-minute version with the London Philharmonic Orchestra- and when that version is released, Sanders is adding in a 160-minute explanation disc.

“Yes, the physical manifestations of music worship, structures so Romantic that they wouldn’t be foreign to Richard Wagner. Though some argue that the etiquette for concert halls is outdated, elitist, and partly responsible for classical music’s struggle to find new audiences, concert halls actually provide unique experiences that have become all too rare.”

“Jennifer Higdon has been awarded the $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition for 2018, given to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement ‘who have significantly influenced the field of composition’ … by the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.” The award, which has previously gone to (among others) Steve Reich, Kaija Saariaho, and both John Adamses, also includes a two-year residency at the Bienen School and a performance by the Chicago Symphony.

Scott Cantrell: “So who are the leading candidates? Don’t take my word as gospel, but, between personal observations and chats with musicians, I can hazard some guesses. At least on purely musical grounds, I’m guessing there are two leading candidates, although each has drawbacks.”

“Sir Andrew Davis will step down from his role as Chief Conductor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the end of his contract in December 2019, the Orchestra announced today. The British maestro, who has led the MSO since 2013, will continue his artistic relationship with the orchestra as Conductor Laureate.”

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s Despacito is the most viewed YouTube video of all time, with more than 5bn views, but temporarily disappeared from the site and had its hold image replaced by a photograph of a masked gang holding guns. Hackers calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi’sh replaced the description beneath the video with: “Free Palestine.”