Category: music

Perhaps the feeling of harmony can be laid at the feet of Deborah Borda, the NY Phil’s new president and chief executive officer. “Since her arrival she has helped to extricate the orchestra from a costly, disruptive plan to renovate its Lincoln Center home and raised $50 million to end its string of deficits and give it the resources to welcome a new music director, Jaap van Zweden.”

Yes, women have often sung tenor in church choirs or amateur operas, but now “female singers in professional companies, as well as in amateur operatic societies and choirs, are taking advantage of the end of traditional boundaries to call for women to have the opportunity of lengthening their performing careers.”

He is so very finished with this nonsense (this nonsense that has utterly permeated popular culture). “‘We know J.J. Abrams is preparing one now that I will hopefully do next year for him,’ Williams told a radio interviewer this week. ‘I look forward to it. It will round out a series of nine, that will be quite enough for me.'”

Or, in other words, can it be a force in music that disrupts labels the way Netflix disrupted … well, what exactly did Netflix disrupt? Movie rental stores. Meanwhile, Apple Music might have fewer subscribers, but it doesn’t need to make a profit; and let’s not even talk about how many places Amazon Music might be in a customer’s home. But Spotify’s going on the New York Stock Exchange anyway.

In its filing, Spotify says it aims to “unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by these creators.” The firm said it had paid more than €8bn in royalties to artists, music labels, and publishers since its launch. The filing also hinted at plans to expand beyond music into other forms of radio.

Writers, including this one, often call the practice of transferring a work from one instrumentation to another “arrangement.” But perhaps this term is misleading. It suggests that there is one “correct” version, and the others are copies — less valuable and less true. For many or most chamber works of the 18th century, this view is anachronistic and problematic

“Throughout my years in Alaska, I dreamed of a new music drawn from the light, the air, the landscapes, and the weather of the North. Now as I’ve begun to learn the landforms, the light, the weather, the plants, and the birds of the desert, I’ve begun to dream of music that resonates with these extraordinary landscapes. … Like the tundra, most deserts are places in which there are few people. It’s true that this is part of the reason I’m drawn to these landscapes. But for me, the essence of the desert is not absence. It is presence.”

“[The] decision to go public has been expected and in the works for months … As of December 31, Spotify has 159 million monthly active users and 71 million subscribers, as in those who pay to use the service. In its F-1 filing, Spotify notes that it expects these numbers are ‘nearly double the scale of our closest competitor, Apple Music.'”

“Every so often, a study grabs headlines as researchers attempt to answer the question: ‘Is music a universal language?’ The way that chords can tug at heartstrings and tear ducts without words might lead people to assume that music can transcend differences of speech to convey emotions. Ethen of the Sideways YouTube channel, however, makes compelling case for why the answer is a strong ‘No.’ Or, at least, a thoughtful ‘This is a badly worded question.'”

From African rhythms through early spirituals to the Hammond organ, ethnomusicologist Robert Stephens tells the story of black America’s sacred music.