Category: music

Outside her home in the Paris suburb of Pantin last Thursday, Ophélie Gaillard was accosted with a knife by a thief who forced her to give him her 1737 Francesco Gofriller cello. On Saturday she received an anonymous call saying to look in a car nearby, where she found her instrument unharmed.

“The [Paris Opera], which celebrates its 350th birthday next year, is an unlikely contradiction to the worldwide trend of an aging audience at operas. … According to the company, it had 95,000 audience members younger than 28 last season – more than 10 percent of tickets sold and 30,000 more than just two years before.”

Over half of musicians worked unpaid over the past 12 months, and 66% of musicians who worked for free ‘exposure’ believe doing so did not benefit their career, according to the ‘world-first’ live music census. It also reveals that in the past year one in three music venues have struggled to cope with a business rates increase and 27% of venues have been affected by noise complaints.

“There may be a fundamental weakness in the way opera companies present new work: There is so much pressure on each single piece to get white-bread eaters to magically develop a new palate that it becomes somehow less appetizing. What stimulates the appetite is the sight of a rich assortment of different kinds of flours and seeds and rolls, sweet and savory — what you see when you go into any bakery.”

A Nashville reporter and editor says the financial situation looks bleak for the epic, storied guitar company. “The situation facing the iconic Nashville-based music instrument maker, which has annual revenues of more than $1 billion, is far from normal. … CFO Bill Lawrence recently left the company after less than a year on the job and just six months before $375 million of senior secured notes will mature. On top of that, another $145 million in bank loans will come due immediately if those notes, issued in 2013, are not refinanced by July 23rd.”

The judges, all composers, selected three out of a field of 140 entries in the Hildegard Competition, which comes with a cash prize and mentorship. Paola Paolini, a composer and co-founder of National Sawdust, the sponsor of the prize, said, “The future of composition is bright and the need for opportunity, vast.”

The Amazon show’s fourth season dropped over the weekend, and “at a moment when living composers — especially women — struggle to get their works performed, ‘Mozart in the Jungle’ … has become an unlikely destination to hear new music.”

For the mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, “the victory completed something of a full-circle journey: She applied to the competition seven years ago without knowing its pedigree, and was promptly told by her teacher to withdraw. ‘She broke it down for me: ‘I appreciate how eager you are, but you are in no way ready for something on this level.’ I was quite bitter,’ Ms. Bryce-Davis said in an interview.”

It’s got a catchy name: SWAP’ra – and it’s for all working parents in opera, both onstage and off. “While still at an early stage, some of the organisation’s aims include providing grants towards childcare for mothers who are returning to work and setting up a creche for working parents.”