Category: music

Traditionally, the Afro-Brazilian drum bands of Bahia state were strictly male affairs. Then, in 1993, Neguinho do Samba – considered the father of the current drumming style in Bahia and former head of the standard-bearer of the form, the group Olodum – founded Banda Didá specifically for females. Reporter Shannon Sims goes to Salvador do Bahia to see and hear them. (includes video)

“Chicago is secure [with Riccardo Muti] for the time being, but major orchestras in San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Detroit are all looking for new maestros.” So are the opera companies in San Francisco and D.C. And Seattle, St. Louis, D.C. (again) and New York (opera and orchestra both) have recently acquired new music directors. Michael Cooper presents “your cheat sheet on the comings and goings on some of the nation’s top podiums.”

“The decision [by the Hungarian State Opera] to use white singers is contrary to the clear wishes of George and Ira Gershwin, whose estates stipulate that the opera be performed only by black casts,” and all publicity for the production now reflects that. At least they’re not using blackface (as the company did during the Communist period): the production concept sets the opera in a refugee camp, with the characters as migrants.

Rigel 9, a 1985 work with libretto by Le Guin and music by composer David Bedford, “tells a pretty classic space story. Three astronauts, named Anders, Kapper, and Lee, are sent to explore a strange world. After Anders goes off to collect plant samples and is kidnapped by extraterrestrials, Kapper and Lee argue over whether to rescue him or save themselves. In the end, Anders is faced with a difficult choice.” (includes sound clips)

“‘I’m very honoured to be the first [woman in the post],’ she admitted, ‘but I’m also rather shocked that we can be in this year, in this century, and there can still be ‘firsts’ for women.'”

Frankly, I’ve never understood why there has—until recently­­—been such a demarcation between genres in music.  As far back as I can remember, I’ve been enormously responsive to music, independent of genre.   I know I’m not alone in this, especially in today’s eclectic musical environment, but for many people, classical music’s vaunted tradition excluded an appreciation of popular or folkloric forms—and heaven forfend that any classical composer should write something as shallow as film music!

The Oregon Bach Festival, which last year fired its artistic director amid accusations of racism and sex discrimination, has hired a conductor for this summer’s festival who was reportedly dismissed from a guest conducting job with the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra in 2015 after complaints he used racial slurs at a rehearsal. Just two days later, his name was removed from the festival’s website.

Barbara Hannigan’s “star has been rising with performances such as her role in the L.A. Phil New Music Group’s world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall of Gerald Barry’s opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. She will serve as music director of the Ojai Music Festival in 2019.” The full list of classical winners is at this link, and the full list of Grammy winners is here.

Maybe because of popular music’s general reputation as rough – “and maybe because the vast majority of people you’re going to be working with are men, it’s going to be harder to come forward with a story of misconduct.”