Category: music

A spokeswoman for the national broadcaster wrote in response to a query, “While the allegations made towards Charles Dutoit are serious, we truly believe that removing these recordings entirely from our broadcasts would unjustly diminish the efforts of the many talented musicians who are featured in them. At this point, we are no longer crediting Mr. Dutoit as conductor.”

Peter Dobrin: “This is an old conundrum, though what’s different about classical music now is that it has worked so hard to personify orchestras through the image of the conductor, and it’s going to be especially tricky to separate podium stars from the music they produce – not to mention the ensembles they lead.”

“That’s why I lost weight … If you’re singing repertoire that only two other people in the world sing, congratulations, you’ve won the voice lottery! You can sing anywhere you want, you can write your own checks. But there are a million Norinas and Adinas and Lucias, so it’s much more competitive. There are roles I wasn’t even considered for because of the way I looked. I thought that I’d worked way too hard and was singing far too well (I believed) to be stopped before I could even enter the room. Someone would look at my photograph and say, ‘No. Too fat!’ It ain’t right, but it’s life.”

Traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Tel Aviv via Rome, Myrna Herzog was told that there was no room in the cabin for her 17th-century instrument and she’d have to gate-check it. (The airline says Herzog declined the chance to purchase a seat for the gamba; she denies this.) She went public with photos of the damage, and the story has hit major newspapers in Europe as well as The Daily Mail and Fox News.

UK Music says 35% of venues across the country have closed in the last decade. “The big problem has been in recent years that developers have moved in next to pre-existing music venues,” says the body’s chief, Michael Dugher. “All of a sudden, the people in a block of flats are complaining about the noise of a venue.”

“Dutoit, the orchestra’s principal conductor and artistic director, had been due to step down in October 2019. Following an emergency board meeting, however, his departure has been brought forward and he will leave immediately. In December, three opera singers and a musician accused Dutoit of forcing himself upon them – which he denied.”

The Irish National Opera won’t be parking itself in the capital: plans are for and 38 performances in eight regional cities as well as Dublin, plus a contemporary work at London’s Barbican Centre. Repertory ranges from Mozart and Gluck through Verdi, Offenbach and Bartók to living composers Thomas Adès and Donnacha Dennehy.

So was musical skill sexy? The results suggest the answer is, in general, yes. “Mate value ratings were generally increased by music performance quality by raters of both sexes,” reports the research team led by psychologist Guy Madison of Umea University.

Nostalgia seems to be leading most of the charge: Billboard says that the three Guardians of the Galaxy soundtracks led sales in 2017, which were followed by the Stranger Things, Volume 1 soundtrack, which hit stores last summer. Those projects were wildly popular with audiences, due in part to their reliance on nostalgia for the music and objects of the 1980s.