The company was removed from Arts Council England’s national portfolio (i.e., the list of major arts organizations guaranteed funding from year to year) in 2015 after several troubled years, with a threat that government funding could be removed altogether if it didn’t get its act together. Now the Arts Council seems satisfied that ENO has.
Category: music
A New App Sends Notes On The Music To Your Phone While The Orchestra Plays
Yes, really: The idea is to look at your phone, with the app open, during the concert. “The app, Octava, is intended to ‘assist the participant through a musical journey,’ with Chris Evans, director of press and marketing at RPO, saying its tone is ‘specifically aimed towards new and potentially younger audiences.'”
Fans May Never Hear All Of The Music In Prince’s Vault
The artist’s estate is in what the judge overseeing it calls a state of “personal and corporate mayhem.”
The Slow And Semi-Secret Death Of The Electric Guitar
The industry (and music in general) needs more guitar heroes if it’s going to survive – or else technology, and the electronic music it produces, will take over.
Philippe Auguin Is Leaving The Washington National Opera, But What Does It Mean When A Music Director Leaves?
Anne Midgette: “It’s important not to cling too tightly to tradition, but it remains unclear exactly what vision WNO, under Zambello, is offering to replace it.”
This Composer Has Led The Way In Experimental Music For 50 Years, And He’s Not Stopping
Roscoe Mitchell: “I’ve always believed in studying music across the board. I’ve never been fascinated with putting myself in certain categories. Especially now that there’s a lot of folks out there that want to know how this improvisational thing works. And the way that I would describe that, of course, is like composition in real time.”
The Era Of Super Festivals May Be Ending, With Niche Music Events Springing (Back) Up
The super-festival arena may be oversaturated now, considering the collapse of two recent supposed new fests. One promoter says: “We want to under-promise and over-deliver. I don’t feel like any promoter today should ever feel like ‘I’ve got this.'”
What Is The Future For Classical Music (Yes, It Has A Future)?
Well, let’s start with the good news: “In any given month an extraordinary 30% of the U.S. population listens to classical music on some device. That translates to 100 million people in our country alone! Another happy number … is that more than 40 million Americans sing in a chorus.”
What German And Austrian Orchestras Were Willing To Do Under The Third Reich
“What the two orchestras had in common was a nationalistic ethos, a belief in the superiority of Austro-German musical culture that approached triumphalism. One of the darkest manifestations of this ethos was their shared reluctance to hire Jews. The Berlin Philharmonic employed only four Jewish players in 1933, while the Vienna Philharmonic contained only 11 Jews at the time of the Anschluss, none of whom was hired after 1920.”
Turning Simon Rattle Into A Digital Abstract
“The London Symphony Orchestra teamed with techies from the University of Portsmouth and Vicon Motion Systems, who captured Rattle’s movements while conducting, appropriately, Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Digital artist Tobias Gremmler was then called in to convert the gestures into animated films.”