That’s right, Cornell’s oldest a capella group, an all-male (shocker) group called “Cayuga’s Waiters,” were booted for hazing. Think “Icy Hot on their genitals” plus other hazing rituals that no, the college did not condone.
Category: music
João Bosco Knows How To Use Music To Fight Tyranny
The self-taught, Dave Brubeck-influenced guitarist and singer has a long and storied career. “In the 1970s and early ’80s, when Brazilians lived under a harsh military dictatorship, he and his lyricist, Aldir Blanc, empowered them with songs that conveyed intense pride and fighting spirit. The messages were often encoded to fool the censors; Mr. Bosco’s lilting tunes and rhythms made every song seem to float.”
Playing Cyrano And Trying Very, Very Hard Not To Sing Through The Nose
The process of getting Roberto Alagna’s Cyrano nose right took a while, a facial cast, and the sticky adhesive known as Pros-Aide. Alagna: “It’s difficult because you can’t have the resonance of the sound. … You have no resonance at all! It’s like putting cotton on a violin.”
Plenty Of Famous Composers Are Fathers, So Where Are The Mothers?
This isn’t just a problem in composition – but, as other arts start to figure out how to support primary caregivers and their creativity, new music can get it together too.
The Next Hot Thing In Opera?
Why don’t we know more about Giacomo Meyerbeer? “Few things could be further from the same old arias than Meyerbeer (1791-1864). Hardly a corner of the repertory has grown mustier, a puzzling development given the composer’s prominence during his lifetime. In his heyday, Meyerbeer was a uniquely powerful hitmaker, as well as an innovator who brought opera to new levels of orchestral color, dramatic scale, choral mass, historical richness and theatrical dazzle.”
Suddenly, Composers Are Taking Over The Pop Music (Festival) World
The revenge of the school orchestra? No, seriously: “You can now scarcely move at big music events without bumping into a 30-piece woodwind section. If DJs are the new rock stars it’s looking suspiciously like composers might be outflanking them all.”
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Runout Performances At Scottish Rite Cathedral Are Ending After This Season
The orchestra said there were two reasons, but they both sound like an absence of dollar bills rubbing together.
What Happened At This Promised Music Festival Turned Lord Of The Flies On A Remote Island In The Bahamas?
A promised selfie paradise turned pretty grim (generating an immeasurable amount of schadenfreude on Twitter and Instagram): “When guests arrived on the island of Great Exuma for the inaugural weekend, they found something closer to ‘Survivor’: grounds that were woefully lacking in the promised amenities, replaced instead by dirt fields, soggy tents and folding chairs.”
Philadelphia Orchestra’s Mongolia Tour Is – Well, Not Cancelled, Exactly … (Yet)
The country has been undergoing a financial crisis for most of the past year and had to get a $5.5 billion IMF bailout in February. So the Mongolian government can no longer afford its portion of the expense of a visit by the full Philadelphia Orchestra (which would have been the first U.S. orchestra ever to perform there). A reduced contingent of musicians might travel to Mongolia, though even that isn’t certain. David Patrick Stearns has details.
Opera’s Diversity Problem Is A Vocal Problem
“These days, the opera field itself is effectively sabotaging the argument that voice type comes first. Opera is increasingly trying to present itself as just another form of drama, a musical equivalent of spoken theater or film, with its cinematic broadcasts and emphasis on younger, more attractive performers. That argument is problematic: Opera isn’t, in fact, equivalent to a TV show and doesn’t hold up well in the comparison; its strengths lie elsewhere. But if you’re going to make that argument…”