Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim looks at the still-common dynamic that the opera explores via myth: as Savage puts it, “It’s a common delusion, particularly among women, that their love is transformative. That they can find their damaged man and, by loving him, they can save him, restore him, fix him, make him a better person.”
Category: music
Mixing Things Up: Anne Midgette On Two Attempts To Break Out Of The Concert-Experience Rut
“Expanding the concert experience is a pet theme of classical music these days. And if you wonder why the concert experience needs expanding, it’s because the term ‘classical concert’ tends to translate as ’19th-century music played in a stuffy setting’ – at least, to the people who aren’t coming. In fact, classical concerts are more and more varied, and this weekend I saw a couple of different attempts – one more subtle, one more overt – to mix things up.”
Paris Has Another New Concert Hall, And A Woman Conductor Is Running It
Well, strictly speaking, it’s in Boulogne-Billancourt, about 10 miles and 20 Métro stops southwest of the city center. Designed by the Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban (known for his extraordinary way with much materials as cardboard and paper tubes), La Seine Musicale has a 6,000-seat hall for rock events (it opened on Friday with Bob Dylan) and an 1,150-seat classical concert hall that’s been turned over to conductor Laurence Equilbey and her professional chamber choir, Accentus, and period-instrument Insula Orchestra.
Bang On A Can – Still Banging Away 30 Years Later
Unplugged, soft-spoken and unchaotic — parents now, rather than children — is a good summary of the Bang on a Can founders these days, even as their energy is undimmed. Their work, once punkishly outsiderish, is now showered with mainstream accolades.
Is Classical Music Still Relevant? Sorry – But That’s The Wrong Question
“The only possibility for orchestras and opera houses to find new repertoire, with the chance that they hit upon something of real value, is to preserve a practical framework: the one which defines the fundamentals of the art form. This means ignoring the postwar modernist ideologies of progress – because there is no progress in the arts – and requiring of new repertoire that it be suited to the medium as it has developed over time.”
The Trumpet Virtuoso Who Reinvented Himself As A Teaching Virtuoso
Tim Wilson was a star trumpeter. But he began to go blind. Now – instead of playing Puccini’s “La Bohème” at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, the 58-year-old maestro is working up to 14 hours a day coaxing “Jingle Bells” out of beginners and pouring much of his life savings into bringing music back to a school where 95 percent of students live in poverty. If he can take kids who can’t play a note and teach them a song, Wilson believes, they will not just feel successful, but see new possibilities everywhere in their lives.
Ludovic Morlot To Leave Seattle Symphony
“We were very aggressive about being relevant for the community we were in,” Morlot said. “We want people to feel that this symphony is their community orchestra.” But that part of his job, he said, “is crucial but sometimes exhausting” — the fundraising, the meetings, the oversight for educational programs and civic engagement.
Chi-chi Nwanoku Was Tired Of Being The Only Black Musician In The Orchestra, So She Formed One Of Her Own
The double bass player recruited and organized a group quickly in 2015, and her project has been a success. “The Chineke! Foundation — which includes both Europe’s first professional orchestra made up entirely of minority musicians from across Britain and Europe, and also a junior orchestra — has had a strong impact not only on the musicians involved, but also on the audiences.”
The Full Return Of Pianist And Composer Ryuchi Sakamoto
The 65-year-old was shocked when a lump he discovered on his neck in 2014 was cancerous, but now he’s in full remission and resuming his career with a vengeance (and hoping to premiere an opera in 2019).
The UK’s Music Industry Is Bracing For Brexit
It is, as a matter of fact, already affected: The pound has fallen, and Apple Music is considering raising the cost of a subscription. Then there’s the little issue of touring, and who’s allowed where.