And what is Soosan Lolavar’s opera – titled ID, Please – about? Immigration.
Category: music
Some Ideas For The Pittsburgh Symphony To Attract New Audiences
“Not every traditional program needs a nonmusical draw. But I don’t think drawing connections between pieces of music — and making those connections clear to the audience — would dumb down the orchestra’s product. In fact, it may make the PSO’s programming as unique as its sound.”
Ikutaro Kakehashi, The Man Behind The Roland Drum Machine And Synthesizer, Has Died At 87
The drum machine he developed, the TR-808, “had a lasting impact on pop music since its launch in 1980.” And Roland synthesizers “formed the bedrock to the sound of a range of electronica and dance acts including Aphex Twin, Portishead, Boards of Canada, the Prodigy.”
Evaluating Virgil Thomson, Cantankerous Musician And Music Critic
Would Thomson get away with this today? “He was hardly a model critic. He gave friends positive reviews, enemies negative reviews, and usually made sure his own music was reviewed by a stringer (occasionally he did it himself). He routinely slept through performances he was reviewing, had a penchant for making sweeping and sometimes perplexing generalizations, and dismissed beloved works and composers with little explanation.”
Choral Music Is ‘Slow Food For The Soul,’ Says Nico Muhly
“One of the most moving things about this musical tradition is happening upon it: walking through London and ducking into St. Paul’s Cathedral, for instance, and hearing the buttery luxuriousness of one of Herbert Howells’s canticles.”
The Cleveland Orchestra Had A Pretty Decent April Fool’s Joke For Its City
So apparently “Severance Hall sits atop a vast underground cavern and waterway system, like the Palais Garnier in ‘The Phantom of the Opera.'” Yup.
The Young Composer Whose Way With The Orchestra Impresses Even Riccardo Muti
“He looks like a club DJ. The titles of his pieces – Omnivorous Furniture, for one – are punk-rock friendly. The music itself sounds so spontaneous it has to be at least partly improvised.” David Patrick Stearns talks to composer Mason Bates.
Westminster Choir College Is Officially For Sale
The college’s parent school, Rider University (which bought Westminster in 1992), has been facing financial pressures and declining enrollment (though Westminster’s enrollment is healthy), and wants cash from the sale. The Rider board’s stated preference is for a buyer to continue to operate Westminster at its Princeton campus, though separate sales of the school and its real estate are possible as well.
Why DC’s National Symphony Had To Go To Play In Moscow
“On one level, these performances can be seen as an act of homage. The Russians are certainly noting the symbolic implications of an American orchestra coming to honor a Russian, playing literally under a banner emblazoned with Rostropovich’s portrait above the Conservatory stage… On another level, the NSO’s performances can be seen as a viable alternative to political diplomacy, showing people from different societies brought together by a common love.”
LA Philharmonic Names Interim President
“Gail Samuel, a native Angeleno, has worked at the Minnesota Orchestra, Yale University, the Tanglewood music festival and the Young Musicians Foundation. She has been with the L.A. Phil for 25 years in various capacities, starting as orchestra manager and assuming her current role, in which she runs Hollywood Bowl operations and programming, in March 2015.”