Category: music

“It remains a flourishing art form that packs out bars, clubs and caverns. With a profusion of styles on offer (from trad, modern and avant garde to bossa nova, jazz-funk and Afro-jazz, not forgetting France’s singular contribution to the genre – gypsy jazz), its freedom-loving soul lives on.”

Rattle was blunt about the limitations of the Barbican. “It is very clear we can do a lot of wonderful work at the Barbican, but it is also clear there is about 20% of the repertoire that we can’t,” he said. “In my wishlist of pieces there is so much which simply would not work there. The stage was beautifully designed for a certain size orchestra. It was not designed for a very large orchestra and it was certainly not made with a chorus in mind.”

“Like a magic mirror held up to America’s heteronormative postwar culture, its music reflected a dignified, and seductive, vision of gay life. Just below the album’s title read the teaser: ‘For adult listeners only – sultry stylings by a most unusual vocalist.’ The surprising story of Love Is a Drag, released way back in 1962.

“From today’s perspective, Tchaikovsky’s musical ideas—whether in the guise of symphonic bombast, or as a buoyant backdrop for dancing fairies and frolicking snowflakes—can seem like quaint artifacts. Why, then, do audiences still clamor for this composer?”

The composer, Mohammed Fairouz, wanted to bring out every Trump similarity possible. The (in effect) executive producer, Francesca Zambello, insists, “It is not about the president-elect or his wife.” The librettist originally had in mind the late Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq. And director Ethan McSweeny said, “We were all joking among ourselves that if that guy Trump got elected, this would be the most politically prescient piece of opera ever produced in America. Well, that happened.”

“I have been meeting with each of the musicians just to get to know the institution better, and they absolutely adore Dirk,” says CHOP executive director Bill Rhoads, “and I’ve been told there is this sense that the quality of the ensemble has gone up since Dirk has been there. That is obviously something we want to maintain.”

The Dresden Staatskapelle is 458 years old; the Royal Danish Orchestra (in Danish, the “Royal Chapel”) is a century older still. The Budapest Festival Orchestra, on the other hand, was founded in 1983, and many critics and listeners consider it to be easily a peer of the Dresdeners. Andrew Mellor considers the ways in which an orchestra’s institutional history might or might not affect how it plays today.

He threw his weight behind a £280 million (324 million euro, $347 million) project aimed at creating a “Centre for Music” equipped for the digital era. The plans involve building a new hall on the site of the Museum of London, which is relocating nearby, which would become the new home of the LSO.

“Opera lovers routinely avoid new works for just this reason: They’re not going to be on a par with the masterpieces that still make up the bulk of the operatic canon. Part of the problem is the delivery mechanism: New opera is less available than a new book and, generally, a lot more expensive. Wouldn’t it be great if new opera were presented like a film festival? Yes — and more and more festivals are trying it.”

“Music is probably Congo’s most influential export, though nowhere near as lucrative as copper or gold. Whereas in the West the country’s name inspires pictures of child soldiers fighting bloody battles, in most of Africa it is associated with “rumba Lingala” (Lingala is the language of the Kinshasa street). This upbeat music has become genuinely pan-African in the 60 years since Congolese musicians were first inspired by Cubans.”