It’s only been 107 years since the “Funeral Song” for Rimsky-Korsakov was last performed. “Getting it played in the narrow, status-conscious musical world of tsarist Petersburg cost him almost as much emotional effort as it has cost to get it replayed now.”
Category: music
What Went Wrong With The Met Opera’s Commissioning Program?
If you start handing out $50,000 commissions to major artists, there’s not a lot of excuse for coming up almost completely empty-handed at the end of a decade. Muhly’s “Two Boys,” which began under the program’s auspices, made it to the Met’s main stage; everything else was either rejected (like Rufus Wainwright’s “Prima Donna”), fell through, or simply withered on the vine, and no new blood has been added to the pipeline for years.
The Problem With Concert Music Reaching For Political And Social Relevance
“What often seems to go unasked is: ‘Who is it for?’ … It’s unlikely that victims of gun violence will draw solace from [a percussion concert], or that grass-roots members of the National Rifle Association will come out of it reconciled with the idea of tighter controls. … [And] how many police commissioners send their law enforcement officials to the opera house for sensitivity training?”
Is Jake Heggie About To Give Opera Houses Their Equivalent Of ‘Nutcracker’?
He and librettist Gene Scheer have adapted one of the most famous, and most daunting, of classic Christmas stories: Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life. (Talk about daunting: the lead tenor has to risk comparison to Jimmy Stewart.) (includes audio)
Violinist Convicted, Jailed In $440,000 Craigslist Cancer Scam
British freelance violinist Bethan Doci (aka Bethan Morgan) conned several men out of more than £350,000 total by posting online classified ads claiming she needed money for cancer treatment. (Would patients even need to do that in the land of the NHS?)
Four Things That Would Change The Complexion Of Classical Music
“I am tired of picking up a classical music magazine plastered with middle-aged white faces. In the same way that a six-year-old boy in Tower Hamlets can run around the living room in his Cristiano Ronaldo-emblazoned jersey, screaming at the top of his lungs while he watches his hero play on the box, we need to ensure that the next generation of violinists, composers, marketers, vocalists, lighting technicians, managers, bassoonists and producers alike can have the same experience when they pick up their parents’ copy of Gramophone or Classical Music Magazine.”
Have “Identity Politics” Hurt Art?
Jay Nordlinger believes that insisting that black characters in opera be black or Asian characters in theatre be Asian is a perversion of art. Such “authenticity” he believes, goes against the very nature of dramatic portrayal…
Auditioning For An Orchestra Position? Here’s What’s Going Through The Audition Committee Members’ Minds
L.A. Philharmonic associate concertmaster Nathan Cole (who’s been on both sides of the screen): “Imagine that you have a great-uncle who’s an automobile fanatic. He owns an entire fleet of amazing vehicles, and he makes you an unbelievable offer: he’ll give you whichever one you want. There are only two conditions: this will be the last car you’ll ever own; and you’ll have to make your decision based solely on three-minute test drives. You won’t be able to do any research beforehand. You won’t even know what car you’re test-driving since all the identifying marks will be covered up.”
Robert Lepage Explains The 28,000 LEDs He’s Using In The Met’s ‘L’Amour De Loin’ (And He Fesses Up About ‘The Machine’)
The director says that Kaija Saariaho’s opera is very much about water, “but when you take it literally and say, ‘I’ll put water onstage,’ water … will do what it wants, and you don’t have any control over it.” (LEDs – we hope – will do what they’re told.) (includes video)
When Brazil Was Even More Troubled Than It Is Today, A Pop Music Movement That Lasted About A Year Transformed The Country
“Tropicália was a movement that lasted just short of a year, spanning from Hélio Oiticica’s 1967 art installation of the same name, wherein viewers walked along a tropical sand path only to come face-to-face with a television set, to the debut of a TV show, wherein its constituents buried the movement on-air. But [it] modernized Brazilian culture just as the country’s ruling military junta began to strangle democracy and expression.”