“The people who were there, and there were quite a lot of them, screamed and yelled with whole-hearted appreciation. And there were plenty of younger faces among the picnickers on the lawn. But it was far from a capacity crowd. Fewer people than in the past view the chance to hear a star soloist, rising conductor and orchestra in popular repertoire on a warm summer night as a can’t-miss event.”
Category: music
Steinway Has Huge Ambitions For Its Grand Pianos – In China
“‘I wanted to buy something special,’ Mr. Wang said. ‘It’s just like a Rolls-Royce.'”
A Violinist In Exile, In Germany [VIDEO]
“The Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music was renowned throughout the Middle East. But when war broke out many of its members had to flee.”
Los Angeles Opera Posts Big Jump In Ticket Sales, Attendance For 2015/16
“L.A. Opera sold 118,565 tickets for the 2015-16 season, compared with 98,861 for 2014-15, the company said. Ticket revenue was about $14.2 million for the 2015-16 period, compared with about $11.1 million during the previous period.”
Eight Nearly Forgotten Female Composers Who Were Hits In Their Own Day
Not many of us remember Barbara Strozzi and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre; more of us know of Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn). Here’s an opportunity to get to know all four of them, as well as four more, a bit better.
Steinway’s Super-Skilled Craftspeople, At Work At The Mothership In Queens
“With Steinway’s blessing, [photographer Christopher] Payne spent time in virtually every corner of the large factory, from the foundry where the iron is poured to the mill where the lumber is cut. And though he came to possess a strong technical understanding of how these elements come together to form precision musical instruments, he said, the transformation never ceased to strike him as an act of magic.”
Subversive Obscure Opera Choices Taking Berlin By Storm And Reviving A Company
“The openly gay Melbourne native with a Jewish background has turned the opera scene in the German capital — not to mention traditional business acumen — on its head since he took over the Komische Oper four years ago.”
Oslo’s Opera House In Financial Crisis
“Playing out behind the sleek, elegant lines of Oslo’s Opera House is a financial crisis so dramatic that it prompted Opera management to close the publicly owned building to the public itself last weekend, in order to rent it out for a ‘considerable’ sum for a private wedding. Now that’s stirring additional drama as well.”
It’s Time To Start Performing Operas With Cuts Again, Say David Gockley And Esa-Pekka Salonen (Among Others)
Performing operas with cuts was common practice until the mid-20th century, as performing Shakespeare, for instance, is today. So, the argument goes, returning to the practice now is hardly as heretical as it might seem. “I don’t think we can any longer fail to hear what our audience is saying about length,” says Gockley.
Opera Omaha Music Director Pleads No Contest To Stealing $113K From His Mother
John C. Gawf had power of attorney for his mother, who suffers from dementia, and he wrote himself checks from her account to pay gambling debts and credit card bills.