Category: music

“Inside sources say the TSO is playing Let’s Make a Deal with Gary Hanson, a globally respected Toronto-born veteran of the classical music business who retired last year as executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra. In Cleveland, he was lauded for overseeing the magnificent renovation of Severance Hall, increasing attendance and boosting fundraising.”

Belgian researchers report 9- to 12-year-olds who had been taking regular music lessons displayed “enhanced cognitive inhibitory control” compared to a group of same-age peers. Their study, in the journal Musicae Scientiae, adds to the already large body of evidence showing cognitive benefits of musical training.

“The Sibelius Academy has some features that are unique in the world,” says Jasper Parrott, a leading artist agent in London who regularly visits leading conservatories to watch emerging talent. “It offers opportunities to work with an orchestra, its own very competent student orchestra. And thanks to Finland’s abundance of good orchestras, Sibelius Academy conducting students get professional opportunities even before they graduate.”

Zimmermann had been performing on the “Lady Inchiquin” Stradivarius for 13 years; it was on permanent loan from a Düsseldorf bank, WestLB. But when that bank failed last year, its successor decided to auction off all of WestLB’s artworks, including this violin. Then a savior – perhaps an unlikely one – appeared.

“Alzheimer’s Masterpiece: It is a striking title for a string quartet, and not atypical of the creativity shown by Canada’s best-known living classical composer during a career that has spanned more than 60 years. But there is more than artistic significance to the name of this composition … R. Murray Schafer has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Who now wants a touring orchestra that’s just going to turn up, play, and go? Not many! So, if you are running an orchestra with shrinking public subsidy and are looking to tour, look around you, take account of the best practice from across the world including the UK, and mark your score with an accelerando.”

“The arts world has to let go of these popular, though incorrect clichés. First, paid capacity is a terrible way to gauge success—it does not provide real numbers that are actually tied to the budget. That four-year old study from the NEA needs to be put to rest, and we need a more updated, nuanced study of arts attendance in this country. And “Baumol’s cost disease” is an idea that has been vastly overplayed when talking about the arts… to the degree that Baumol himself is pushing back on how it’s being used.”

“He did compose a weird arrangement of the national anthem, and the Boston police really did ban him from performing it — sparking a national uproar and a tense showdown that played out live on the radio. Depending on how you read it, it’s a story of ego and hubris, or patriotism and generosity.”

“Gockley has stayed true to that maxim throughout his career, making sure never to let one aspect of the art form outshine another. But at the same time, Gockley’s omnivorous stance, along with the compromises it entails, has made it that much trickier for him to stake a claim to overarching excellence in any single arena.”