“Although we can regularly screen out the thoughts, sounds, images, memories, opinions and ideas of others as foreign and potentially noxious, it ain’t the same with music.”
Category: music
When The Most Important Musical Form Of The 20th Century Is Distilled To One Musician, Who Will It Be?
“In any reasonable world, the Beatles are the answer to the question ‘Who will be the Sousa of rock?’ But our world is not reasonable. And the way this question will be asked tomorrow is (probably) not the same way we would ask it today.”
The Wascally Wabbit That Inspired A Generation Of Opera Singers
“Those of us who didn’t freak at the sight of a rabbit in a winged helmet sliding off of the back of a fat horse—we went into opera.”
Musicians’ Union Files Unfair Labor Practices Charge Against Kalamazoo Symphony
“Start said the two sessions per day creates an undue hardship on many musicians because many do other work – with other musical groups or in jobs not related to music – to make their living.”
The Near Future Of The Toronto Symphony Looks Pretty Grim
“One point is clear. The future of the TSO depends on its 19-member board and how they respond to a situation that has spun out of control under their watch.”
The Women Of Classical Music’s Past
“Under certain circumstances, in the right place and the right time — particularly if there’s a really powerful female monarch in place who wants somebody to justify their rule and their power, [and] might want a kind of poster girl for female talent — you could succeed.”
Not Fade Away: Remembering, And Celebrating, Yehudi Menuhin
“With disconcertingly few exceptions, time erodes the reputations of the famous. Names that were once metaphors for extraordinary skill, physical prowess or moral courage become, at best, only vaguely recalled. That decay, though, is uneven.”
The First-Ever $100,000 Chamber Music Prize Has A Winner
The grand prize at the inaugural M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, held at the University of Michigan, was won by the Calidore String Quartet of New York. The competition, created by Sphinx Competition founder Aaron Dworkin, has divisions for strings and winds as well as an open category which covers percussion groups, mixed ensembles, and other combinations.
The Most Exciting New Music In East Asia Is Written For Chinese Instruments
“In most cases, these instruments’ histories are even older than most contemporary Western instruments. For example, the ‘xiao’ (a vertical end-blown flute) and ‘dizi’ (a traverse—e.g. horizontal—side-blown flute) both have histories and performance practices that date back thousands of years.”
Musicians Make More Off Of Vinyl Sales Than Off Of YouTube
“Something is fundamentally broken in the music market, so that artists and the labels that invest in them no longer benefit fairly from growing demand.”