Category: music

“With preferences substantially tilting towards electronic instruments such as keyboards, electric guitars and recorded sounds at processions and devotional functions, Suresh says its future is bleak. ‘Nobody likes to work in this field now. From about 12 shops in 1940 of dhol-tasha makers in Lalbaug, just three or four remain.'”

“Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh, for his part, allows that ‘angels speak to me’ while he is performing. Still, he is very much human, he said, and is thus now dealing with the aftereffects of becoming an overnight web sensation.”

Yes, with a literal drill. There’s so much music in the shelf-lined, formerly secret vault that “his estate could put out an album a year for the next century.”

“What do you do when a composer announces that the work you’ve just commissioned for 15 musicians will need 1,000 performers; or asks for the premiere to be in a boarded-up shop; or wants you to time precisely how long it takes to get from the top floor of your concert hall to the bottom? Smile, breathe deeply, and cheer.”

“According to experts, the most difficult string quartet ever written is Ben Johnston’s Quartet No. 7. It was composed in 1984 but went unperformed for decades. … Now the work is available on a CD that the Kepler Quartet released hard on the heels of the composer’s 90th birthday in March.”

“ENO said the American-born director would take up the position on 1 August, more than a year after the previous director, John Berry, resigned from the job. Daniel Kramer has divided opinion in the past, with some arguing he is one of the most exciting directors of his generation, while others have criticised his directorial style.”

“We found it fairly easy to answer the question of why so many venues are closing; the problem is similar to that plaguing other cultural and community-led spaces across the capital. Artists are being turned into cultural commuters, unable to sustain themselves in the capital because of a lack of spaces – adequate housing, studios and rehearsal spaces – and, now, stepping-stone venues.”

“Music training not only improved the babies’ ability to notice when a musical rhythm skipped a beat, it also improved their ability to notice when the rhythms of speech changed unexpectedly, an important skill for learning to talk.”

“In yet another sign of a recovering economy,” the festival, renowned for reviving obscure and forgotten scores, will from 2017 “be extended from a 12-day event to an 18-day event, a return to the pre-Recessionary format.”

“The best thing conservatories can do is to graduate healthy, intact people with a sense of agency over their careers and lives. The whole Svengali thing has to be held in check, because universities have ways of burying those bad experiences and boards don’t want to hear it.”