Category: music

David McVicar. Bartlett Sher. Mary Zimmerman. Richard Eyre. Each of them, argues James Jorden, began their work at the Met with one (more or less) good production and then followed with productions that ranged from dull to disastrous. Why does Peter Gelb continue to engage them?

“According to a recently published study from Norway, musicians in that nation are three times more likely to utilize psychotherapy than members of the general workforce. They’re also 50 percent more likely to use psychotropic medications such as antidepressants.”

We remember Bowles as a novelist, but he was trained as a composer, and he made a landmark collection of field recordings of music that was disappearing as mass media spread through the kingdom. (includes sound clips)

“‘Experimentation and emerging artists are part of our DNA,’ says Mikki Shepard, executive producer. ‘You say to yourself, ‘How do you build on your legacy, whether it’s with dance or theater – or opera?’ … And suddenly you have a broad palette of programming.'”

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird may be the Apollo’s first opera, bur it won’t be its last. Next up, in fall 2017: We Shall Not Be Moved by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain and librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, with choreographer Bill T. Jones directing.

“It is grand opera done grandly in an era of budget pressures and challenges in attracting new audiences. To capture the work that goes into a staging that will be performed just eight times this season – an expensive, labor-intensive undertaking that helps explain why the Met’s budget will be almost $300 million this year – James Estrin, a photographer for The New York Times, observed weeks of rehearsals.” (photo journal)

“[He] turns out to have been a poor (and uninterested) self-promoter. … He never entered a major competition. He was uninterested in late Romantic concertos. … His book Piano Notes (2002) remained conspicuously silent about his own career. A mind of insatiable curiosity produced one of the greatest writers about music from any era. No surprise that his pianism was both misunderstood and undervalued.”

Co-creator Eimear Noone: “I thought, what if you could create a virtual experience where people could experience what I feel and see on the podium, the high I get when the main theme from Zelda kicks in?”

“Some composers are more interested in composition itself, just to find a different technique, which is also interesting, but [I want to know] how does it express what’s happening in life? Contemporary music, in that sense, to me is very important.”

“Fort Worth Symphony musicians staged a sit-in at symphony offices near Bass Hall on Thursday after management canceled upcoming contract negotiation meetings, they said. Symphony management and union representatives met earlier this month and had agreed to additional meetings over the next two weeks. However, the meetings were canceled without being rescheduled.”