Category: music

“In cash terms, chorus members have now agreed to have their pay reduced by £5,900, rather than the £10,215 original planned. They will still work on reduced seasonal contracts for just nine months of the year.”

“The great Singaporean pianist [Melvyn Tan] first made a name for himself as an expert in early music, recording music on the fortepiano. We spoke to him about how taking up the harpsichord by accident, learning how to practise and why he’d really like to meet Schubert.”

This list isn’t meant to name “the best” (which isn’t truly possible); it’s “bringing to wider attention singers who may or may not have been known. … Here are 15 male singers who merit your attention, whether or not you have already had the pleasure of hearing them.” (Next up: the ladies.)

“In my previous article, I described 15 excellent male singers under the age of 40 who are definitely worth hearing. Now I am pleased to present 25 women who are among those making the future bright for opera.”

“Spotify will pay more than $20 million to music publishers to settle a long-running and complex dispute over licensing, according to an agreement announced on Thursday between the streaming service and the National Music Publishers’ Association, a trade group.”

“If you never in your lifetime imagined that you’d see a man in a bowtie and tailcoat playing Rachmaninov on a badger, well, now you have. You’re welcome.” (video)

Krista Tippett: “In his art, Yo-Yo Ma resists fixed boundaries. He’d like to rename classical music just ‘music’ – born in improvisation, and traversing territory as vast and fluid as the world we inhabit. In this generous and intimate conversation, he shares his philosophy of curiosity about life, and of performance as hospitality.” (audio plus transcript)

“The diversity of styles and traditions across the world’s music offers rich possibilities. Tremendous precedent can be found all over music history.”

“The crime defies logic. The young violinist, with so much ahead of him, brazenly acts while the master mingles in the next room. He leaves town under a cloud of suspicion. And even as he squanders his career, he refuses to reveal his secret. This delicate, hand-crafted masterpiece of wood and gut strings is his to possess, to play, to imprison.”

“Instead of consistently cooperating with the opera, the staging challenged it.” David Patrick Stearns considers William Kentridge’s Metropolitan Opera production of Lulu and Chas Rader-Shieber’s Curtis/Opera Philadelphia staging of Capriccio: “Too often, poetic ambiguity can seem like a smoke screen, insurance of sorts that if the operagoers are kept guessing, they won’t pass judgment.”