“With every new album available at our fingertips completely for free at the instant of its release for our own personal judgment, you’ve got to wonder: Do we still need the album review?”
Category: music
The Last Opera
“While his contemporaries steered toward modernism, Floyd took a more conservative tack musically, merging older European tradition with newer American folk music forms and regional vernacular. For years, Floyd’s approach kept some scholars from embracing his work. He wasn’t mentioned in Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker’s ‘A History of Opera’ when it was published in 2012. ‘It’s telling that for years Philip Glass has been held up as important and Floyd hasn’t.'”
The 87-Year-Old Musical Score Oscar Winner Explains How He Got Here
Ennio Morricone “never sloughed off any assignment. Even B action pictures like ‘Guns for San Sebastian’ and ‘The Five Man Army,’ both from the late ’60s, sport glorious themes befitting far better movies. His thrillers veer into the avant-garde. Even infamous bombs, such as ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ and ‘Mission to Mars,’ were inevitably buoyed by Morricone music.”
Has The Minnesota Orchestra Come Back From The Brink After Its Long, Painful Lockout?
“The stakes will be high [at Carnegie Hall] when Vänskä and his musicians face a packed house of some of the sharpest ears in classical music, anxious to assess the orchestra’s rebound from a bitter 16-month lockout.”
Is There A Case For Classical Music Radio In This Time Of Spotify And Pandora And Apple Music?
“My go-to platform is radio. Since I spend so much of my work week choosing music for other people to listen to, I take immense pleasure in consuming playlists that other humans have curated when I’m on my own time. I listen terrestrially if I’m in my car or at home and stream the audio on my phone if I’m walking or bussing.”
Opera’s Gender Problem
“According to Operabase, an online opera database, in the years 2009 to 2014 there are only 3 women amongst the 60 most performed living opera composers in the world. Saariaho comes in highest at number 33. In all opera composers performed in that period, living or dead, women fare far worse with not a single female composer in the top 30. And in the most performed 50 operas worldwide in that same period, there is not a single work by a woman.”
Record Profits As Concert Business Booms
“Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest concert promoter whose holdings include Ticketmaster, on Thursday reported revenue of $7.6 billion in 2015, up 11 percent from the previous calendar year on a constant currency basis.”
English National Opera Chorus Votes Unanimously To Strike
“Their union, Equity, announced that action short of a strike would start next Friday. … The action is in protest at plans to cut pay by 25% and axe four jobs.”
English National Opera? Just Shut It Down Already, Says Director Of The Tallis Scholars
Peter Phillips: “Spending millions on desperate experiments has become a habit of mind. It is the last of the patrician gestures in which our system of public sponsorship will allow an educated (sort of) elite to impose its preferences on everyone else. … [Why is] this whopping imposition on our pockets tolerable in the first place?”
Met Opera Selects Architects To Fix Its Dysfunctional Lobby
“Provided it can raise the funds and get public approvals, the Met hopes to make its Lincoln Center building more welcoming by improving the cramped lobby – which the building’s [original] architect … was forced to scale back on to save money 50 years ago.”