Category: music

“In the sixties, pop music in West Germany was in a peculiar state. … But, as with the New German Cinema that emerged in that decade, new German sounds had begun to take shape. … The German press (and, for the most part, German audiences) ignored the ‘Krautrock’ bands entirely. But in advertisements and airports, on film soundtracks, and in concert halls, high and low, the music is still in the air, all around us.”

The 2016 edition, for singers, is being postponed to 2017, as the organizers take “a period necessary to recast the competition … [a year] to rethink, rebuild, and offer a new form” adapted to new media. The annual event in Paris has awarded prizes to pianists and violinist, in alternating years, since 1943; singers were added to the rotation in 2011. (in French; Google Translate version here)

Chris Addison: “It seems mental to me. … People imagine it is all dickie bows. I have seen great stuff here; paid £6 and sat at the back. True, there are top price tickets I would never buy, but there are super-expensive seats at Arsenal too. You could come to four operas for the price of an Arsenal ticket and have two quid over for a lovely cup of coffee.”

“What I’m most convinced about is that we need to do things more than once to create new traditions, new expectations, new habits, and we can’t backtrack if something isn’t on the box office level we want. Our composer festival sold well, but it didn’t sell out. That doesn’t mean we stop doing it.”

“British orchestras must make ‘a real step change’ to allow a wider diversity of backgrounds into their ranks, according to culture minister, Ed Vaizey. In a strongly worded appeal to a group of musicians and orchestral managers in Birmingham on Friday night, the minister put pressure on leaders in the music world to do more.”

“If Warren’s career were one of her songs, she’d be in the bridge right now, the section that emphasizes the contrast between the verses and choruses, and which brings us back to the huge chorus at the end. ‘I’m so into the next,’ she said.”

I said this expecting a boiler plate #AllCommunitiesMatter-style answer which really means “rich kids in Ballard get the symphony brought to them.” and I would have sighed and that would’ve been that. But she paused and said “You know I’ve been told I can say this, because this is very important to me,” and then I proceeded to get schooled.

“In generations gone by, conductors and stage directors worked as a pair, often for a long time, and mutually agreed upon their hierarchy. Today, conductors and stage directors maintain schedules that send them across the world, meaning that the creative duo may not meet long before the first rehearsal. In the past, stage directors would quickly have acquiesced to conductors’ demands.”

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim: “Where does this emphasis on purity come from? What does it mean to singers and conductors? And to writers: As a critic who is compelled to use metaphors to describe the intangible qualities of a performance, I also wonder about the assumptions I’m making when I use certain words. … In the course of phone interviews with performers and scholars, I received an invigorating plurality of points of view – and a sobering reminder of the gap between the way critics and singers talk about the same voices.”

Management’s plan, which they say they will implement unilaterally if musicians don’t approve it on Friday, “cuts musician pay by 8.4 percent and trims vacation and weeks of work, but won’t reduce the number of concerts in a season. Members say they took 13.5 percent cuts five years ago and shouldn’t face more because the city and economy are growing again.”