Category: music

Anna Tcybuleva’s success certainly raised a few eyebrows after her performance of Brahms’s B flat Concerto – the last of the six concertos we heard – in which, for all the fluency of her playing, she often seemed incapable of seeing the overall shape of the work, and her role in projecting it, rather than the detail of each passing moment.

“The National Arts Centre’s search for a successor to veteran maestro Pinchas Zukerman was an epic story of its own It went on for 15 months, according to Peter Herrndorf, who is the CEO and known among arts leaders across the country as the godfather of Canadian culture.”

A few critics found little reason for enthusiasm at all. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said in a telephone interview: “Looking over the schedule, I’m almost shocked … Only two operas from the last 100 years. … Nothing by an American composer. Nothing of our time. Sadly, this reflects what’s going on at major houses all over the country.”

How can a song from the 19th century be protected by copyright? Don’t songs (and other works) enter the public domain after a reasonable amount of time? Even Irving Berlin, who died at age 101 in 1980, couldn’t outlive the rights to his songs. Welcome to the crazy world of copyright law—or, as I prefer to call it, “Intellectual Property Rights Gone Wild!”

3e Scène, conceived by new Paris Opera Ballet director Benjamin Millepied, “includes 18 films in its first batch of offerings. The filmmakers include the French actor-director Mathieu Amalric, the director Rebecca Zlotowski, [etc.] … Mr. Millepied said that the website aimed to produce around 30 new works each season, and to extend to installations, readings and other events.”

“In the current era of constant connectivity, however, could this supposed downside of classical music become a selling point? Could the idea of the concert hall as a web-free zone, a chance to disconnect, catch on? I think so.”

These revivals, as much as the new “Otello,” may shed light on artistic and financial challenges the Met has been grappling with in recent years under its general manager, Peter Gelb. Whither the Met? Look to that opening week.

Any journalist who provided an artist biography, which was simply a list of engagements, would have a very short career. How does the world’s greatest classical music festival get away with it?

“Orchestra members were left in limbo, without a contract, less than 48 hours before they are scheduled to begin rehearsals for the opening concerts of the CSO’s 125th anniversary season. Those concerts mark the start of Riccardo Muti’s sixth season as music director.”