Category: music

Trumpeter Alex Greene, 23 and a student at the Curtis Institute, and tuba player Ben Darneille, 21 and studying at DePaul University, died in a in a car accident near Rock Springs, Wyoming on Monday night .

David Patrick Stearns: “If music is the universal language it’s often proclaimed to be, why has nothing close to a consensus emerged on the two high-profile opera openings of the summer? … The division is emblematic of a continuing split between composers who draw from such past tonal composers as Samuel Barber and those arising from a more recent modernist past; Cold Mountain belongs to the former and Written on Skin the latter.”

“The eight instruments were packaged in a shipping truck and checked in as oversized baggage at Barcelona on 19 August. However the truck failed to appear at its destination and airline staff were unable to inform Kulosa of its whereabouts.” The instruments were returned on August 23, even as some airline reps continued to insist they knew nothing about them.

Diana Broussard’s dbCHRONICLE not only has a customizable LCD screen, it has a soundtrack: Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang’s optimism, performed by So Percussion. (includes video trailer)

George Walker: “I don’t know what relaxation is.” He keeps working because “I want more people to hear my work. I want people to get acquainted with my music.” (includes serious dis of Elliott Carter)

The survey usually asks things like “What was the most important/ influential/impactful event to happen in the music business [this year], and why?” This year, it’s “Who is the most devious executive in the music industry?” and “Which artist’s private behavior belies his/her sterling public persona?” Most controversially, the questionnaire casually asks readers if they believe singer Kesha’s accusations that her ex-manager sexually abused her.

“At a time when so many of our everyday choices get gussied up in the language of ‘curation,’ playlists and d.j.s (particularly celebrity d.j.s) have taken on an elevated role. The playlist has become a kind of biographical shorthand, a way of communicating something essential about ourselves through the performance of taste. Of course, taste and relatability mean something different when they involve someone with drones at his disposal.”

“Some commentators are questioning and even damning the integrity of that coverage. Indeed, the article does seem to be more than a bit sloppy—or as one critic charged, ‘dreck.'”

“‘It’s stunning,’ said Andrew Barham, one of the team that has been working on the organ. ‘When there are no chairs and just the dance floor, it blows your socks off.'”

“Some of those delicate things are wax cylinders, lacquer and metal disks, plastic belts and even sheets of tin foil—cutting-edge technology from the past. The sounds that they hold include early, experimental voice recordings made by Alexander Graham Bell and his father in the 1880s.”