Category: music

“Director of Opera Kasper Holten defended the controversial scene saying it ‘puts the spotlight on the brutal reality of women being abused during war time, and sexual violence being a tragic fact of war.'”

“If you had programming skills, you could re-associate number 60 with any sound – real or imagined – from the plink of a woodblock to the bleep of a computer. In the most basic sense, this is what Chafe does. With a free, open-source, downloadable program for music called ChucK, he transforms eye-glazing data: clarinets to represent carbon dioxide levels, for instance, overlaid with GDP data rendered in violins.”

Apple Music, or at least part of it, is “a simple but radical disruption of the individualized listening experience we’ve become accustomed to online. It’s in essence the opposite of what Apple Music’s predecessor, the iTunes Store, did more than a decade ago.”

“The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) – the longest-running group of its kind – took action against The United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra (TUKUO), which played its first gig just four years ago, complaining it was a ‘copycat’ group and could lead to fans booking for the wrong event.”

“People can always tell when they are being patronised, and the only way classical music will manage to survive is to reach wider audiences by believing in what it has to offer, and not by trying to change what it is.”

“Nielsen Music’s 2015 U.S. mid-year report, released Thursday, shows a 14% increase in music consumption over the first six months of last year. What’s driving the increase? For one thing, on-demand streaming, which nearly doubled year over year, rising 92%.”

“Yu-Chien “Benny” Tseng won the silver medal, second prize, in the Moscow competition, whose results were announced Wednesday. No gold award was given this year, which is not unusual. The Taipei-born violinist came to Curtis in 2008, and the following summer, at age 14, played Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center.”

“Smooth jazz was at the edge of a cliff. The Portable People Meter could have helped pull the format back or push it over. It turns out PPM gave it a swift kick right over the edge.”

“Apple still makes billions per year on iTunes downloads. But Spotify, Pandora, and other startups have eroded that business, first with their free streaming services and more recently with a paid subscription model. It’s been clear for a while now that streaming is the music industry’s future: iTunes Store sales dropped an alarming 14 percent in 2014 while revenue in the streaming sector jumped 28 percent. So Apple had a choice: Hold fast to a fading business model, or hasten the transition by getting out in front of it. It made the only sensible call.”

“Russian Dmitry Masleyev on Wednesday won first prize for the piano at the prestigious Tchaikovsky international music competition in Moscow.”