Category: music

The orchestra says it’s “severely undercapitalized” and struggling with annual deficits of more than $1.3 million, a fully-drawn $2 million line of credit, falling subscriptions and ticket sales that are flat.

“With the rise in popularity of the sport in the late-19th century, tennis and music soon began to make a match.”

What it is, what it does, what it means.

“When it comes to political leaders, it’s a fine line between human and unbecoming, and the line gets ever-thinner in a social-media age where moments can be highlighted, repeated and parsed ad infinitum. If the singing isn’t good, it can become a punchline; if it is, it can look glib or narcissistic.”

“For Simone, who lived next door to Malcolm X in Mt. Vernon, New York, and whose first interaction with Martin Luther King, Jr. involved a heated declaration that her activism was on the ‘by any means necessary’ part of the scale, the tune bore none of the turn-the-other-cheek wholesomeness of other protest songs. ‘Mississippi Goddam’ was also an upshot of Simone’s time spent in the care of intellectual co-conspirators like Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Stokely Carmichael.”

“Defenders of the ticket resale market will tell you ticket resale is a simple extension of the free market; that the resale market is the best way to learn the true value of a ticket (as opposed to the perceived one asked by promoters, venues and artists); and that if artists don’t like resale (and many don’t), they should set higher prices (in fact, certain top artists, defenders correctly point out, work a percentage of resale profits into their contracts).”

“‘The reason we’re excited about the big tent is because it allows us to go out into the community for audiences that may not traditionally go downtown for concerts,’ Dodson said. ‘We wanted to make this as much of a community project as possible.'”

“Nancarrow explored the limits of the player piano with staggering imagination and persistence, diligently punching piano rolls by hand and often with the aid of a magnifying glass. He lived in obscurity and near-isolation for many years before his work was championed by prominent composers such as the Hungarian experimentalist György Ligeti, who claimed that Nancarrow was the most important composer of the late twentieth century.”

“One of the most sweeping changes wrought by audio recording and broadcasting technology was that, for the first time ever, music was no longer, by necessity, a visual as well as an aural experience. Music had always been only heard in live performance—which meant the listener was there, looking as well as hearing. (Even exceptions—Vivaldi’s female choristers singing behind a screen or Wagner’s enclosed pit orchestra or the like—were more like unusual variations of the visual context.) But with recordings and radio, the visual portion of musical performance disappeared. All one had was the sound. The technology decoupled eye and ear.”

Too many vinyl records stored on the second floor of a San Diego building caused a collapse that damaged a popular thrift store. (picture here)