Category: music

Music Critic Gets Fed Up, Snatches Cell Phone From Hand Of Oblivious Audience Member

David Patrick Stearns: “And just because the [Vienna] public is among the most cultured on the planet doesn’t mean the cellphones are under control. Despite a preconcert warning announcement, one woman pulled out her phone just as Lisa Batiashvili had begun the quiet, slow-burning opening movement of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Only eight rows from the stage, the phone kept beeping and burbling, its owner entranced by it and oblivious to those nearby shooting her daggers. So the problem was addressed American-style …”

New Twists In Battle To Revive New York City Opera

“Two bidders with competing proposals to buy the failed opera company’s name and intellectual property in hopes of reviving it are now in talks to try to resolve their differences. The opera’s board is also weighing a third option in a light of a bequest that could be worth millions of dollars. Instead of selling off the company’s assets, the board could reorganize the defunct company through the bankruptcy process, enlisting one of the two bidders as a sponsor of the reorganization plan.”

Prediction: Music Genres Will Be Irrelevant In The Future

“According to executives at Spotify, my children offer a peek at the future of music consumption. Spotify, which has just introduced a new version of its app, says that because online streaming services let us call up and listen to anything we like, and because its curated playlists push us toward new stuff, we are all increasingly escaping rigid genres.”

How Streaming Is Changing The Music Business (For Good And Bad)

“For a large part of the recording industry, the move to embrace streaming actually solves a long-time paradox: one of ownership. Over digital music’s 30-year evolution, from the public introduction of the compact disc in 1981 to the international expansion of Spotify in the last half-decade, the question of whether listeners owned the music they purchased got murkier.”

Harmonia Mundi Record Label Sold

“Independent music group [PIAS] is acquiring the established French record label and distributor Harmonia Mundi, according to local reports. Established by Bernard Coutaz in Paris in 1958, Harmonia Mundi remains one of the biggest independent players in the classical music sector.”

An Expansive Vision For LA’s Music Center, Led By The LA Phil

“The Music Center at 50 is a mature performing arts center. Its newest venue, Frank Gehry’s celebrated Walt Disney Concert Hall — already an L.A. icon — turns 12 in the fall. Next year, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Arata Isozaki building reaches its third decade. The Broad museum is almost finished. All this can be found concentrated within three blocks, clearly positioning Grand Avenue as one of the country’s most important arts destinations.”

This Opera Mashup Breaks All The Usual Rules

“In doing so, they have broken about 100 classical-music rules all at once. They have “destroyed the integrity” of the original pieces. They have combined works intended to be presented separately. They have added a story that wasn’t there in the original. They’ve changed the order of the pieces. They’re butting up musical languages, two centuries removed, that have nothing to do with one another.”