Category: music

“As we become increasingly distracted, encouraged as we are in all aspects of life to contribute to the glut the Internet offers, opera and its cycle of reforms take on new importance. It is an art form inspired by the past that has proved essential to the future.”

“There were no books that would prepare me for those kinds of things. I was really on my own. Finding my way into other people’s music was a way of learning about music. And of course it had an impact on the way I compose music. It became the engine of change for me.”

“After a year in the dark, the Sacramento Philharmonic has announced an aggressive return to performing, with a seven-concert season for 2015-16. The return of the 18-year-old orchestra to the concert stage has been largely engineered by a consultancy team composed mostly of staffers from the Detroit Symphony.”

“She previously won both the main prize and the song prize at the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007 – a lively competition that was featured in Susan Froemke’s film The Audition.”

“While waiting for things to get going, composers near my chair were debating just how Calianno would manage to set ‘cunt punt’ anyway.”

“Kari Wei doesn’t carry her ‘pitch peanut’ everywhere because a cappella is popular; she carries it everywhere because a cappella is consuming.”

Peter Eotvos: “It was so random, so chaotic, especially in contrast to our electronic studio where we worked with unbelievable precision.”

“Eight years ago, one of Europe’s best-known orchestras” – the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – “moved their rehearsal rooms to a secondary school on this housing estate and pupils from Tenever found themselves sharing their corridors and lunch tables with professional musicians. Since then the school’s results have improved, its drop-out rates have fallen to less than 1% and the atmosphere in the wider neighbourhood has been ‘transformed’, according to Joachim Barloschky, a local official.”

“The researchers acquired technical drawings of violins from museums, collector databases, and books, as well as x-rays and CT scans of the instruments. They compared the dimensions of various features and measurements of acoustic resonances in different instruments.”

“The company’s 2015-16 programme represents a cut of around a third in terms of productions, the result of the withering financial crises, drastic Arts Council cuts, last-ditch bailouts and all-round air of impending doom that has engulfed the company for the umpteenth time in its history for the last few months.”