Category: music

“This research demonstrates that community music programs can literally remodel children’s brains in a way that improves sound processing, which could lead to better learning and language skills.”

“The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association has selected Vancouver Symphony Society president/CEO Jeff Alexander to be its next president, pending a board meeting Wednesday, the Tribune has learned.”

“Recently, while moving my CD collection to new shelving, I struggled with feelings of obsolescence and futility. Why bother with space-devouring, planet-harming plastic objects when so much music can be had at the touch of a trackpad? … What was once known as building a library is now considered hoarding.”

In the outdoor sound installation Living Symphonies, detailed data mapping of a patch of woodland meets instrumental motifs composed for each of that patch’s inhabitants, animal and vegetable. “Only the fragments that reflect the forest’s activity – be it the snare-drum rattle of the squirrel running up a tree, the soprano sax and clarinet piece of the goldcrest flying overhead, or the creaking melody of the tam-tam drums and body of a double bass of the giant sequoia tree – are played through the speakers in real-time, the piece continually developing … ‘solely at the whims of the forest’.”

“What isn’t so radical any more is the notion of a rock or pop artist composing so-called serious music. Beethoven no longer rolls over in his grave. Rather, he’s propped up on one elbow listening to Radiohead.”

The 45-year-old Finn, until last year music director of Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris and recently appointed principal guest conductor of Lisbon’s Gulbenkia Orchestra and active throughout Europe and North America as a guest conductor, takes over from John Storgårds in Helsinki at the start of 2016.

“The music director of the Zurich Opera and principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera has a new gig … Mr. Luisi, 55, signed a three-year contract with the [DNSO] from 2017 through 2020, his representatives said, and plans to step up his appearances with the orchestra even before that.”

Tenor Mario Chang and soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen each won three medals prizes, including the first-place awards for male and female singer. “In a rare occurrence for the competition, the third-place prizes were awarded to four singers whom the judges said received identical scores.”

“Some 80% of available tickets were issued, and overall audience attendance is estimated at more than 415,000.”

“The rise-from-the-dead drama that has unfolded here is being applauded as a hopeful sign in what has otherwise been a decidedly dispiriting stretch for opera, what with the closing of New York City Opera and the bitter labor battle that was recently resolved at the Metropolitan Opera.”