Category: music

“A vandal is wanted for spray painting obscenities on sculptures and paintings inside of the Metropolitan Opera house at Lincoln Center, cops said. It appears to be an inside job stemming from labor issues at the opera house, a police source said.”

Music, like much else, has become globalised, drawing from different times and places. As Bryce Dessner puts it, “You can’t really say, that’s a guy from a rock band who writes classical music. You should say the opposite: Jonny Greenwood was a classical violist who became a guitarist with Radiohead.”

Alex Ross suggests that the opera’s ongoing role as a controversy magnet is rooted in “its pensive, ambivalent attitude toward present-day issues about which a great many people feel no ambivalence whatsoever.”

“It is really important that we understand who our audiences are, and how they are going to participate in the music-making. We have to stay current (with respect to) programming, our use of electronic media, the experience of being in the concert hall, also the experience of hearing music outside the concert hall. My effort (has been) to sustain and nurture this institution and figure out how to make it more meaningful (to more people).” (includes video)

“Why were the wronged musicians and their friends still so quiet? And, come to think of it, why did we maintain silence for nine months as we awaited sums of money that, to us, make or break our ability to pay the rent? For me, the story of the Beethoven Festival is a story of vulnerability: my own individual vulnerability, that of my colleagues, and that of our entire musical community.”

“Executives and advocates for the indies say they are vulnerable to strong-arm tactics by Internet giants like YouTube, which has recently threatened to block some labels’ videos unless they sign new licensing deals. Like the standoff between Amazon and the book publisher Hachette, the dispute has crystallized a fear that access to the online marketplace controlled by a few has become a privilege affordable only by the biggest and richest players.”

“As the tour progressed, travel fatigue set in, along with the stress of juggling personal lives, and brittle behavior from too much cocaine use by some of the bandmembers. The dollar figure for the tour was never really known and the huge expenses the band was racking up were being billed back to them. On stage, the music was sensational. Offstage, drugs made their discussions sound more like pontifications or monologues rather than conversations—each one insisting that his viewpoint was the right one.”

The retiring New York Philharmonic concertmaster remembers rescuing Steinberg, walking out on Lenny, and shooting Danny Kaye.

As with male birds and their songs or courting dances, “when you’re able to display that you have the time and resources to perfect your ability, then that ends up being attractive to a potential mate … If you can take care of yourself and learn a skill like music, then you can likely take care of a mate.”

“Sales are increasingly an archaic way to measure both the consumption and the popularity of music. If a modern chart is to reflect both of those properly, then streaming must be a part of it.”