Category: music

“Opera Australia has released soprano Tamar Iveri from her contract following a furore over ‘unconscionable’ homophobic comments posted on the singer’s Facebook page.”

“In a sense, it’s a lot fairer, because the chart becomes a measurement of the genuine excitement around certain songs, and how that changes over time even after people have started to listen privately.”

“It’s an emotional time,” he said. “Whether we’re playing Beethoven or whatever, I’m thinking, ‘My last one, my last one.’ “

“The old overture-concerto-symphony model, with no real relationship among the pieces, gives no identity to a concert, no marketing hook. It’s just another ‘one from column A, one from column B’ mishmash. Slapping alliterative labels for single pieces on concerts — ‘Marvelous Mozart,’ ‘Bombastic Beethoven,’ ‘Ravishing Ravel’ — is pretty lame.”

“Multi-Story grew out of experimenting with performing classical music in as many different spaces as possible (bars, clubs, warehouses, and museums). We wanted to get our friends to hear classical music, and felt, instinctively, that escaping the stiffness and formality of concert hall would be the way to do this.”

“The current contract was set to expire Aug. 31, 2015; the agreement” – which runs through August 2018 – “comes 14 months ahead of schedule. That undoubtedly will smooth the way for new Seattle Opera general director Aidan Lang, who takes the helm of the opera company this fall.”

“The final blow came last year when Italy’s government decided that only theaters with a balanced budget by the end of 2014 can access public money, exposing some opera houses to the risk of shutting down if they didn’t put their finances in order” – a notoriously difficult task in Italy. Yet one famous old theater has become quite entrepreneurial.

“The Philharmonic’s leadership has clearly internalized the fact that an orchestra is not just a crew of musicians assembled to deliver the megaliths of the musical repertoire; it’s an elastic organization whose assets include curiosity and clout.”

“According to Chad Boyd, the symphony’s chief financial officer, the $39 million included some $30 million the symphony owed to the banks on a mortgage with a balance of $85.3 million and another $9 million due to the lenders under a related interest swap agreement, a deal meant to hedge against rate fluctuations.”

Mark Swed: “But in fact, the only anti-Semitism this work – which delves deep into the idealistic roots but inevitably evil practices of terrorism – has ever engendered has been because of often successful pressure from Jewish groups to ban performances of Klinghoffer rather than incorporate poetic tragedy into the peace process.”