Category: music

That’s the (predictable) debate that has arisen since a video of the orchestra’s performance with Sir Mix-a-Lot and a few dozen boogie-ing women started racking up the YouTube views. But that clip came from an actual concert of contemporary classical music, including a premiere by one Gabriel Prokofiev.

“Classical pianist Sara Davis Buechner played with some of the most prestigious orchestras in the United States, winning praise from presidents and capturing awards that pointed to a promising career as one of the best in the world. But back then, she was a man named David.”

“Many labels and the musicians and songwriters they work with say streaming outfits risk wiping them out by paying tiny royalties, but the people who make all that yummy music are actually being loved to death by fans who expect it to be free. And it’s only going to become worse.”

“Tickets to the laser light show set to symphony music, scheduled for Aug. 1-3 in Washington Park, became available online at 8 a.m. Monday via Ticketmaster. They were gone by 8:12 a.m., said Meghan Berneking, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra spokeswoman.”

“For several years, he has been the most widely-performed living classical composer, but that is just the beginning. Thom Yorke, PJ Harvey, Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave, and Keith Jarrett all claim him as a major influence. Lupe Fiasco, heavy metal bands, and Berlin DJs frequently sample his works. His music lurks behind scenes in There Will Be Blood, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Gravity, just to name a few of his film credits.”

“Everyone in the stadium started to sing, and I found myself in the middle of a giant 38,000-strong choir. There was a huge repertoire of songs for every emotion – joy, defiance, taunting, encouragement, elation – and many hilarious ones of imaginatively lewd sexual ridicule. … We are not nearly so clever at our sporting events in America.”

“After expanding its season for the fourth year in a row, Houston Grand Opera … projects that its operating budget of about $27.7 million will come out in the black … Ticket sales totaled 92 percent of capacity for the mainstage series.”

“With scarcity now gone, songs are in the air, a mist we move through like so much department store perfume. We are no longer collecting music; it is collecting us on various platforms.”

“The ideal ‘dream dog’ — a companion to the man in the moon, one of the characters in ‘Midsummer’s’ play-within-the-play, ‘Pyramus and Thisbe,’ would be calm, a little sleepy looking and tolerant of loud music.”

“We are getting a newer audience, a younger audience, but there aren’t enough new audience members to replace the old audience members who are dying off.”