Category: music

Take, for example, the $169,000 poppy field used in this season’s $4.3 million production of “Prince Igor.” How does a flower patch cost $169,000? To explain, the Met pulled back the curtain on the five-year process of developing and budgeting “Prince Igor.”

“‘I am watching history being made!’ exclaimed a gray-haired woman … as she sat on the patio packing an ample amount of ‘Flo’ into her glass pipe. … In a corner near the front entrance, the dispensaries that, along with a soil company and Leafly, a Yelp-like site for marijuana strains, together shelled out $30,000 in event sponsorships manned schwag tables offering up promotional rolling papers, lighters, and glass storage jars.”

The Irish maestro, just turned 30, recently left his position as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and is about to begin two years as assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic. He takes the reins in Jacksonville at the start of the 2015-16 season.

“Notwithstanding that admittedly feeble attempt at humor, the belief in a jazz police has become very toxic these days… I want to add some harmony to the discord that exists between musicians and writers. I strongly feel that we need to deal with this myth of the jazz police; otherwise the future of our music will continue to dwindle in the coming years.”

“The text of a novel — with the first experiments including To Kill a Mockingbird and Alice in Wonderland — is segmented into four parts, the octaves determined by the “joy and sadness densities,” and the length of notes set by the density of those emotions. These emotions in turn are determined by a database of words linked to eight different sentiments, including joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, trust, fear, surprise, and sadness.”

At the Oregon Symphony, Showalter represents a victory for the Re-inventors, one that I wouldn’t have predicted last fall when it looked as though the Cutters on the board had the upper hand.

“The investigation found that, after seeing an opera at the cinema, around 75% of participants reported feeling no different about attending a live production, with around 10% feeling less motivated. … It [also] revealed that around 80% of cinema opera attendees were more than 60 years old, which was slightly older than the average age of live opera-goers.”

The lead producer of Madiba: The African Opera, who is Nelson Mandela’s grand-nephew, says that the R2.86 million [$2.73 million] awarded by South Africa’s national lottery was not enough to pay the large cast and crew for the full five-show premiere run in Pretoria, let alone the planned national tour.

“For the Opéra de Paris, whose two stages are typically sold out, the screening in local movie theaters – even in Paris – is not seen as a threat but as an opportunity to widen the tent and bring in audiences who, as French taxpayers, support 50 percent of its annual costs. That is one of the reasons why the Opéra de Paris is pleased with distribution in smaller towns and has encouraged [local cinema managers] to turn the screenings into festive occasions.”

“Allah was accused of supplying the stun gun to Salah Jones, who allegedly incapacitated [Milwaukee Symphony concertmaster] Frank Almond with the weapon as he left a concert in a Milwaukee suburb on Jan. 27 and took the violin, valued at about $5 million.” He faces up to 15 years in prison.