Category: music

“The board noted insufficient financial support, declining attendees and season ticket subscribers and the high cost of concerts as reasons for the decision.”

“What’s astonishing about it is the range and depth of what they’ve got on the shelves. You ain’t seen nothin’ in terms of physically available CDs if you haven’t been to this particular patch of classical-music paradise.”

“The Mendelssohn Effektorium, by design studio WhiteVOID, is an interactive installation that allows you to have complete control over a virtual symphony. In this world you’re Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and your instruments come in the form of 13 upright speakers with digital displays on them.”

“Is a conductor no more than a combination of timekeeper and showman, emoting like mad for the crowds? Or does he (or she) truly reveal something extra in the music, some extra ounce of expressive intensity or layer of meaning that the players might not discover for themselves?” Ivan Hewitt’s answer to these two questions is – yes.

After 33 years with the company, on Monday James Caraher “sent a ‘very short email’ to the board and staff that … said he had decided to resign, effective immediately.”

“The trend is driven in part by orchestras’ efforts to attract younger concertgoers, who tend to embrace visual stimulation and the mixture of art forms—think graphics as DJs spin records. Meanwhile, advances in digital technology now give video artists enormous flexibility to manipulate footage, allowing them to tweak their pieces live.”

“An analysis of medical-insurance records of Germans found that, compared to non-musicians, professional musicians were nearly four times more likely to experience some degree of noise-related hearing loss.”

“And you don’t always think about how difficult it is to succeed in a field that requires you to be able to bounce from one singing gig on Newbury Street, hop a Green Line car and bang out another in Newton, before zooming back to Harvard Square for the final performance of the day.”

Researchers report that they’ve found that guitarists can synchronize their neural networks (gosh, like string quartets?) and, when they’re shredding, turn off the parts of the brain associated with big-picture goals (maybe like jazz musicians riffing?). But what about violists and bassoonists, huh?

“The golden age, if indeed it existed, must have been fleeting and local, making it more sensible to think about the future than dwell on divergence from a misremembered past. What will the American orchestra be like in 2050?”