Category: music

“The labor union that represents singers and chorus members at the San Diego Opera is asking a federal agency to get an injunction freezing the company’s assets so that union members with contracts can be paid.”

Two professors, a DJ, and a radio executive explore why Pharrell Williams’s hit has such an effect on so many people.

“The event, now in its second year, launched in 2013 and was designed to be the first truly international set of prizes in the operatic world.” The Zurich Opera was named company of the year; the Aldeburgh Festival’s site-specific beach staging of Peter Grimes won a prize for best production of the Britten anniversary year.

“As the music industry continues to struggle financially and once-dominant types of music like hip-hop recede on the charts, country’s audience has grown stronger, wider and younger — a fact that has not escaped the notice of media companies that have invested heavily in the genre.”

“The latest labor talks at the Met have gotten off to their most contentious start in decades, replete with colorfully threatening emails and emotions running nearly as high offstage as on.”

Regarding the guesses over whether an instrument was old or new, 31 were right and 33 were wrong. “The data rather clearly demonstrate the inability of the players to reliably guess an instrument’s age,” the researchers write.

“Let’s at least try to discuss the larger implications of female sexuality on pop culture without shaming each other. There’s more than one way to be a good feminist.”

I hear the phrase “it’s a matter of taste” quite a lot. What a prohibitive position—it sounds like “our differences in perception present irreconcilable differences and we should stop talking now.” “Taste” and “quality” strike me as entirely different forces.

“Ms. Opolais, who said that she would normally be resting her voice after a night singing ‘Butterfly,’ found herself singing her second Puccini opera, and playing out her second Puccini death scene, on the stage of the Met within the space of 18 hours. While she had sung the role of Mimi at the Vienna State Opera and elsewhere, she had never done it at the Met.”

“Purists will continue to resist the trend, maintaining that projections can never replace flesh-and-blood performers, but less discerning concertgoers may still give this new advent the support it needs.”