“He is putting songs on smartphones in Africa, reviving moribund American record labels and making Lorde into a Grammy-winning global sensation. Above all, he wants to forge new partnerships with his industry’s erstwhile adversaries — the technology firms that have upended the way people get their music.”
Category: music
How An Orchestra Looks Affects How You Think It Sounds
“Participants across the board were better at identifying the more accomplished groups by watching them, not by listening to them. In fact, even when music and video were combined in clips, it was actually harder for participants to identify the top groups than by video alone.”
How To Get Rid Of Those Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head
“While people’s strategies for ridding themselves of unwanted aural guests fell into one of two broad categories—distraction or coping—the most successful way to remove an earworm, they found, was to deal with it head on, by intentionally listening to the song or singing it out loud, no matter how embarrassing the song.”
The Densest Music Ever?
“Black MIDI,” a subculture of electronic music remixing that mutated into existence in Japan five years ago, is an aesthetic snapshot of the early 21st century if there ever was one. It’s digital, viral, and truly “multimedia”–because it’s music, data visualization, and software demonstration at once.
“Inherent Dullness”: A Young Man Goes To An Orchestra Concert
“I had trouble enjoying myself. My brother did too. This by no means is to suggest that the orchestra itself was poor. Perhaps me and my bro are just uncultured, southern swine. More likely it was just not for us (and by extension a lot of people in my age range). I enjoy symphony music. I have a playlist of classical music on my Spotify. But I thought sitting and watching the orchestra play has an inherent dullness.”
Why Ravel Was An (Almost) Great Composer
“Everything in Ravel’s music is held at a distance, as it was in his life. Just think what iron discipline and self-denial it must have taken, to keep the messy intimacies of life at bay. There’s a similar denial in the music. You always know where the music’s heading; there’s no sense of discovery or risk.”
Why Robert Ashley Was a Great Opera Composer (And Why So Few Americans Knew of Him)
For a start, it’s because his approach to writing opera was, as he wrote, “Put aside intelligibility, put aside urgency of plot. Put in embellishment. Put in Maria Callas and Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday.” Mark Swed explains.
Reports of Kiri Te Kanawa’s Retirement Are Greatly Exaggerated
While she did just make her last opera appearance, she says, “One door closes and another door opens but as to retiring, I’ve never ever had that word in my vocabulary. Only thing is that other people have got it in their vocabulary because they can’t think of anything else to say.”
Ex-Orchestra CEO in Silicon Valley Indicted for Embezzlement
“Stephen Jay Carlton, the former executive director of the Los Altos-based Peninsula Symphony, is facing felony charges for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the nonprofit organization, prosecutors said Wednesday.”
Wilmington, NC to Get Its First Opera Company
“Opera Wilmington is now formally incorporated and is applying for federal non-profit status … Plans now call for the company to mount a production of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow, in English, July 25-27 … with a cast of student and local singers.”