Category: music

“She has nerve damage, and she is unable to sustain notes, and she has problems standing for long periods — all the physical requirements necessary to perform in an opera.”

“At a first rehearsal, musicians sitting at the back look at a conductor in the hope that he’ll look back at them occasionally. If they’re ignored for more than 10 minutes, they give up and retreat into their parts.”

“For the past two months, the players’ union and orchestra managers have been attempting to negotiate the terms of a new musicians’ contract. Those talks couldn’t have come at a worse time for the players, whose most recent collective bargaining agreement expired Wednesday.”

As the board chairman’s announcement put it, “With the greatest reluctance I have accepted Andrew’s decision to retire later this year.” Andrew Shaw “is the guy who is largely credited with saving the TSO from disaster after its near-death crisis in 2001, when bankruptcy and scandal loomed, and the entire board of directors had to resign.”

“When Frank Castorf, the avant-garde German director responsible for this confounding concept , took the stage with his production team, almost the entire audience, it seemed, erupted with loud, prolonged boos. It went on for nearly 10 minutes, by my watch, because Mr. Castorf, 62, who has been running the Volksbühne (People’s Theater) of Berlin since 1992, stood steadfast on stage, his arms folded stiffly, he sometimes jabbed a finger at the audience,essentially defying the crowd to keep it coming.”

“The National Youth Orchestra of Canada reminds us why we were drawn to classical music in the first place. They revive for us the heart and soul of this special art form, and present it with skill and the exuberant joy the young seem to have as their birthright.”

“The event, free to the public, is expected to draw 20,000 people to the park over two nights. The effort took six months of planning and an estimated $500,000, including production costs.”

“The San Antonio Symphony on Wednesday said its president and CEO, Jack Downey, has left after less than three months on the job following a budget dispute with organization’s board chairman. … Downey’s departure and [David] Green’s interim role means the symphony’s top administrative position has been held by four different people since late November.”

“After five years, the streaming music service Spotify has established itself as a financial force in the music industry, with more than $500 million in revenue last year. Yet its losses have also grown as the company expands around the world and tries to attract paying customers.”

” Music used to be a secret, hidden by the barriers of nation and region and history, and you could prove that you could feel a sense of knowledge or at least discovery by finding out what was on the other side of that (not necessarily large) hillock over there. Now all the hillocks are leveled, or at least the internet elevates us so that we can look over them anytime we want.”