Category: music

This odd brass instrument – something like a cross between a tuba and a saxophone – featured in the orchestras used by Verdi, Mendelssohn, Wagner and especially Berlioz but had fallen out of use by 1900. Yet when New York composer William Perry heard Sydney brass virtuoso Nick Byrne play the ophicleide, a beautiful relationship was born and a new concerto conceived.

“After an ill-fated gamble on an outsider, the New Jersey Symphony has turned to a familiar face for its next leader. …[James] Roe Roe has been the orchestra’s lead oboist (in an acting role) since 2011, and has worked as a freelance musician and an arts administrator in New York.”

Though no one stated it specifically, there was a “black sound” and a “white sound.” To like a “white sound,” or worse, a white musician who “sounded black,” was cultural treason. Without realizing it at the time, this inhibited me on many levels.

“I’m a bit angry at the world for not having come up with another way of discovering talent other than competitions,” says Boris Giltburg, who recently won Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth Competition. He insists that he’d never serve on a jury himself, even as he’s grateful to the jurors who just boosted his career.

The composer and librettist of the new opera The Gospel of Mary Magdalene talks about what he found in years of studying scripture – the Canonical Gospels, Gnostic and apocryphal gospels, the letters of Paul – that led him to depict Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala as husband and wife.

“True or false? The quality of a Stradivarius violin stems from its combination of wood and varnish, the secret of which has yet to be uncovered.”

“Researchers report the soothing sounds of a Mozart minuet boosts the ability of children and seniors to focus on a task and ignore extraneous information.”

Andrew Druckenbrod: “At the end of this month, I will leave the beat to finish an MBA and to consult in the nonprofit sector. … I will occasionally appear as a freelancer (including for several concerts in fall).”

“At the end of August, an FM transmitter will be set up in the middle of the Galloway Forest to broadcast music from dozens of artists over the course of 24 hours. Those who want to hear it will have to head to the forest. There will be no repeats, and the files will be deleted after they are played.”