Category: music

“To date, no American orchestra of comparable distinction has ever been forced to disband because of fiscal problems. Such a catastrophe seems bound to happen sooner or later, though.”

“When you think of bird songs, you probably think of songs that come from their mouths. But hummingbirds have a whole different kind of music – one that comes from their feathers. As they fly, they spread their tail feathers, and the air passes through them, causing them to flutter. And that flutter, like a violin string, creates sound.”

“The most recent arrest was just outside Turner Field, where police took a man’s trombone and cuffed him.”

Richard Mills “has withdrawn just months before the November launch of the $15 million Neil Armfield production of Wagner’s tetralogy, due to a lack of both ‘chemistry between cast and conductor’ and ‘unity of vision’, Mills commented in a statement issued today.”

“The anonymous benefactor who recently paid the entire $142,000 balance in taxes to prevent Detroit’s Masonic Temple from falling into foreclosure was revealed Tuesday to be musician Jack White, who played there as a solo artist and with his former band, the White Stripes.”

The French capital has long been a great center for organ music. Just over half of Paris’s 234 organs, including a number of important historic instruments, are the responsibility of the city council – whose entire maintenance budget of €250,000 is enough for the upkeep of about 11 of them.

“It’s hard to catch culprits, because smart phones are so small they can quickly disappear back into bags and it’s hard to pick people out in the dark. Clearly some people think buying a concert ticket entitles them to the film rights as well.”

“Listening on my laptop wasn’t so much making me think music shouldn’t take up physical space – it was making me forget the aural space that music was supposed to take up. My ears stopped expecting so much from the sound. The songs were compressed; the quality decreased; the speakers just two little discreet areas on either side of my typing hands.”

“Austrian musical director Alexander Pereira was picked on Tuesday to head up the prestigious La Scala opera house in Milan, replacing Frenchman Stéphane Lissner, the city’s mayor said. The 65-year-old former tourism manager is currently artistic director of the Salzburg Festival and formerly led the Zurich Opera House.”