Category: music

“Though the Nashville Symphony continues to negotiate with lenders on the $102 million in debt tied to construction of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the symphony could see its building put up for sale to the highest bidder on the courthouse steps.”

“Canadian opera singer Lance Ryan was missing from the production of Wagner’s opera – the third in the famous Ring cycle.”

“The milestone was reached on Monday, almost 10 years after legal downloads were launched.”

“Both organizations were deeply affected by plunges in subscription ticket sales and corporate donations, which became a strong motivator for a merger. Those pressures led the 31-year-old Sacramento Opera to cancel most of its 2011-12 season and the Sacramento Philharmonic to threaten closure last year.”

“OSM officials are denying that Kent Nagano will be on his way in 2016 – without quite affirming that the Californian conductor is planning to stay.”

“Striking opera house workers at Milan’s prestigious La Scala have forced the cancellation of a performance on Sunday of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth conducted by Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.”

“HMV, the UK’s last surviving national music retailer, collapsed in January after months of financial crisis. No figure has been officially announced, but the deal is believed to be worth about £50m.”

“British opera companies, including the Royal Opera House (ROH), will watch from the wings on 22 April as the prize for the world’s best company goes to one of five contenders.”

“When Richard Wagner began composing ‘The Ring of the Nibelung,’ his visionary opera cycle, he became dissatisfied with a particular musical theme. The solution, he decided, was not to rewrite the passage but to foster the creation of a new instrument to perform it–the Wagner tuba.”

“Most of us look at professional composers in the same way that the sports world looks at specialists such as fencers: we can understand the basic concept of the sport (once it’s explained to us every four years during the Olympics), but very few of us ever get the chance to try such an activity.”