Category: music

“It’s been a long time since music had the whiff of danger, and longer still since it carried the beat of political change, at least in democracies. Hardly anyone would’ve expected that to come out of Russia, where both the songcraft and the messaging seem outdated, vestiges of retro power-pop and a barely concealed propaganda machine.”

“The success of this summer’s hit, Carly Rae Jepsen’s cheerfully flirty “Call Me Maybe,” shows how much the hitmaking machine, as well as the music industry itself, has been upended by social media.”

A cellist buys a plane seat for his cello, boards the plane with it, and is told cellos can’t be passengers. You see, WestJet has this rule…

“For millennia, authors of poetry and prose have run afoul of governments all across the political spectrum for the views expressed in their writings. Visual artists have had their share of censorship problems as well. But music?”

“For financial reasons, Lyric Opera Virginia has postponed the opera originally set to open its season. Giacomo Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West will be performed in September 2013 instead of next month. The company, founded in early 2011 by Peter Mark after he was fired from the Virginia Opera, will begin this season in January with Camelot.

“In 1962, most musicians in major symphony orchestras were employed little more than six months annually at an average salary of $5,000 that was barely a living wage back then. Health insurance and pension benefits were virtually non-existent. … Battles with employers were rife, and job security was tenuous.” So 30 musicians from a dozen orchestras got together and worked out how to start improving things.

It’s New Jersey-based WWFM, which has just expanded into New York and Philadelphia on HD. Says station manager Peter Fretwell, “The day I walk into a doctor’s office and hear WWFM is the day we’ve failed, unless the doctor happens to be a serious aficionado. … If it’s art, it deserves full attention. Front and center.”

Valentina Lisitsa “was born in Kiev and started playing piano at the age of three. In the space of five years she has gone from almost quitting the business to being one of the internet’s most watched classical musicians, dubbed ‘the Justin Bieber of the classical world’ for the reported 43 million visitors to her YouTube channel.”

Anne Midgette: “It’s perfectly true that a number of great stars of the past were not great actors (though some were very great actors) … Montserrat Caballé and Victoria de los Angeles, to name two. However: Caballé was an absolutely compelling presence on stage. She had personality in spades. She offered something that you wanted to see, hear, experience.”

“So the Proms have changed patronage and building, but one thing has been wonderfully maintained while being developed and amplified: their spirit.”