Category: music

“Her dramatic gold medal at the Munich Olympics in 1972 ensured her status in her home country of Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Now the pentathlete Dame Mary Peters is to be remembered in a 12-minute opera composed to coincide with the London Games.”

“The appointment of a new concertmaster is always a landmark in the life of an orchestra, but for the DSO the stakes are even higher. A standout hire would signal an artistic and psychological turning point in the drive to rebuild the ranks after last season’s tumultuous strike.”

“At an HD broadcast are you at the movies or at a performance? The most disconcerting part of the HD experience comes when it is time to applaud. Or not.”

“The implication is that those institutions or lineups can’t have anything to contribute to musical thinking, that the musical ideas that composers in the past have dreamed of in their orchestral works, quartets and operas, have filled the repertoire, and our imaginations, to the brim.”

“After a quarter of a century of obsolescence, the LP is making a comeback worthy of any religious resurrection. How it has risen from charity shop basement to wealthy living room is a parable for our times, a classic example of popular resistance to the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and market forces. This is a turnaround equivalent to the vindication of homeopathy, the revival of newsprint and the return of the French monarchy, a romantic defiance of intellect and reality.”

The sweet-voiced blond hunkentenor was diagnosed last December, the morning after he performed in the opening night of Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden. “It was a shock, especially with the cancer being so close to my vocal cords,” he said. “The surgery has been a great success.”

“A planned visit to the United States by North Korea’s National Symphony Orchestra next month has been postponed following Pyongyang’s [failed] launch of a long-range rocket.”

“If you used to have a big single, you would sell a million albums, and if you sell a million albums and you’re a band, you can probably not have to work for a couple years. We don’t have that luxury.”

Greg Scholl is a former NBC Universal executive with a background in digital music distribution.

“The American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (AFM-EPF), which had filed a $35 million claim in the case, will drop all its legal challenges in exchange for $1.75 million from the orchestra. The fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”