“A nonprofit on the East Side that partnered with public schools, the [Turtle Bay Music School] announced in November that it would be forced to close due to a lack of funding. The entire conceit of TBMS, summed up in its mission statement, was that every single person should be able to learn an instrument and enjoy making music. That ‘every single person’ part was key — if you couldn’t afford lessons, tuition assistance could help.” – Gothamist
Category: music
Why Singing In Choirs Has Become Cool Again
For all of the people running them, a choir is often not just a choir, but also a social club, a community and a charity. For me, it has become a refuge; I can’t check my phone when I am hollering and humming, and holding a note distracts me from the usual clutter of my mind. – The Guardian
Bach’s Own Church Vandalized On New Year’s Eve
An unknown attacker lobbed heavy stones at the windows of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig on Tuesday. No one was injured, but two 19th-century stained glass windows and nearly two dozen Art Nouveau panels were destroyed. – Deutsche Welle
On The Edges Of A Huge South American Landfill, An Orchestra With Instruments Made Out Of Garbage
Most people who live near the Cateura dump outside Asunción, the Paraguayan capital, scratch out a living by digging out anything that can be resold, and buying a musical instrument would be an impossible dream. But local carpenter Nicolás Gómez and music teacher Favio Chávez decided that they could build musical instruments and give children there free music lessons — and so the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura was born. – Al Jazeera
Sarasota To Sarasota Symphony: Don’t Leave
City officials are especially sensitive to the possibility of losing the Sarasota Orchestra after the recent relocation of two other cultural institutions outside of the city. – Sarasota Herald Tribune
Jimmy Iovine: The Music Business’s Looming Problem
“Margin. It doesn’t scale. At Netflix, the more subscribers you have, the less your costs are. In streaming music, the costs follow you. And the streaming music services are utilities — they’re all the same. Look at what’s working in video. Disney has nothing but original stuff. Netflix has tons of original stuff. But the music streaming services are all the same, and that’s a problem.” – The New York Times
How Opera Is Dealing With #MeToo
“Within the past year, most opera companies have started holding regular sexual harassment workshops, and many distribute and read aloud their sexual harassment policy to incoming casts before the start of rehearsals and distribute contact information for reporting incidents.” – The New York Times (AP)
The End Of A Decade-Long Music Project That Was Originally Meant To Be A One-Off
The Green Mountain Project, which has been devoted to producing end-of-year concerts of Monteverdi’s 1610 “Vesper of the Blessed Virgin since 2010, is coming to an end this year in New York – and then heading to Venice. Jolle Greenleaf: “Ending this project needed to be done in a way that really honored everything that everybody did over the years. It feels like the crowning glory — we are going to do it where Monteverdi flourished and was buried. But it’s a little crazy. There’s so many pieces to the organization. There are no cars; there are so many rules. Getting a chamber organ meant renting it from pretty far away and then putting it on a boat.” – The New York Times
Why Some Pop Bands Are Giving Up Encores
The banality of encores has long been a frustration for some musicians, but, in recent years, a growing number of notable acts have taken a stand against performing them at all. – Toronto Star