Category: music

The Guardian (UK)’s music staff weigh in – and tell tales of giving back.

“There is no formula for innovation in opera production. Both avant-garde and time-tested approaches can work. That Mr. Gelb has thought hard about this, recruited major directors and brought audiences some remarkable work is to his credit. Even so, just as the Met needs an exemplary music director, it could use a comparably experienced artist to oversee productions. With so much else to do, you would think that Mr. Gelb would welcome the notion.”

“Today, the 20th century’s most successful musical “ism” has got its repetitive, beat-based tentacles in every part of musical culture, from film scores to pop albums, jazz riffs to contemporary classical soundscapes, and a musical movement that began in lofts, galleries and collective spaces in New York and San Francisco in the 1960s has become an international phenomenon. If its big idea is that less is more, then minimalism has done more with less than pretty well any other musical movement in history.”

“The National Music Plan, jointly set out by education secretary Michael Gove and culture minister Ed Vaizey, aims to give every child, regardless of where they live or how well off they are, the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. “Hubs” will be created to provide music education locally. But they will do so on vastly reduced funding.”

“A native of Cumberland, Md., James Allan Wilkinson has been a familiar face at Heinz Hall since 1976, when he settled a musicians strike. Since then, the experienced arbitrator has negotiated a dozen three-year contracts on management’s behalf.”

“Graffiti daubed on the walls of a flat by the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten could be as important as the discovery of early Beatles recordings – or even the prehistoric Lascaux cave paintings,” according to a scholar from the University of York.

“Welcome to the revolution – the Classical Revolution, that is. Across North America, classical players are returning chamber music to its origins: informal performances among friends in intimate settings. It’s a loose network that now has a presence in many U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago and Washington, and also in a few places in Europe.”

“We’re not making religious music, our ideals are just embedded into it,” explains the lead rapper of the group called Shtar. “Torah is just the structure for expressing yourself and being the best you.”

“The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra announced today an extension of its contract with its 86 musicians. Key to the contract, a generous gift from 100-year-old arts patron Louise Dieterle Nippert that will allow the orchestra to substantially address its underfunded pension plans.”

‘The 639-year performance based on American composer John Cage’s ‘As slow as possible’ started in September 2001 – with more than a year of silence. Visitors hoping to experience the next chord change of the organ at the former St. Burchard church in the German town of Halberstadt will have to wait until July 2012.”