Category: music

“Ironically, for all its problems (and all the industry’s problems), EMI is not bust. It just had too much debt. It does not have to be sold to another music company to survive.”

“Detroit residents can now buy tickets to any Detroit Symphony Orchestra classical or jazz concert this season for $20. Paul Hogle is executive vice president of the DSO. He says the new Detroit Rush Initiative is one way the orchestra can ‘connect more deeply’ to the city.”

“What I like about playing piano,” she observed, is that “it’s kind of an escape from life, which is perfect for a lonely artist. We practice alone, we do lessons alone. The most alone time is right before I go onstage–it’s like, ‘Can anyone help me? I guess not.'”

“What comes out of this attempt to relabel or retire the word classical from the music made by classically trained and influenced contemporary musicians? Is it merely an attempt to avoid association with a term that seems to turn off large segments of potential audience?”

“Significant battles threaten, and it still is not entirely clear what kind of an orchestra lies at the end of the [bankruptcy] process.”

“When opera star Stephen Costello needed a tonsillectomy, Academy of Vocal Arts teacher Bill Schuman was at his side. He not only builds voices, he reclaims them.”

Shauna Rolston has taken to touring with a shiny black cello made from carbon fiber. Carbon Baby can be banged around and dropped without damage, is impervious to humidity, and can be cleaned with Windex. Rolston and her colleagues insist that the instrument sounds at least as good as a traditional wooden cello.

“A group of musicians got together in Melbourne this week to test the early draft of an opera based on Assange’s life and work. Called Wikileaks — and endorsed by Assange — it was the first glimpse, behind closed doors, of one of Opera Australia’s more risky ventures.”

“Don’t tell the members of an opera orchestra they are merely “accompanying” the singers onstage. It’s not a word these musicians use – and they take their oom-pah-pahs very seriously.”

As the London Symphony Orchestra’s Colin Davis arrives at Carnegie Hall, he ponders what it means to lead an orchestra when he’s 84. “Conductors are paid to think, and that’s what the job should be about: sitting at home thinking, what is this piece? How can I set it up to sound its best and live on, because there’s nothing to replace it with just yet? This is what absorbs the mind. Especially in old age.”