Kim’s appointment doesn’t just bring a musician of obvious artistry and interpersonal gifts to the company. The hiring of an Asian woman is also a historic advance for diversity, a badly needed development in a field where white men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions. – San Francisco Chronicle
Category: music
How The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Balanced Its Budget
The chamber orchestra is known for its low ticket prices; half go for $15 or less. That’s partly thanks to two programs: With a Netflix-style membership, people can pay just $9 a month to attend unlimited concerts. And, since 2016, children and college students get in for free. About 19.8% of the nonprofit’s income in 2019 was “earned,” a category that includes ticket sales, down from 22.4% last year. About 62.8% of its income came from contributions from people, companies and foundations, up slightly. The other piece of the pie — $1.9 million this year — comes from the SPCO’s endowment. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
What Classical And Jazz Concerts Offer That We Need So Badly These Days
Howard Reich: “Step into Orchestra Hall or the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, Carnegie Hall or the Village Vanguard in Manhattan, Palais Garnier or Duc des Lombard in Paris, and you are entering sacred spaces where listeners seek something other than noise and sensation. … This means everyone in the audience must do something that increasingly is becoming a rarity: keep quiet and listen. Our individual voices, our opinions, our fervently held beliefs, our prejudices are not to be voiced here, at least not until concert’s end.” – Chicago Tribune
How The New Irish National Opera Has Helped Irish Opera
More Irish singers are being heard in more varied roles than at any other stage in my professional lifetime. Irish works are being taken abroad. The company has been rewarded with international awards and award nominations. – Irish Times
A History Of The Toy Piano As Serious Concert Instrument
“Even now, 70+ years since John Cage’s seminal Suite for Toy Piano from 1948, the toy piano still feels like Duchamp’s upside-down urinal (Fountain): out of place on stage, it elicits giggles and scoffs, is the star of the show, and at least promises a memorable experience, musical and otherwise.” Yet now there’s an entire concert repertory for the little contraption. – NewMusicBox
Why Buying Music On Physical Media (CDs, Vinyl) Is Growing
Services like Spotify and Apple Music can’t just upload whatever music they’d like. Legal disputes, sample clearance issues — when permission can’t be obtained for the use of part of a song in a new song — and rights-holders withholding music can all get in the way of music being available on your streaming platform of choice. And that can make the music even more difficult and more expensive to get your hands on physically. – The Conversation
The Seattle Symphony’s Miraculous Reinvention (And Now New Challenges)
Ten years ago the Seattle Symphony was badly broken. Miraculously, a new leadership team emerged, the orchestra chased reinvention and its fortunes soared. Now that leadership has departed and there are big questions about what’s next. – Post Alley
Anne Midgette: The Exit Interview
“I felt like it was really time to move on. I could see myself doing the same thing for the next 20 years and I don’t want that. … Music has never been my only interest and it’s always bemused me a little bit that I ended up as a classical music critic.” – Perfect Sound Forever
When Shakespeare Stands Up To Sing
Giuseppe Verdi’s last two operas, the Shakespearean diptych of Otello and Falstaff, together constitute my favorite case study in what happens when a play is made to stand up and sing. Both the source material and the musical adaptations are works of singular beauty and power. To study these operas alongside their sources is to see what is gained and what is lost, what remains intact and what is transformed, when a complex human drama is adapted from speech into song. – New York Review of Books
After 150 Years, Vienna State Opera Presents Its First Opera By A Woman
“One hundred and fifty years is a long time. But I’ve always said it’s never too late. So it’s good that they finally have thought about it. And at least if you’re the first, there has to be a second and a third and so on. So it’s always good to have a starting point.” – BBC