Category: music

“The promise of better acoustics is the whole raison d’être for l’Adresse symphonique, the first cultural building to be raised under the province’s recent legislation governing private-public partnerships. Everything outside the auditorium – backstage and front-of-house areas, foyers and delivery spaces – have been fit into a tight footprint at Place des Arts, with not much in the way of optional amenities.”

“The Symphony’s progression from the late 1970s to its centennial year may look organic and preordained when viewed in retrospect. But none of it happened by accident or without some risky and counterintuitive moves along the way.”

“South African black opera voices have burst onto the international stage … Experts say their rise is no sudden outpouring of new talent but rather that all-race freedom in 1994 levelled the playing field to allow those with remarkable gifts who were stifled under apartheid to enter the game.”

“The man, Finn Martin, was supposed to use a rope to help him vertically slide down the façade of a building while playing a saxophone before dozens of cheering fans [in Leipzig] late Friday evening. But during the attempt, the harness apparently broke and Martin plunged to his death before the shocked audience.”

“The bassoon is one of the most difficult instruments in the orchestra to play, but people just don’t take it seriously. That’s not surprising when you get a glimpse of the thing.” But these days bassoonists are showing how their instrument can sing, swing and rock – solo and in groups like The Bassoon Brothers and The Breaking Winds.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, the beleagured musicians and management of the Louisville Orchestra may add a nationally experienced consultant to the mediation team trying to resolve contract issues that have already forced cancellation for part of the season.

Rick Rescorla, who saved 2,700 people on 9/11 before losing his own life, gets the mythic treatment in a new opera opening in San Francisco. “It has timeless, epic themes: a warrior’s code of honor, the intense bonds of loyalty, late-found love. And it ends in a cataclysm not unlike that of ‘The Ring.’”

“San Francisco was a music-besotted city as far back as the Gold Rush. The challenge always has been to blend that love of music with a spirit of civic endeavor.”

“Because these are all big issues with no easy solutions (and solutions will, by definition, vary from community to community), the inertia of large organizations tends to set in: Most orchestras are just trying to hold on, with another spiffy marketing campaign or another plea to their big donors to bail them out.”

“The BBC was forced to suspend a live Proms broadcast on Radio 3 on Thursday night when a performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was disrupted by [anti-Israel] protests.”