Category: music

Lyndon Terracini: ”If you’re seeing a couple making out and one of them is obese, who wants to watch that? It’s obscene. You just think, ‘Jeez, for Chrissakes, don’t let the children see that’.”

“After at least seven failed attempts to build a dedicated concert hall, the OSM is just two months away from its first rehearsals at the building known as l’Adresse symphonique. For the OSM, better acoustics are the main prize, but not the only one.”

After the cancellation of a new opera written by Lee Hall, the Tony Award-winning book writer and lyricist of “Billy Elliot: The Musical,” its author says that discrimination against gays led to the collapse of the project, while a school whose students would have taken part in the opera said it had withdrawn because of concerns about strong language.

“Opera North has cancelled community opera Beached, which featured a gay character and 400 school children in Bridlington, East Yorkshire. It said claims it was homophobic were ‘unacceptable’ and that it could not proceed because a school pulled out over concerns about the language.”

“By venturing down the road of Broadway musicals in the search for ‘new’ audiences, the Lyric is turning away from its principal mission and diverting its focus, risking damage to its reputation and turning off scores of longtime subscribers in the process.”

“In the first six months of this year, six musicians have resigned, and two more have retired. Musicians who left, as well as others who remain, cite a pervasive lack of trust in management, uneasiness about the debt-ridden orchestra’s future and anger at music director Leonard Slatkin for what is perceived as his sympathy with management during the strike.”

“The prestigious piano prize at the quadrennial event went to Russia’s Daniil Trifonov, while the violin award was kept by the judges after both the local entry and an Israeli candidate were deemed to be only worthy of joint second.”

“The big questions are whether the individual prize-winners are worthy victors and go on to stellar careers like some of their predecessors, and whether this year’s competition has done enough to save the tarnished reputation of what should be the world’s most prestigious classical music competition.”

“A new after-work concert series catered to commuters and a shorter Saturday night series was followed each time by a party in the lobby … The TSO’s biggest success, however, has been the ‘tsoundcheck’ program (the ‘t’ is silent), which offers $14 tickets to those from 18 to 35.”

The 28-year-old Briton, currently chief conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, “is to become the seventh music director in the 77-year history” of the famous summer opera festival. “He will take over in 2014, marking a decade since his first professional engagement as a nervous 21-year-old assistant conductor.”