Category: music

The final nail in the coffin is the classical live performance, in which “you are basically told to sit there, dress quite poshly, and admire the music for what it is”.

Three virtuoso violinists were feted at this year’s Classic Brit Awards, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Kevin Patterson, who was until last week general director of Austin Lyric Opera: “Instead of doing three operas, four performances, what if we did one or two main-stage productions with a variable number of performances and supplement that with one or two or three chamber operas that broaden and provide multiple layers to the season?”

“It turns out that classical music fans do a lot of the same remembering and measuring as baseball fans. Both baseball and classical music have a great sense of history, a tremendous respect for the past, and a slew of nerdy people like me who want to know all the details.”

“There are 2,237 fewer full-time positions for orchestral musicians in Germany today than there were in 1992 — a loss of 18%. As we wring our hands over the loss of orchestras in Louisville, Hono­lulu, Syracuse, and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s declaration of bankruptcy, imagine what we’d do if we lost 35 of them.”

Atlantic tech editor Alexis Madrigal: “We asked the lead curator of the Jukebox, Gene DeAnna, to create a playlist for us of some of his favorite recordings as an entry point for the collection.”

Things are not looking good…

“She has 40,000 tickets to sell, and most will be bought by people who come from somewhere else. So, in addition to putting her own stamp on the opera programming, much needed after several uninspiring seasons under her predecessor, she is busy rebranding the whole experience … with the idea that some vigorous collaboration can turn this agricultural corner of upstate New York into a Destination.”

“I can’t think of any scenario where we are not going to have a season. At the same time, we want to be very careful with our subscribers’ money. People know they can subscribe now and they are going to get their money back should something happen.”

He “will extend his contract as principal conductor and artistic adviser with the Sydney Symphony until the end of 2013.”