Category: music

“The Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB) nearly half of its musicians after they refused to take part in assessment auditions as required by conductor Roberto Minczuk, the organization said Wednesday.”

“‘All the synthesizers in the world can’t compare to the richness of human speech as a sound source,’ says Mr. Reich … ‘A recording of your voice, my voice, is as much who we are as a photograph. Maybe more’.”

Minnesota arguably has more such bands per capita than any other state, causing park band shells to reverberate each summer with Sousa or “Superman.”

“At a time when some companies lament that they can’t afford to do new work, Wolf Trap, which isn’t really a company at all, is figuring out how to do it, on a shoestring, and make it count.”

“Idol” can’t turn out a top woman not because its voting constituency is boy crazy, but because its own musical framework is sadly irrelevant when it comes to what female pop stars do in the 21st century.

“[T]hough he’s an influence on today’s new-folk movement, young musicians and fans haven’t embraced the 69-year-old Mr. Simon with the same gusto as his few peers. Songs by Mr. Simon aren’t covered as often as those by [Leonard] Cohen and [Bob] Dylan and [Joni] Mitchell, and there’s been no cross-generational celebration of his work” comparable to Todd Haynes’s Dylan film I’m Not There.

“I’m inclined to think that the strike played out in the way that it needed to. We would have all liked it to have been shorter, of course – but we needed time to settle on what was going to be right for Detroit.”

“The Case-Shiller home price index is a powerful way to look at the story of housing in America. You can see the boom and bust all in one simple graph. But when we go on the radio to talk about home prices, a graph isn’t much good to us – nobody can see it. So we converted the Case-Shiller graph into musical notes.”

“In essence, Pops leaders contend that since the trial five-year consolidation of the two groups, the Pops has not received the kind of support it needs to flourish. Attendance has suffered, they say, because the association has not invested in adequate marketing and advertising.”

“This Tchaikovsky orchestra doesn’t exist. Nobody knows who plays there. Maybe they got some sort of band. Maybe students. But they put the word ‘state.’ But there is no such orchestra, neither private or state.”