Category: music

“The audiophile was a symbol of the Golden Age of Audiophonics, a time when certain people worshiped at the altar of expensive high-fidelity, two-channel stereo equipment. They were knights errant on an eternal quest for audio perfection — the exact replication of an original performance.”

“Why did YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, choose classical music for this exercise in brand building? YouTube has recently completed another user-generated project, its film Life in a Day, but Lee Hunter’s answer hints at the particular difficulties of putting classical music online.”

“Opera is gearing up for a David and Goliath battle as a production first performed to 35 people in a pub takes on the collaborative might of five international companies at the stage’s answer to the Oscars.”

“The early-music revolution, which began on the fringes, can claim to have triumphed. It has also evolved: the very term “early music,” which originally denoted a repertory (pre-Classical, later pre-Romantic) and the instruments appropriate to it, has come to stand more broadly for a performance aesthetic, an approach to music in the context of its time that has been carried into 19th- and even 20th-century repertory.”

“Nurtured by a constant supply of engineering and musical talent, these companies range from big consumer-oriented outfits like Rhapsody, Pandora and Apple’s iTunes to start-ups that work on mobile karaoke, make apps for musical instruments and create multi-user playlist management systems.”

“Under the musicians’ latest proposal, each side would select an arbiter, who together would select the third member of the panel. The unresolved issues in the strike would be decided by the panel, which would have the freedom to choose one side over the other or devise a compromise. Meanwhile, the season would resume.”

“The international music trade group IFPI has found a way to shut down, it hopes, piratical iTunes-style websites operating in countries like Russia and the Ukraine–it wants to curtail their ability to accept major credit cards.”

“His impact on the orchestra was compromised not just by ill health. His artistic vision, which seemed so fresh and strong at first, had also grown increasingly hard to discern. And his programming was largely driven by personal priorities, especially regarding living composers.”

“Players are participating from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. The blue bracelets read “AFM Solidarity,” referring to the national federation coordinating the effort.”

“[The] Abaza Mansion was built in 1790. In the 1870s and ’80s, the building saw musical evenings held by Abaza’s wife, singer Yulia Abaza, during one of which Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera Yevgeny Onegin was premiered.” In 2007, the building was handed to a developer who wants to build a hotel on the site; a campaign to save the mansion has now begun.