Category: music

“Philanthropy is the only solution, and there are signs it’s stretched pretty far. New young philanthropists have to be developed to replace the ageing ones, but it’s not clear that classical music is attracting new wealth. It’s not a pretty picture.”

“At the same time every day, in a chapel-turned-museum in Cremona, a musician named Andrea Mosconi plays a selection of fine violins, including a 1715 Stradivarius, in order to keep their unique sound alive. He says that if they aren’t carefully looked after, including being played every day, the wood becomes stiff and unresponsive and the instruments will lose their rich sound.”

“There’s a lot of talk these days about how opera is producing a new generation of singing actors… But talking to … singers who have ventured outside opera tends to reinforce the hoary stereotype that opera singers can’t act. Actually, it’s not that these singers can’t act. It’s that opera has so poorly equipped them to do so.”

“It would be pretty sad, and limiting, if critics shut out other opinions thinking they might challenge ours or make us look bad. Seeing the spectrum of opinion is part of the fun; it makes the piece more interesting for everybody.”

“Every place has taxes, but Philadelphia’s business privilege tax results in a 6.5 percent tax total on Philadelphia income. The tax has been the subject of an apparent wave of compliance enforcement that is much discussed among self-employed musicians whose TurboTax software told them they were doing all the right things, but who received letters summoning them to the city tax authorities.”

February 2001 was the peak moment of Napster’s history, though that wouldn’t be discovered until the whole thing crashed and burned later in July, when Napster shut down its entire network to comply with the injunction served by the courts.

Researchers at the “Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, have developed a system that transforms your phone into a personal concert speaker, letting high-frequency sounds like vocals, which don’t travel well over long distances, come through more clearly.”

Mr. Perlman’s high-profile 2007 appointment was heralded as a turning point for the beleaguered orchestra, and his abrupt departure is a bruising development for a company that has struggled to stay afloat.

“Spain’s economic crisis has forced Barcelona’s Liceu opera house to delay the opening of its 2011-2012 season by a month and could lead to temporary layoffs at the famous theater, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.”

This is how opinion has divided over Anna Nicole: deeply, and down the middle.