Most read last week
Plenty of Fish
Le Poisson Rouge was New York’s leading alternative classical music venue. So how did it end up as a commercial club—and what does its decline mean for classical’s counterculture?
ELISION Dossier
If I say it’s an experiment, you might think me overeager to abdicate on certitude’s authority. So I won’t say that.
Tristan and Isolde and the Politicians
How political interference almost sunk the first São Paulo performance of Wagner’s opera in nearly 50 years
KPIs by Candlelight
Documents show how Candlelight Concert organizer Fever enforce global musical uniformity through strict performance analysis
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Artificial intelligentsia
“A Call To Action, Disguised As A Symphony”
Through her “Alan” project, lyricist, philanthropist and controversial former surgeon Susan Lim puts forward her ideas about transhumanism. Does the UK’s classical music scene have the strength to push back?
The Intelligence of Bodies
The philosophical and musical failings of “Beethoven X: The AI Project”
Perceptual Astronomy
Maryanne Amacher’s prescient, unperformed AI grand opera “Intelligent Life”
Machine in the Gods
For Bayreuth’s next “Ring” cycle, AI will “play a role on stage.” What exactly does that mean?
Where sound is made
Ode to the Jungle
The European ironies of Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s “Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on ‘Ode to Joy’ for a Prepared Piano”
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Heavy Shadows
“Die Zauberflöte” and “Die Frau ohne Schatten” at the 2026 Aix-en-Provence Festival in review
From five years ago…
New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps
George E. Lewis on how we can hear decolonization in contemporary festivals.
From ten years ago…
Last But Not Least
