Issue #181
Terre Thaemlitz doesn’t succumb to any scene.
Politics, aesthetics, and the deconstruction of binaries.
Alex Temple’s polystylistic exuberance.
Exploring bisexuality through opera.
Daniela Huber’s orchestral transition.
Issue #180
Terre Thaemlitz doesn’t succumb to any scene.
In Belarus, noise has become the hallmark of resistance.
Transcribing, arranging, and improvising over Bach’s austere masterpiece.
Remembering Linda Shaver-Gleason.
On Alex Ross’s Wagnerism: Art and Politics In the Shadow of Music.
Issue #179
Terre Thaemlitz doesn’t succumb to any scene.
In Belarus, noise has become the hallmark of resistance.
The Grossman Ensemble encourages productive failure.
Transcribing, arranging, and improvising over Bach’s austere masterpiece.
Remembering Linda Shaver-Gleason.
Issue #178
Stephen Wadsworth on writing words for Leonard Bernstein.
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
The Grossman Ensemble encourages productive failure.
What would singers do without them?
Issue #177
Janáček’s “Jenůfa” and the politics of forgiveness.
On the interaction between personal identity and artistic freedom.
In Belarus, noise has become the hallmark of resistance.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Was an Aspen Music Festival musical production racist?
Issue #176
Janáček’s “Jenůfa” and the politics of forgiveness.
On the interaction between personal identity and artistic freedom.
On politics and solace in Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
In Belarus, noise has become the hallmark of resistance.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #175
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
The Coda of Leon Fleisher’s Life is to Search for Truth within Juxtaposition.
Books on the human relationships complicating the soloist’s life.
Issue #174
The musical realms of Elizabeth A. Baker.
Katherine Balch dives into plant sounds, nonlinear novels, humming, and shivering.
American freelance musicians survive the pandemic.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
Fear, anger, and harassment at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe.
Issue #173
The aesthetic campaigning of Against Modern Opera Productions.
Kirill Gerstein’s marathon career.
An orchestra stares into the financial abyss.
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
A century apart, symmetrical cases of sexual harassment in opera.
Issue #172
How repetiteurs run the opera while remaining out of sight.
The high-stress, low-reward world of the page turner.
Four new books bring music back to the world.
Alan Hollinghurst on music.
Books on the human relationships complicating the soloist’s life.
Issue #171
Small concert promoters salvage the future.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
Yes, every single one.
In Taiwan, an orchestra plays by COVID rules.
An interview with Berlin Philharmonic artistic director Andrea Zietzschmann.
Issue #170
Is “Peter Grimes” a better play than opera?
Happy 250th!
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
Four new books bring music back to the world.
Yes, every single one.
Issue #169
An interview with Brian Ferneyhough.
A dual history of racism and the music of nature at ease.
Early music is Gwendolyn Toth’s religion.
The niche appeal of a historical diminution competition.
In Taiwan, an orchestra plays by COVID rules.
Issue #168
“The assumption is often that music is used to drown out other sounds of torture; in fact, music is an additional weapon used against prisoners.”
The composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor on false binaries, anger as pitch, and the surprises of working with visual artists.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
In Taiwan, an orchestra plays by COVID rules.
Issue #167
A new release of a pivotal Julius Eastman work.
Vicente Lusitano and classical music’s selective memory.
A dual history of racism and the music of nature at ease.
An orchestra stares into the financial abyss.
Two Met orchestra musicians. Zero paychecks.
Issue #166
Susan McClary wants to debate the music.
The provocations of Frederic Rzewski.
Four new books bring music back to the world.
A dual history of racism and the music of nature at ease.
On listening to music while airborne.
Issue #165
An opera playlist on injustice, violence, and making a beautiful ruckus.
Helmut Lachenmann speaks on “Marche fatale.”
Small concert promoters salvage the future.
Four new books bring music back to the world.
Yuval Sharon takes on opera’s future.
Issue #164
Opera owes its heritage to the Middle East. Why do we silence this legacy?
A new release of a pivotal Julius Eastman work.
Small concert promoters salvage the future.
An orchestra stares into the financial abyss.
Christian Gerhaher doesn’t want to entertain.
Issue #163
Bang on a Can, “Arthur,” and the avant-garde music meme factory.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
Vicente Lusitano and classical music’s selective memory.
An orchestra stares into the financial abyss.
James Levine is suing the Met. No matter what, both parties lose.
Issue #162
The composer Georg Friedrich Haas starts living his sexuality.
Ione completes an opera by her late partner Pauline Oliveros.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
Vicente Lusitano and classical music’s selective memory.
Exploring bisexuality through opera.
Issue #161
Over 20 years ago, James Levine was nearly caught.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music continue.
After 19 years of sexual harassment allegations, Dan Welcher has been fired.
Exploring bisexuality through opera.
Issue #160
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker starts with the score.
How the crisis will tectonically change classical music.
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music continue.
What it’s like playing for a stream in an empty Miller Theatre.
A profile of Cenk Ergün.
Issue #159
The high-stress, low-reward world of the page turner.
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
What it’s like playing for a stream in an empty Miller Theatre.
A profile of Cenk Ergün.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #158
How two amateurs created the world’s most important resource on the French composer.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
New classical music memes are actually funny.
What it’s like playing for a stream in an empty Miller Theatre.
Early music is Gwendolyn Toth’s religion.
Issue #157
From mountain camping to Concertgebouw audition.
Happy 250th!
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Tracing Beethoven’s Ninth through the Brexit debacle.
Early music is Gwendolyn Toth’s religion.
Issue #156
Mahan Esfahani on piety and conservatism in early music.
The aesthetic campaigning of Against Modern Opera Productions.
On Philip Kennicott’s Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning.
Igor Levit in the attention economy.
Early music is Gwendolyn Toth’s religion.
Issue #155
The violinist Christian Tetzlaff goes deeper.
A complaint about Daniel Barenboim’s behavior, and the Staatsoper reaction.
On Philip Kennicott’s Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning.
Igor Levit in the attention economy.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #154
On Philip Kennicott’s Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning.
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
Philip Thomas configures the moment.
Remembering Linda Shaver-Gleason.
Issue #153
Why we still need dedicated classical music spaces.
How repetiteurs run the opera while remaining out of sight.
And that’s OK.
Classical musicians in a culture war.
Remembering Linda Shaver-Gleason.
Issue #152
The violinist Leila Josefowicz is a tough cookie.
Frank Denyer is a true outsider.
How repetiteurs run the opera while remaining out of sight.
Happy 250th!
Classical musicians in a culture war.
Issue #151
What’s a classical musician to do in Trump’s America?
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
How repetiteurs run the opera while remaining out of sight.
Happy 250th!
A music critic listens with depression.
Issue #150
A photo essay from an organ builder’s workshop.
Olivier Latry and Iveta Apkalna discuss the pleasures and perils of the organ.
Paul Jacobs trusts his audience.
Ton Koopman on life and his hero Buxtehude.
Cameron Carpenter and the feedback loop of notoriety.
Issue #149
An interview with the founder of IMSLP.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
What opera should be learning from the movies.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
A Longtime Assistant Remembers Mariss Jansons.
Issue #148
Memories of Galina Ustvolskaya.
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
What opera should be learning from the movies.
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Alan Hollinghurst on music.
Issue #147
Alice Goodman defends her libretto to “The Death of Klinghoffer.”
What’s behind the obsession with children who compose?
Russian classical music’s money machine.
Teju Cole’s musical obsessions.
Alan Hollinghurst on music.
Issue #146
The prevailing 19th-century attitudes towards injury and disability in classical music harm musicians and those around them.
The high-stress, low-reward world of the page turner.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
A Chinese promoter on whether his country can save classical music.
An interview with the legendary agent Jasper Parrott.
Issue #145
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
The high-stress, low-reward world of the page turner.
An interview with Alvin Lucier.
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music continue.
On listening to music while airborne.
Issue #144
A complaint about Daniel Barenboim’s behavior, and the Staatsoper reaction.
When a conservatory professor fell in love with his student, it tore a class apart.
Music for self-reflection and post-election blues.
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music continue.
And wound up hating Mozart.
Issue #143
A complaint about Daniel Barenboim’s behavior, and the Staatsoper reaction.
Frank Denyer is a true outsider.
Bang on a Can, “Arthur,” and the avant-garde music meme factory.
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Issue #142
Keith and Robert Hill search for the real sound of the 18th century.
Unpacking the Instagram score-studying aesthetic.
Being a first-generation classical musician.
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
Issue #141
Being a first-generation classical musician.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
Anna Netrebko’s defense of blackface.
How ambient is changing classical music.
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Issue #140
Cellist Kevin McFarland on his favorite melancholy, macabre music.
Claire Chase and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir shape the concert.
The permanent revisions of Peter Eötvös.
How ambient is changing classical music.
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Issue #139
Patricia Alessandrini finds identity in sound.
And almost seriously injured myself.
The “Dead Girls” of Opera.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Issue #138
The composer Jennifer Walshe’s overwhelming worlds.
How classical music’s lack of diversity attracts the far-right.
An interview with an opera casting director.
The loss and rediscovery of Croatia’s groundbreaking electroacoustic music scene.
Anna Netrebko’s defense of blackface.
Issue #137
The composer Jennifer Walshe’s overwhelming worlds.
How classical music’s lack of diversity attracts the far-right.
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
An interview with an opera casting director.
Anna Netrebko’s defense of blackface.
Issue #136
A profile of Michael Maierhof, explorer of objects.
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
Alan Gilbert starts fresh.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
A music critic listens with depression.
Issue #135
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
Issue #134
The violinist Leila Josefowicz is a tough cookie.
Talking motherhood and opera with Margarete Joswig.
The harpsichordist Richard Egarr’s music between worlds.
And that’s OK.
Andrew Manze’s committed spontaneity.
Issue #133
Why we still need dedicated classical music spaces.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Donald Runnicles thinks conducting is the easy part.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
Paul Lewis makes his Berlin Philharmonic debut.
Issue #132
Talking music with Marina Abramović.
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
Alex Temple’s polystylistic exuberance.
An interview with Alvin Lucier.
The provocations of Frederic Rzewski.
Issue #131
Opera owes its heritage to the Middle East. Why do we silence this legacy?
The aesthetic campaigning of Against Modern Opera Productions.
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
Susan McClary wants to debate the music.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
Issue #130
Politics, aesthetics, and the deconstruction of binaries.
Who’s Your Conductor Soul Mate?
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
What’s next for Barenboim and the Staatsoper?
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
Issue #129
Annea Lockwood’s sonic geographies.
On Making the Third Ear.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
Saul Williams’s words to music.
Analyzing an aural document of terror.
Issue #128
An opera playlist on injustice, violence, and making a beautiful ruckus.
The “Dead Girls” of Opera.
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
Teju Cole’s musical obsessions.
Issue #127
When a conservatory professor fell in love with his student, it tore a class apart.
Why the conductor’s honorific is horrific.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have had enough.
Issue #126
An opera playlist on injustice, violence, and making a beautiful ruckus.
An interview with the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Where did classical music’s most famous label go wrong?
The intensity of Daniil Trifonov.
Kirill Gerstein’s marathon career.
Issue #125
Yu Long brings the German repertoire to China.
Does the future of classical lay in its past?
An interview with the composer Ashley Fure.
Jessica Cottis is always leading.
An interview with Jaap van Zweden.
Issue #124
What does it mean when a conductor says he’s “bringing music” to societies with rich musical traditions?
Scoring Hong Kong film and arranging Harry Partch.
Yu Long brings the German repertoire to China.
Classical music in the world’s next superpower.
A Chinese promoter on whether his country can save classical music.
Issue #123
The violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is fed up.
A visit with Rebecca Saunders.
Memories of Galina Ustvolskaya.
Talking music with Marina Abramović.
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
Issue #122
The violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is fed up.
A visit with Rebecca Saunders.
Memories of Galina Ustvolskaya.
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #121
The conductor Elena Schwarz is developing her intuition.
Why the conductor’s honorific is horrific.
Marin Alsop in São Paulo and Baltimore.
How Teodor Currentzis became a Russian sex symbol.
A profile of the conductor.
Issue #120
The evolving relevance of John Adams and his music.
Alice Goodman defends her libretto to “The Death of Klinghoffer.”
The violinist Leila Josefowicz is a tough cookie.
Who loved it, who hated it – “Girls of the Golden West.”
The decline of one of America’s great composers.
Issue #119
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Issue #118
How did we even manage so many?
Where we play matters as much as what we play.
A concert protests the weaponization of atonal music.
On leadership and performance.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
Issue #117
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
Issue #116
How music succeeds and fails, in issue #116.
Music as a cause and cure.
Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Is Donaueschingen censoring work that criticizes Israel?
What would singers do without them?
Issue #115
Dusting off old records and traditions, in issue #115.
Interviews with musicologists.
Do we still need Bayreuth?
Opera and politics.
all that dust wants to give artists a better deal.
Issue #114
The “Dead Girls” of Opera.
Critiquing the system means critiquing El Sistema.
Bow hairs on guts and metal.
An Interview with Michael Pisaro.
In issue #114, art confronts society.
Issue #113
Frank Denyer is a true outsider.
Bang on a Can, “Arthur,” and the avant-garde music meme factory.
Where music takes us.
Masters of other art forms on classical music.
Transcendence and frustration, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Issue #112
The British music scene in profile.
What does correctness mean in music?
Salvatore Sciarrino wants everything to connect.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Alina Rotaru wants to change the notes.
Issue #111
Patricia Alessandrini finds identity in sound.
We’re angry because we care.
Finding the words for music and the people who make it.
Norman Lebrecht wants to make the world a little less worse.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
Issue #110
The difficulty and importance of crossing, in issue #110.
Giving music a close read.
Analyzing an aural document of terror.
Listening to Simon Rattle’s goodbye concert in Berlin.
Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have had enough.
Issue #109
Does the future of classical lay in its past?
How we can learn from the past without getting stuck in it.
Right-wing music politics and embarrassing self-tests by a VAN editor.
Pierre Hantaï teaches himself.
Na’ama Zisser learns to let go.
Issue #108
In issue #108, music of destruction and survival.
The composer is the boss.
Allan Clayton focuses on interaction.
A music critic listens with depression.
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Issue #107
Keith and Robert Hill search for the real sound of the 18th century.
Decidedly un-chill music for chilling in the summer sun.
In issue #107, the hard work of invention and rediscovery.
Mark Barden wants to reach you on first listen.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Issue #106
The uses of music for good and evil, in issue #106.
It’s a calling; it’s also a job.
Morton Subotnick wants to stay insulated.
In search of the musical occult.
James Levine is suing the Met. No matter what, both parties lose.
Issue #105
Politics, aesthetics, and the deconstruction of binaries.
The physicality of music and ourselves, in issue #105.
The capitulation and resistance of Russian artists.
Niels Rønsholdt sees beauty in the attempt.
How the composer Jörg Widmann became ubiquitous by default.
Issue #104
The ways we hear the world differently, in issue #104.
Margarete Joswig, Barrie Kosky, George Crumb.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Matthias Goerne looks for symbiosis.
Jessica Cottis is always leading.
Issue #103
From strong opinions to cutting criticism in issue #103.
Stories from the ground in classical music.
Alexei Lubimov is looking for adventure.
Unpacking the Instagram score-studying aesthetic.
George Benjamin on his third opera, “Lessons in Love and Violence.”
Issue #102
How music turns ideas into molecular movement.
Look back to our music and sexuality issue.
Russian classical music’s money machine.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker starts with the score.
Issue #101
On Music and Activism.
Composers who don’t feel jealous of Kendrick Lamar.
The eclectic influences on classical music, in issue #101.
“The Gender Agenda,” a musical gameshow by Philip Venables.
Ben Johnston looks back.
Issue #100
Why we still need dedicated classical music spaces.
After 100 issues of VAN, revisit the articles that started it all.
From the past, from tradition, and the unlearnable in issue #100.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Robin Ticciati wants to hear internal fire.
Issue #99
Writing and thinking about the very first instrument.
The trials of reinvention in issue #99.
Stephen Wadsworth on writing words for Leonard Bernstein.
Raven Chacon looks for shared experience.
And wound up hating Mozart.
Issue #98
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Music intersects with other arts.
Ways of making art, in issue #98.
Peter Ablinger on creating texture.
Meredith Monk translates biological process into a new language.
Issue #97
How the far-right Polish government targets artists.
Why the conductor’s honorific is horrific.
Issue #96
The personal and political in classical music.
Issue #96 focuses on process.
On Borealis, an experimental festival for music.
John McCowen goes from experimental music to rock fame and back again.
Daniel Mendelsohn on music.
Issue #01
Why do people stop playing music? Conversations with current and former musicians.
A student remembers Lilian Kallir and her unusual illness.
The violinist Christian Tetzlaff goes deeper.
The soprano explores her character Ophelia, in Hans Abrahamsen’s “let me tell you,” through song.
A photo essay from an organ builder’s workshop.
A concert in São Paulo’s Cracolândia.
A former El Sistema violinist on endless rehearsals, political manipulation, and what needs to change for the Venezuelan youth orchestra training program to live up to its reputation.
Is El Sistema really a revolution in music education?
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
Issue #02
On Johannes Brahms and his ever-complicated relationship with women.
The composer on her—mostly non-classical—musical influences.
An interpretation of Schubert’s “Erlkönig” by the composer Georg Friedrich Haas.
The composer Georg Friedrich Haas starts living his sexuality.
Did Claude Vivier predict his own murder?
Issue #03
The director Morgan Neville discusses his documentary on Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.
A poem by David Ferry, in sound.
Conversations with members of Europe’s first black and minority ethnic orchestra, Chineke!
Listening to Kim Jong-il’s operas.
Christian Gerhaher doesn’t want to entertain.
Issue #04
Is it better for your music to be streamed or pirated?
Cellist Kevin McFarland on his favorite melancholy, macabre music.
Playing Chopin and poker, at home and abroad.
The baritone Thomas Hampson on listening to his own voice, the vulnerability of Lied, and bringing an opera role home.
From mountain camping to Concertgebouw audition.
Issue #05
A conversation with Olga Neuwirth on the persistence of sexism in classical music.
Dr. Joanne Loewy, director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, on the pitfalls of the audition process.
A new staging of George Benjamin’s opera “Written On Skin.”
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
On experiencing the Boston Symphony Orchestra live.
Issue #06
An interview with the German mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier.
A new production of “Lucia di Lammermoor,” by Heartbeat Opera.
An interview with Odradek Records founder John Anderson.
What does it mean when a conductor says he’s “bringing music” to societies with rich musical traditions?
Two graphic designers on new classical album covers.
Issue #07
Improvisation with family as a cure for orchestral burnout.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Transfiguration and tradition in Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht.”
The composers who matter to Ilan Volkov.
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #08
The composer Liza Lim on judging composer competitions.
Scoring Hong Kong film and arranging Harry Partch.
The world of custom baton makers.
Conversations with Polish music engravers.
What the mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča looks for in a production.
Issue #09
The violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is fed up.
An interview with the composer Christian Wolff.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The prevailing 19th-century attitudes towards injury and disability in classical music harm musicians and those around them.
An opera playlist on injustice, violence, and making a beautiful ruckus.
Issue #10
“The assumption is often that music is used to drown out other sounds of torture; in fact, music is an additional weapon used against prisoners.”
A Concerto with Cornel West and pieces on Sonia Sotomayor and Donald Trump at the Apollo Theater.
Faced with a hostile government, new, improvised music in Russia is flourishing on the fringe.
A conversation with the cellist Jan Vogler on the rise of Pegida in Dresden.
The liberation of the Syrian city of Palmyra from ISIS by Russian forces called for a celebration. But this was no ordinary open air concert.
Reflecting on musical white privilege in Kenya and Benin.
Artists take over the Brazilian Ministry of Culture.
Issue #11
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Marin Alsop in São Paulo and Baltimore.
The Black tenors who’ve taken on the role of Otello.
Issue #12
A visit with Rebecca Saunders.
Herbert von Karajan and Arthur Honegger’s “Symphonie Liturgique.”
The present and future of artificial intelligence in composition.
Issue #13
The composer Jakob Ullmann’s ongoing resistance.
Discovering the New York Opera Fest.
Dispatches from the Ojai Music Festival and Jordan Hall.
Issue #14
The evolving relevance of John Adams and his music.
Samir Chatterjee seeks detachment.
On Autism and emotion in music.
Issue #15
The risks of using famous artists as opera set designers.
An interview with the composer Tristan Murail.
Hold music and dance music with the choreographer Mark Morris.
Issue #16
Pierre-Laurent Aimard after the Aldeburgh Festival.
In Berlin with the South African composer Philip Miller.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Issue #17
Composing in the era of entrepreneurship.
A concert of black female composers in New York.
The actor chooses voices of the past and present.
Issue #18
Why aren’t we discussing structural inequality in classical music?
A strange homage to Ligeti’s Violin Concerto.
At the Belvedere Singing Competition, in Cape Town, with the tenor Lukhanyo Moyake.
Matt Haimovitz in Fishtail, Montana.
Issue #19
An interview with the composer and sound artist Lisa R. Coons.
Science fiction and Morton Feldman’s “Three Voices.”
Hartmut Haenchen jumps in at Bayreuth.
Issue #20
Early music specialist Reinhard Goebel still knows best.
“The Hubble Cantata” in Brooklyn.
The composer Nathan Currier preserves the Midtown scene.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Issue #21
Procrastination and the search for simplicity with the composer Natalie Draper.
A new release of a pivotal Julius Eastman work.
The personal and political histories of Lukas Ligeti.
Issue #22
The composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor on false binaries, anger as pitch, and the surprises of working with visual artists.
On the Multi-Story Orchestra, an ensemble based in a car park.
Where do piano tuners spend their days?
Matt Haimovitz in Cormons, Italy.
Issue #23
Bibliophilia, secrecy, Valium, and the world’s most important collection of contemporary music manuscripts.
Wolfgang Rihm teaches the Lucerne Festival’s Composer Seminar.
The mixes of the electroacoustic composer Carl Stone.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Issue #24
An interview with the composer Jüri Reinvere, on a musical life in the orbit of Ingmar Bergman and Käbi Laretei.
Who’s Your Conductor Soul Mate?
Issue #25
An interview with Helmut Lachenmann.
On pacifism in Britten and the music world today.
Selling the manuscript of Mahler’s Second Symphony.
Issue #26
An interview with the journalist and musicologist William Robin on “a scene without a name.”
Cult appeal and the universe with the composer Dylan Mattingly.
What’s behind the obsession with children who compose?
Issue #27
The conductor on intimate, intertwined threads of Finnish music.
The “Human Requiem,” before it arrives in New York City.
An interview with the composer Sarah Nemtsov, a winner of RicordiLab.
Issue #28
Weinberg and Lady Gaga with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic.
“Dichterliebe” in a collage with the pop and the pornographic.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Issue #29
Explorations of experimental music with Jennie Gottschalk.
What fan fiction based on a rock opera tells us about the musician’s life.
Katherine Balch dives into plant sounds, nonlinear novels, humming, and shivering.
Issue #30
The music of the people who tried, and failed, to achieve America’s highest office.
The composer and songwriter Gabriel Kahane is staying candid.
The violinist Leila Josefowicz is a tough cookie.
Issue #31
A profile of the Cambodian composer Him Sophy.
The conductor Elena Schwarz is developing her intuition.
Issue #32
What’s a classical musician to do in Trump’s America?
An interview with the violinist Hilary Hahn.
Classical musicians respond to the election.
Music for self-reflection and post-election blues.
Issue #33
On the effort performers put into looking effortless.
The composer Kaija Saariaho prepares for the Metropolitan Opera’s historic production of “L’Amour de Loin.”
Music from the 64th parallel north.
Issue #34
The conductor Thomas Sanderling’s life with Mravinsky, Weinberg, and Shostakovich.
Does marijuana have a future in classical music?
On the interaction between personal identity and artistic freedom.
Issue #35
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The conductor John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi.
On the future of the Archivio Luigi Nono.
Issue #36
Music on the border to the Gaza Strip.
Matt Haimovitz in Sarasota, Florida.
Janáček’s “Jenůfa” and the politics of forgiveness.
Issue #37
The violinist Vilde Frang searches for clarity.
What classical music has been up to in 2016 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
Issue #38
The composer Jennifer Walshe’s overwhelming worlds.
Does a composer’s country matter?
Yuval Sharon takes on opera’s future.
Issue #39
A profile of George Crumb at 87.
Songs from a gay Australian childhood and youth.
Talking motherhood and opera with Margarete Joswig.
Issue #40
Empathy and perception with the composer Sky Macklay.
A new exhibition on the life of Richard Wagner’s decidedly gay, ambivalently Nazi son.
An interview with Nabil Arbaain, a Syrian musician who fled Damascus.
Issue #41
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
King Ludwig II’s Wagnerian castle and a lineage of obsession.
Alex Temple’s polystylistic exuberance.
Issue #42
The Refugee Orchestra Project envisions an open America.
Oscar Edelstein’s curiosity and defiance.
A profile of the artist and interviewer Helga Davis.
Issue #43
What classical music gets up Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
What one octogenarian performer’s experience reveals about getting old in the music business.
Chaya Czernowin discusses her upcoming opera “Infinite Now.”
Issue #44
A new production of Robert Ashley’s “Dust.”
An interview with the soprano Marina Rebeka.
And that’s OK.
Issue #45
The solace of John Cage’s speaking and writing.
The extremes of the baritone Georg Nigl.
Olivier Latry and Iveta Apkalna discuss the pleasures and perils of the organ.
Issue #46
Musicians and listeners respond to our survey.
What music says about the history of colonialism in Brazil.
Teju Cole’s musical obsessions.
Issue #47
Would Pierre Boulez have approved of the Pierre Boulez Saal?
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
What gets lost when orchestras share their conductors.
Issue #48
Tim Rutherford-Johnson discusses his new book “Music After the Fall.”
The composer on clashes, frictions, and utopian mixtures.
An interview with Alvin Lucier.
Issue #49
Sigiswald Kuijken’s matters of principle.
A selection of music by women for orchestras to program.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
Issue #50
What British musicians listened to as their country triggered Article 50.
A profile of the composer and ping pong player Chung Yiu-kwong.
An interview with the composer Ashley Fure.
Issue #51
A profile of Michael Maierhof, explorer of objects.
A call for clarity in calls for scores.
Mahan Esfahani on piety and conservatism in early music.
Issue #52
An interview with the new JACK Quartet cellist Jay Campbell.
Music for books, ruined pianos, stone xylophones, and more.
Steven Osborne’s piano psychologies.
Issue #53
Sounds and wanderings by the composer Kristina Wolfe.
Andreas Staier responds to our interview with Mahan Esfahani.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
Issue #54
Yair Klartag wants to live peacefully with doubt.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A playlist by Sung Jin Hong, artistic director of the One World Symphony.
Issue #54.5
The Refugee Orchestra Project envisions an open America.
Would Pierre Boulez have approved of the Pierre Boulez Saal?
Alex Temple’s polystylistic exuberance.
And that’s OK.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
Issue #55
A photo essay from Thessia Machado’s studio.
What musicians listened to during the runoff between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
Venezuelans respond to Gustavo Dudamel.
Where did classical music’s most famous label go wrong?
Issue #56
The artistic director of a Jewish orchestra discovers a genre’s roots.
Kristine Opolais on acting and emptiness.
How two amateurs created the world’s most important resource on the French composer.
Issue #57
The cellist Mariel Roberts searches for transformation.
Improvisations by Rhymes With Opera.
On a search for the perfect music education.
Issue #58
Yarn/Wire’s “Currents” series comes full circle.
How Berlin and techno saved Joshua Fineberg.
Behind the hype of Teodor Currentzis.
Issue #59
Listening to Czech music with the conductor Jakub Hrůša.
Why studies questioning the Stradivarius myth are so persuasive.
An interview with the cellist Steven Isserlis.
Issue #60
An interview with the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
What classical music gets up to on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A new choral work by Michael Gordon.
Issue #61
On the New York premiere of “Three Way.”
Andrés Andrade teaches opera to teenagers.
George Lewis on opera, genre, and race.
Issue #62
Read our coverage of divas, drama queens, and the human voice.
Explore how in issue #62.
Matthias Pintscher looks for moments of perfection.
Correcting misogynist interpretations of Élaine Radigue’s “Biogenesis.”
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
Issue #63
No two experiences of music are the same.
Mark Andre’s disappearing sounds.
Why that matters in issue #63.
Rethinking the voice with contemporary music.
Saul Williams’s words to music.
Issue #64
Classical music has always been a little different.
The sounding objects of Ellen Fullman and Theresa Wong.
Discover the sounds of issue #64.
The enigmatic composer’s obsessions and influences.
An interview with Michel van der Aa.
Issue #65
When a conservatory professor fell in love with his student, it tore a class apart.
Tackle the pressing questions with us in issue #65.
It may be old, but it definitely isn’t boring.
An interview with Brian Brandt, the founder of Mode Records, on the future of the music industry.
Orientalism and a plea for humanity in “The Land of Smiles.”
Issue #66
Annea Lockwood’s sonic geographies.
Classical music that takes a stand.
Find new music in old traditions, in issue #66.
Paul Jacobs trusts his audience.
What’s up at the Center for Black Music Research.
Issue #67
The musical realms of Elizabeth A. Baker.
In music new, radical, and fraught.
What makes it hard, what makes it worth doing.
A haunting new “Meistersinger” at Bayreuth.
Claire Chase and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir shape the concert.
Issue #68
The aesthetic campaigning of Against Modern Opera Productions.
Leaders who set the tone.
Uri Caine’s classical improvisations.
New initiatives and resistance to them, in issue #68.
Are large ensemble tours worth their environmental cost?
Issue #69
The harpsichordist Richard Egarr’s music between worlds.
Underpin the music in issue #69.
Music of intricate construction and gut-punch intensity.
And how they interact with sound.
Concert Hall Hopping with Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell.
Issue #70
Classical music’s bizarre side.
Kristian Bezuidenhout wants to program music in its context.
In issue #70, tracing the contours of context.
Philip Venables’ formalized violence.
On politics and solace in Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
Issue #71
Song, rap, speech and sexuality.
And how they translate to timbre, in issue #71.
Addressing the political with the classical at the Lucerne Festival.
Amy Williams’s overlapping textures.
An interview with Brian Ferneyhough.
Issue #72
Alice Goodman defends her libretto to “The Death of Klinghoffer.”
Three artists strive for beauty through unpredictability.
Headphones and chill with VAN.
Alina Ibragimova wants it darker.
Roland Kayn’s cybernetic compositions.
Issue #73
In underground scenes, mining towns, and unhealthy diets.
Provocative opinion writing in VAN.
Ton Koopman on life and his hero Buxtehude.
How Shostakovich changed the improviser Liz Durette.
Cliquishness, misogyny, and hypocrisy at an insular new music festival.
Issue #74
VAN investigates.
Remembering Klaus Huber.
And figuratively, in issue #74.
Do classical music and techno have common DNA?
Berlin’s Staatsoper returns to its renovated home.
Issue #75
Revisit the writing that got VAN started.
Three radicals in issue #75.
An attempt to revive the music of Horatiu Radulescu.
Dror Feiler’s radical politics and art.
New classical music memes are actually funny.
Issue #76
Illuminating interviews, the heart of what we do.
A guide to the vastly underrated composer’s music.
Like the artists and makers this week have done.
Pierre Audi’s vision for the Park Avenue Armory.
An interview with the founder of IMSLP.
Issue #77
Mulling over what we’ve heard.
Who loved it, who hated it – “Elektra” at the Deutsche Oper.
Look to nature, scores, and humans.
Roberto González-Monjas and his painstaking preparation.
On listening to music while airborne.
Issue #78
How to tackle it, in issue #78.
The cellist’s reports from the road.
Are musicians becoming increasingly hostile towards the media?
An interview with Du Yun.
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
Issue #79
A visual approach to the art of music.
How three artists do it, in issue #79.
Tyshawn Sorey is tired of fighting.
Georges Aperghis has been thinking about robots.
“The Mother of Us All” at Hudson Hall.
Issue #80
Get to know the young composers.
An invitation to stop programming all-male concerts.
Each have their role in the artistic process, and in issue #80.
An openness to failure at the Ultima Oslo festival.
Ione completes an opera by her late partner Pauline Oliveros.
Issue #81
Artists who branch out from music in issue #81.
Jürg Frey wants to purify his sounds.
We collect the most embarrassing moments from classical music social media.
Jessica Ekomane believes in mistakes.
Issue #82
Seeing the sound of music.
In issue #82.
An interview with Jean Rondeau.
Who loved it, who hated it – “Girls of the Golden West.”
On the impact of Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Issue #83
In issue #83, calls to treat artists as human beings.
Feminist criticism by one of our staff writers.
And failed miserably.
Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s 40-year-old essay is the most modern music book of the year.
On knowing and not knowing about James Levine.
Issue #84
Musical and male beauty in issue #84.
Our staff writer finds the drama in early music.
Suzanne Farrin’s subtractive composition.
And almost seriously injured myself.
William Christie has questions for himself.
Issue #85
Drown out the Christmas music with our bizarre and fascinating collections.
Go deep into life, death, and canned corn this week.
The cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras embraces transience.
The top 10 composers who only wrote one famous piece.
Christophe Rousset wants to help the repertoire.
Issue #86
Coping with the future in issue #86.
Writing on trans voices and New York visions.
For 2018, what we hope will change in classical music.
Who loved it, who hated it – Seth MacFarlane at the San Francisco Symphony.
The cellist Anner Bijlsma makes music without playing.
Issue #87
How classical music’s lack of diversity attracts the far-right.
The music and sexuality issue.
Three calls to action, in issue #87.
How the composer Jay Schwartz found his path.
The up-and-coming alto Wiebke Lehmkuhl.
Issue #88
Helmut Lachenmann speaks on “Marche fatale.”
On opera, voices, politics, and violence.
Who has it and who doesn’t, in issue #88.
Kirill Gerstein’s marathon career.
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
Issue #89
On Making the Third Ear.
Who loved it, who hated it. From the critics that count.
To new music, to vulnerability, and to the tricks of psychoacoustics.
Mark Padmore wants attention and intention.
The trombonist and composer’s formative years.
Issue #90
Tales from the tenacious and untamed.
Commuters, critics, and groupies.
Investigating classical music on the London Underground.
Nico Muhly on notes and rhythms.
How Teodor Currentzis became a Russian sex symbol.
Issue #91
The sound at classical music’s heart.
Layers of interrelation, in issue #91.
Susan McClary wants to debate the music.
On “dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii).”
Does music really have the power to heal veterans?
Issue #92
Is “Peter Grimes” a better play than opera?
Issue #92 is serious. We aren’t always.
How to alleviate classical music’s insularity.
“Die Gezeichneten” at the Komische Oper in Berlin.
Does classical music need a Rooney Rule?
Issue #93
Terre Thaemlitz doesn’t succumb to any scene.
Can music connect us with a greater power? Answers, in issue #93.
VAN and the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Craig Urquhart remembers his life with the conductor and composer.
On “Somnium” and hypnagogic hallucinations.
Issue #94
Stories from the ground in classical music.
Some of music’s more striking effects in issue #94.
On “La Passion de Simone.”
Why airlines don’t care about your instrument.
Donald Runnicles thinks conducting is the easy part.
Issue #95
Slow improvement, in creative life and the classical music industry.
Deeply personal essays on performing.
Over 20 years ago, James Levine was nearly caught.
A corrective to the 2018 Oscars Original Score shortlist.
Simon Steen-Andersen puts transformation on display.