In a video on the social media page High Note, an account launched on July 29 featuring “street interviews with classical music icons,” the tenor Freddie De Tommaso stands outside a pub drinking a Guinness, joking with a female interviewer about whether his favorite composer is Verdi, Puccini, or Sean Paul. In about 40 seconds, […]
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The Other Wage Gap
It is a truth universally if quietly acknowledged that a singer in possession of work will be paid less than the orchestral instrumentalists with whom they perform. So goes the consensus among the working singers of America’s classical music industry, and for good reason: job postings for opera singers often list compensation rates which break […]
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City of Beasts
When your home becomes a nightmare, what sound does it make? In composer Xavier Muzik’s “Strange Beasts,” it growls. It hisses. It groans. It goes topsy-turvy, unrecognizable. It vanishes. As Muzik told a San Francisco audience in February, at some point during the pandemic, his city, Los Angeles, became the stuff of nightmares. The 29-year-old […]
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These Are The Top Republican Donors Also Donating To Classical Music
In May 2020, when George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, many American classical music institutions joined what appeared to be a society-wide reckoning on racism. The Minnesota Orchestra commissioned a work in Floyd’s memory, by composer Carlos Simon and librettist Marc Bamuthi, called “brea(d)th.” The Chicago Symphony Orchestra shared sobering […]
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Behind the Screens
In 1972, Elayne Jones got her dream job. Within two years, it had become a nightmare. When she won the principal timpani seat of the San Francisco Symphony, Jones became the first Black principal player in any major American orchestra, as well as the first Black woman and, at the time, the only rostered Black […]
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Multisensory Perceptions
The traditional standards of ability and expression in classical music have often overlooked diverse perspectives. Such practices have helped create systemic inequalities that are still profoundly entrenched; recent findings from the Musicians’ Census reveal that 71% of disabled musicians have faced or witnessed discrimination, with 19% reporting it as a significant barrier to career progression. Such […]
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Played Off
Unless you’re one of about 20 or so leading composers worldwide, chances are you’re not making a living solely from your art. The barriers for entry into this group are incredibly high, and getting higher: dwindling commission fees, organizations with smaller commissioning pots buddying up to fund a shrinking pool of composers, a sharp, widely […]
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Welcome to Shorworld
“Fortune is like a bird in a wood. If we know how to whistle to her she will come to us.” —from pianist Ashley Wass’s biography on X, unattributed I: The Amateur About two years ago, a renowned European musician received a call from his agency with an offer for an unusual gig. A Dubai […]
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Benched
Collaborative pianists power the machinery of our musical institutions. Every weekly voice lesson, many instrumental lessons, and most music theater, opera and choral rehearsals need a pianist. We’re everywhere: from the very first steps of learning music to its crowning performances. No music department could function for a single day without a small army of […]
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Teodor Currentzis Gets $900 Million Concert Hall in St. Petersburg
Recently, Russian media reported on plans by the state-owned VTB Bank to build a new concert hall and performing arts complex for conductor Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna ensembles at the Novo-Admiralteysky shipyard in St. Petersburg. On June 7, VTB President and Chairman Andrey Kostin and Governor Alexander Beglov signed a statement of intent formalizing […]