The confused responses were rolling in. It was later in the morning than I’d like to admit when I woke up and pawed my phone off my nightstand, and it took a few minutes of baffled blinking at my notifications before I realized that my satirical riff on every classical music profile, “Meet the Pianist […]
Tag: Music the Profession
Posted inReport
For Better, For Worse
At the beginning of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage,” we meet Marianne and Johan, a couple being interviewed for a magazine story about successful relationships. In the next scene, Marianne asks Johan, “Do you believe two people can spend a lifetime together?” “It’s a ridiculous convention passed down from God knows where,” he answers.“A […]
Posted inEssay
Ethereum Voices
On March 31, 2020, the Metropolitan Opera suspended paychecks for the musicians of its orchestra as its productions ground to a pandemic-induced halt. Some performers left New York City, refinanced their mortgages, or took early retirement. Others survived on a combination of Zoom lessons and unemployment. By the end of 2020, concert venues had reopened […]
Posted inInterview
“I Wished for 12 Seconds and Got 17 Years”
The Berlin Philharmonic is one of the greatest orchestras in the world, playing with it a dream job for many young performers—including bassoonist Mor Biron. Growing up in a family of musicians in Rehovot, Israel (his father, Avner Biron, is the founder and music director of the chamber orchestra Israel Camerata Jerusalem), Mor Biron dreamed […]
Posted inInterview
The Dreams of Others
When you mention alto Dina König in front of her former colleagues, they insist on her musical excellence. That’s because, in September 2020, König gave up her burgeoning career as a singer of early music. Instead, she decided to become a tram driver with the local public transportation system in Basel, Switzerland. Musicians often view […]
Posted inReport
“The Perfect Voice in the Wrong Body”
“A chubby bundle of puppy fat.” “Unsightly and unattractive.” “Repulsive figure.” These comments count as professional feedback in the world of opera. At first glance, they may appear to be isolated cases; only seldom does body shaming make headlines in the opera industry. The most prominent exception was the “little black dress” which did not […]
Posted inReport
Formed Under Pressure
In classical music, racism toward musicians of Asian heritage is as casual as it is pervasive. When I was in my first year of conservatory, at the Royal Academy of Music in London, a Korean composition student was late to a single lesson; the professor proceeded to do a disgustingly caricatured impression of his accent. […]
Posted inOpinion
Disregard All Information
Singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer introduces his 1965 song “So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)” in a style familiar to classical music fans. “This year we’ve been celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War, and the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of World War I, and the twentieth anniversary of the end of […]
Posted inReport
The Audiencers
We seldom pay attention to ushers. In “The Natural History of the Theatre,” Theodor Adorno’s otherwise extravagant sociology of concert-going, the usher receives only a glancing mention: a missed opportunity for a writer who discerned the ideological contradictions and atavistic energies of music in a thousand minor details, from gales of applause to foyerside finger […]
Posted inInterview
Physical Movement
In a 2015 Bloomberg article about Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on tour, reporter Joel Stein introduced an “impeccably dressed, handsome, long-haired” man, referred to by members of the orchestra as “the international man of mystery” or “the most interesting man in the world.” He didn’t mean Dudamel. Stein was referring to Guido […]