Opera is a remarkably durable art. Sitting through “Parsifal” in 100 degree heat at Bayreuth recently, and hearing the couple behind me making chitchat during the final chord, I was surprised to notice that I still was transported by the work. But if anything threatens to break the spell, it’s the stereotypical operatic gestures that […]
Tag: Music the Profession
Posted inReport
Cheap Luxury
There are some events that are embarrassing to be seen at; then there are others where you are embarrassed for the other people who show up. Events such as “BraVo,” the awards ceremony for international pop music and classical art, which took place for the first time in early March in Moscow, and whose name […]
Posted inOpinion
The Maestro Will See You Now
“The situation is rather complicated because Maestro himself is not yet in Wrocław…” read the email. The wheels had just come off an interview we’d already spent 10 Polskibus hours (equivalent to around 100 earth-hours) traveling to. “Maestro,” first name Krzysztof, last name Penderecki, written as if there was and could only ever be one. […]
Posted inInterview
Flying Blind
Musicians who feel that their instruments have been mishandled by airlines like to unleash avalanches of outrage on social media, followed by petitions and calls for boycotts. British Airways recently tested tempers when gate agents refused to take three of the Kronos Quartet’s instruments on board. The quartet responded with a pledge to boycott the […]
Posted inInterview
The Bernstein Effect
On an unusually sunny February afternoon, I met Craig Urquhart in his apartment at Berlin’s Nollendorfplatz, the beating heart of the city’s gay life. (Christopher Isherwood once rented a place here.) “I’m going to be very bad and have a gin,” Urquhart said, but then realized he didn’t have any ice. Urquhart was a longtime […]
Posted inOpinion
Who’s Afraid Of Daniel Hope?
Yes, we’ve seen the video. Over the last few days, the classical music media has become aware of a small but telling scandal. A Berlin-based concert curator, dramaturg, and VAN contributor named Arno Lücker published a shred on his blog. The video, part of a mashup genre in which new audio tracks are added to […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
New Year’s Preoccupations
brin solomon, Staff Writer Let people clap between movements. I want the atmosphere of concert halls to open up, to make room for the joy that pulses at the heart of so much of this music, to welcome strangers and stalwarts alike into a space made for feeling deeply. I want classical institutions to abandon […]
Posted inReport
Critic Bashing
It’s a peculiar and alienating feeling to sit among a crowd of people and feel as defensive as the others feel delighted, as unmoved as they feel enthusiastic. That’s what happened to me on October 22, when Vladimir Jurowski, the conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and new music director of the Berlin Radio Symphony […]
Posted inInterview
File Number One
In 2006, a New England Conservatory student named Edward Guo founded the online portal IMSLP, or International Music Score Library, a kind of Wikipedia for musicians. Now the site contains some 350,000 scores and 40,000 recordings from 14,000 composers. The works of composers who have been dead for less than 70 years are not in […]
Posted inProfile
Fertile Ground
The grass is always greener on the other side of the Atlantic. Throughout my time in the world of contemporary classical music, this is a message I have heard over and over and over again. Governments in Europe fund their artists much more generously. European audiences are much more invested in their artistic cultures, and […]