New music
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Philip Thomas configures the moment.
How ambient is changing classical music.
The permanent revisions of Peter Eötvös.
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
Classical music in the world’s next superpower.
Political art
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
The provocations of Frederic Rzewski.
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Is Donaueschingen censoring work that criticizes Israel?
The Black tenors who’ve taken on the role of Otello.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
Weird and wonderful
Classical musicians in a culture war.
Happy 250th!
And wound up hating Mozart.
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
The high-stress, low-reward world of the page turner.
Bang on a Can, “Arthur,” and the avant-garde music meme factory.
An interview with the founder of IMSLP.
Music the profession
Igor Levit in the attention economy.
Classical musicians in a culture war.
Cameron Carpenter and the feedback loop of notoriety.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
An interview with the legendary agent Jasper Parrott.
A Chinese promoter on whether his country can save classical music.
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music continue.
Opera
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
Anna Netrebko’s defense of blackface.
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Opera owes its heritage to the Middle East. Why do we silence this legacy?
What would singers do without them?
Do we still need Bayreuth?
Soloists and conductors
Cameron Carpenter and the feedback loop of notoriety.
A Longtime Assistant Remembers Mariss Jansons.
Alan Gilbert starts fresh.
Paul Lewis makes his Berlin Philharmonic debut.
The intensity of Daniil Trifonov.
An interview with Jaap van Zweden.
Jessica Cottis is always leading.
Women and non-binary composers
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
An interview with the composer Ashley Fure.
Meredith Monk translates biological process into a new language.
On Borealis, an experimental festival for music.
Personal essay
A music critic listens with depression.
On listening to music while airborne.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Remembering Klaus Huber.
The artistic director of a Jewish orchestra discovers a genre’s roots.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
Strings
Where did classical music’s most famous label go wrong?
Roberto González-Monjas and his painstaking preparation.
Alina Ibragimova wants it darker.
An interview with the cellist Steven Isserlis.
Why studies questioning the Stradivarius myth are so persuasive.
An interview with the new JACK Quartet cellist Jay Campbell.
What one octogenarian performer’s experience reveals about getting old in the music business.
The voice
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Saul Williams’s words to music.
Mark Padmore wants attention and intention.
An interview with an opera casting director.
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
On politics and solace in Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
Early music
Alina Rotaru wants to change the notes.
Pierre Hantaï teaches himself.
Alexei Lubimov is looking for adventure.
Christophe Rousset wants to help the repertoire.
William Christie has questions for himself.
Suzanne Farrin’s subtractive composition.
An interview with Jean Rondeau.
Literature and film
Alan Hollinghurst on music.
What opera should be learning from the movies.
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
On Philip Kennicott’s Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning.
Daniel Mendelsohn on music.
Issue #96 focuses on process.
Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s 40-year-old essay is the most modern music book of the year.
Queer
The formative sounds and experiences of composer Pauline Oliveros.
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
“The Gender Agenda,” a musical gameshow by Philip Venables.
Ione completes an opera by her late partner Pauline Oliveros.
On the New York premiere of “Three Way.”
A call for clarity in calls for scores.
Illness
A music critic listens with depression.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
What one octogenarian performer’s experience reveals about getting old in the music business.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
A new release of a pivotal Julius Eastman work.
The prevailing 19th-century attitudes towards injury and disability in classical music harm musicians and those around them.
Improvisation with family as a cure for orchestral burnout.
Music under Putin
Russian classical music’s money machine.
How Teodor Currentzis became a Russian sex symbol.
On the impact of Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Behind the hype of Teodor Currentzis.
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.
Faced with a hostile government, new, improvised music in Russia is flourishing on the fringe.
Perfect Pitch
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Musicology
Remembering Linda Shaver-Gleason.
Susan McClary wants to debate the music.
An interview with the journalist and musicologist William Robin on “a scene without a name.”