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Five Takeaways from Classical April Fool’s Day
April Fool’s Day offers classical music organizations an opportunity to reveal a less serious side, which increasingly means online video. There were at least three such videos that made the rounds in 2016. At the risk of turning a holiday of silliness and shenanigans into an exercise in furrowed-brow analysis, here are five takeaways from April Fool’s Day.
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Baltimore Symphony Premiere Aims to Address Racial Strife
Tucked inside a press release about the Baltimore Symphony’s April 16 concert at Carnegie Hall was one eye-catching detail: Before the program’s centerpiece of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Marin Alsop is slated to conduct the premiere of Kevin Puts‘s The City, a long-scheduled piece whose creation took on “added focus,” after last year’s rioting and protests after the death of Freddie Gray. It will be accompanied by a film by […]
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How New York’s Concert Halls Score on TripAdvisor
“Shabby and uncomfortable just about sums it up” is how one prolific TripAdvisor reviewer describes Carnegie Hall. “Bad sound for classical music” is what another says of Boston’s Symphony Hall.
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The Rising Power of the Opera Conductor
Mark Wigglesworth, the music director of the English National Opera for the past six months, resigned Tuesday, provoking dismay and hand-wringing over the future of the beleaguered company.
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Is It Wrong to Call Classical Music ‘Soothing?’
Hilary Clinton was asked last week in an interview on SiriusXM what music she would play if she had her own radio channel. She cited Adele, classic rock, and, for days when she’s buried in paperwork, “soothing” classical music. If an election was based solely on musical tastes, Clinton would get much of the public’s vote: Classical music in […]
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Keith Emerson Introduced Rock Fans to Classical Music
A week that began with the death of legendary Beatles producer George Martin ended with the passing of Keith Emerson, the gifted keyboardist of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Much has been written about how Martin’s classical background shaped the Beatles’ sound, from his adding a string quartet arrangement to “Yesterday” to creating the famous orchestral glissando in […]
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Opera Companies Lead the Arts in Marketing Expenses
Opera companies and symphony orchestras spend more than any other cultural sector on marketing in order to entice the public to attend a performance, according to a new report from the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University. But the data suggests that there is a payoff to the dollars spent on advertising, social media […]
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Philadelphia Orchestra, Mongolia and a Legacy of Far-Flung Symphonic Tours
The Philadelphia Orchestra said on Thursday that it will perform in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in June 2017, marking the latest effort by a Western orchestra to visit a far-flung destination in the name of cultural diplomacy.
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Music Festival Watch: Three Newcomers for 2016
Growing numbers of music festivals are reaching milestone anniversaries. Here in the Northeast U.S., Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, NY marked its 100th anniversary last year. The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s Shed turns 100 years old this year. Last year, the Tanglewood Music Center marked its 75th year. Even Music Mountain in Lakeville, CT, is no upstart, at 87 years […]
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Iceland Emerges on World Classical Music Stages
Don’t be surprised to see a wooly sweater or two if you’re on the streets of Los Angeles next spring. The Los Angeles Philharmonic said Tuesday that it will present a Reykjavik Festival in April 2017, featuring five concerts of Icelandic music from across the stylistic map, along with film screenings, lectures and visual art events.
Brian Wise
Producer, Editor and Journalist
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About Brian Wise
I am an audio producer, journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience working for major-market media outlets, radio stations and arts organizations. More