FEATURE
Music Gives the Brain a Crucial Connective Advantage
Inverse: Ali Pattillo
Even if children abandon their music lessons when they hit their angsty teen years, cognitive neuroscientists say cultivating musical ability early on has lifelong benefits. Playing music can help children read better, store memories, and pronounce different languages.
RESEARCH AND OPINION
For These Classical Musicians, It’s Always Been About Racial Equity
NY Times: Joshua Barone
The work now being taken up by large institutions has long been the purpose of many smaller ones. We spoke with seven of them.
Playwright and author Carmen Aguirre calls for end to cancel culture in theatre community
The Globe and Mail (Canada): Marsha Lederman
The provocative video essay – originally produced for a Vancouver theatre event that was cancelled – calls on fellow artists to end what Aguirre calls “the great purge.”
Can a Lawsuit Determine Schenker’s American Future?
Van US: Jeffrey Arlo Brown and Olivia Giovetti
In two essays examining difference aspects of the case, we try to make sense of an academic music theory debate that came to encompass the biggest questions of free speech and morality currently percolating in American society.
Survey: When American Arts Organizations Plan To Resume Live Performances
American Theatre Editors
Among U.S. organizations, companies in the Southeast, Southwest, and South are the most optimistic, with a majority planning a return before July.
Instead of rigid planning, classical organizations need to party like it’s 1908
San Francisco Chronicle: Joshua Kosman
How 51-year-old composer Edward Elgar’s First Symphony went viral.
Sound 101 with Bill Nye
Stitcher: Bill Nye
What is sound, on a fundamental level? How did animals evolve to hear? And what happens when you go faster than sound itself? In this episode, we explore the physics of sound with the legendary Bill Nye.
NATIONAL
How Yo-Yo Ma consoled a reeling nation
Boston Globe: Jeremy Eichler
His presence has served as a reminder of music’s more elemental roles : in illuminating darkness, honoring grief, conveying moments of joy, and helping isolated souls reach across the solitude.
American Guild of Musical Artists Asks Biden/Harris For Relief
The Violin Channel
American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) President Ray Menard wrote a letter to the United States President Biden and Vice President Harris, asking for much needed relief in the performing arts industry.
San Francisco Symphony to Launch New Digital Platform
The Violin Channel
Called “SFSymphony+”, the new streaming service will include a variety of programming, specifically curated for a virtual setting.
Metropolitan Opera Appoints its First Chief Diversity Officer
The Violin Channel
Marcia Lynn Sells has been announced as the company’s first Chief Diversity Officer, effective immediately.
Metropolitan Opera Announces Black History Month Livestrerams
The Violin Channel
The two week long series will feature historic Met performances with renowned African-American singers including Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Kathleen Battle.
Rochester Philharmonic Appoints New Music Director
The Violin Channel
German conductor Andreas Delfs will become the orchestra’s thirteenth music director in the organization’s 98-year history.
Eastman launches new free eBook: Infection Control for Instruments
The Strad
The book aims to help instrumentalists and instrument handlers to protect themselves from microbes.
Climate Change Is Worsening. So the Weather Station Is Singing About It.
NY Times: Lindsay Zoladz
The 36-year-old Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman’s piercing new album, “Ignorance,” explores the emotional impacts of a global problem.
INTERNATIONAL
Will Britain’s orchestras survive the Brexit exodus?
The Spectator: Norman Lebrecht
In the first month of Brexit, two British orchestras were publicly beheaded. The London Symphony Orchestra was shocked to discover that its music director, Sir Simon Rattle, had taken a better job in Munich, while the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was forced to accept that its luminous Lithuanian, Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, was simply too hot to hold any longer.
A high-profile series of live-streamed concerts has been a good – but expensive – way to reach audiences, says Wigmore Hall artistic director John Gilhooly
The Strad
He explains that staff costs and copyright charges for each performance come to around £3,000, plus artists’ fees. While the concerts are free to view, audiences have donated some £750,000 via the hall’s digital broadcast fund and the number joining its membership scheme has increased by a quarter.
Berlin Philharmonic plans Shanghai residency
The Strad
The German orchestra will present five concerts in the city in June 2022.
Rare Violin Tests Germany’s Commitment to Atone for Its Nazi Past
NY Times: Catherine Hickley
The instrument’s holders refuse to compensate the heirs of a Jewish music dealer, jeopardizing a system for restitution that has been in place for nearly two decades.
Yuri Bashmet: TikTok star?
The Strad
The Russian violist considers how to tempt audiences back to the concert hall.
First Ever Piazzolla Music Competition Launched
The Violin Channel
The international online music competition for solo instrumentalists and ensembles is in honor of composer Astor Piazzolla’s 100th birthday.
Berlin survey paints worrying picture for freelance musicians
The Strad
Almost a third of respondents see no light at the end of the tunnel regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Interview with Sphinx Organization’s Afa Dworkin
The Violin Channel
VC recently caught up with Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, to discuss this year’s annual Sphinx Competition and SphinxConnect convention.
Aaron Dworkin — With Philadelphia Orchestra Bassist Joseph Conyers
The Violin Channel
Aaron Dworkin sits down with Joseph Conyers, Philadelphia Orchestra bassist and entrepreneur, to discuss his passions that fuel his success.
OFF THE BEATEN PATH
An Organ Recital, With a Coronavirus Shot
NY Times: Alex Marshall
Salisbury Cathedral is joining Britain’s vaccination drive, and its organists are providing a musical accompaniment. They’re even taking requests.
Musicians criticise EasyJet’s changed policy on instruments
The Strad
Violins and violas among those to be barred as hand luggage from 10 February onwards.
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