As of Sept. 1, 2022,  dramaturg, curator, and theater manager Matthias Pees will become the new director of Berliner Festspiele. He succeeds Thomas Oberender, in the position since 2012 and leaving at his own request. The 51-year-old Pees, a … » Read

Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) has named Natasha Baldwin to the newly created position of Executive VP, Classics and Screen. The London-based Baldwin will be responsible for leading the company’s global classical and screen … » Read

Paul Crewes will step down as artistic director of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, in Beverly Hills, CA, as of the end of this year. He will stay on in an advisory capacity through the 2021-22 season. “It’s … » Read

Riccardo Muti will remain music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, extending a contract that was to end this season one year, to the end of 2022-23. Beyond that, the 80-year-old maestro’s relationship with the CSO is … » Read

Nigel Kennedy has walked away from a concert at Royal Albert Hall, citing Classical FM’s decision to prevent him from performing a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. “This is musical segregation,” the 64-year-old violinist told The … » Read

Robert Schumann’s death in a German asylum in 1856 was neither the first nor last incidence of psychiatric illness in his family. His father likely had a nervous breakdown, his mother suffered from depression, and his sister Emilie … » Read

Toledo Opera has named not one but two artistic directors to succeed James Meena, who left as general director and principal conductor last year to take the same post with Opera Carolina, in Charlotte, NC. Toledo’s James Norman, employed by … » Read

Jaap van Zweden isn’t the only music director for whom the pandemic has caused a change in priorities and lifestyle preferences. As Van Zweden exits the New York Philharmonic at the close of 2023 and the Hong Kong Phil one year later, … » Read

For more than four decades, most music in Iran has been banned because, according to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, it caused people to be “inactive and frivolous.” Based on interpretations of religious texts by the Ministry of Islamic … » Read

Debra Lew Harder, a classical music host and producer for Temple University’s WRTI-FM in Philadelphia, as well as a concert pianist and a medical doctor, is to be the new host of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, starting when the … » Read