Christoph Müller is to be the new Intendant and artistic director of Settimane Musicali Ascona, which this season runs from August 31 to October 8 in Ticino, Switzerland. He starts in the fall of 2025, arriving after 24 years in a similar … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—With the symphony’s season clouded by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen’s startling decision to depart in the middle of next year, at the conclusion of his five-year contract, this June 28 concert at Davies Hall … » Read

For at least the past century, the design of the piano keyboard has undergone few significant changes, partly from pure tradition and partly from a refusal to acknowledge that different-sized hands deserve different-sized keyboards. The website … » Read

On June 27 the board of the San Francisco Opera elected Barbara A. Wolfe to succeed John Gunn as its new chair, effective as of August. Gunn, who is to become chair emeritus, has held the position since 2008 and steps down at the end of the … » Read

Paul Sperry, a tenor whose devotion to songs by living American composers as well as some of the most challenging by late-20th-century Europeans won praise here and abroad, died in New York on June 13. He was 90. A graduate of Harvard and Harvard … » Read

LONDON—It’s a mark of a fine actor when you see him multiple times and only realize it’s the same person when you check his program biography. In 2021 at Grange Park’s The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko I admired … » Read

The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) has named Samuel Hollister as its next assistant conductor, succeeding  Stephanie Childress who exited the job in 2023 and has moved on to some high-profile engagements. Hollister, chosen after … » Read

A French court ruled last Friday that Maurice Ravel was the composer of the ubiquitous Bolero. That may seem obvious, but earlier this year the heirs of Russian of stage designer Alexandre Benois, who worked on the original performance of the … » Read

Sarah Cole, an expert in literary modernism, has been promoted from interim to dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, encompassing the departments of film, theater, visual and sound Arts, and writing. She has been serving as … » Read

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s decision to not renew his contract as music director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) has shocked the city’s cultural cognoscenti and called into question the city’s self-image. The Finn was unsparing when … » Read