CHICAGO—And to think it all started as a group chat. Jessie Montgomery [Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year ] is beginning her final season as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence, whose … » Read

On Dec. 3 Tobias Picker’s Lili Elbe had its world premiere at Theater St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Based on the life of the eponymous 20 th -century Danish painter, it is the first major opera about an historical transgender … » Read

Sophie Kastner is writing music that is literally out of this world. The Montreal composer created Where Parallel Lines Converge from the same data from the Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer telescopes that scientists use to create pictures of deep … » Read

Carlos Izcaray’s journey from Venezuela to the podium of the Alabama Symphony, where he will celebrate his tenth year as music director in 2024, has had many twists and turns. Born into a musical family—his father was a conductor and … » Read

CHICAGO—Challenges don’t seem to intimidate Lidiya Yankovskaya, music director of Chicago Opera Theater since 2017. And there was no lack of challenges in the company’s most recent production, Shostakovich’s satirical … » Read

Adam Hickox , recent assistant conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, has been appointed principal conductor of Glyndebourne Sinfonia (formerly the Glyndebourne Tour Orchestra), a post that entails both opera and concert performances in the … » Read

On Dec. 6 the Metropolitan King County Council unanimously approved a 0.1 percent sales tax increase to fund “Doors Open.” The program anticipates distributing more than $100 million annually to arts, heritage, science, and historical … » Read

On Dec. 8 the musicians of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, seeking increased wages, voted to approve a possible strike. Negotiations, which have been ongoing since April 2022, have thus far produced, according to a press release from the … » Read

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has extended the contract of Music Director Jader Bignamini through the end of the 2030-31 season, lengthening the current agreement by five years to reach a total of ten by its completion. The DSO is planning to … » Read

Maria Callas’s 100th birthday on Dec. 2 became such an inescapable event in the opera world that she might as well have risen from the dead. Looking like Medea in disguise as Audrey Hepburn, Callas stared out of magazine covers, Facebook … » Read