As has been widely rumored, Carlo Fuortes, who resigned as head of the Italian public broadcaster RAI last May, is in at Teatro San Carlo in Naples and Frenchman Stéphane Lissner, in the job since 2019, is out. That’s because … » Read

In a scene reminiscent of the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan during the 1990s, officials in the western province of Herat recently set fire to dozens of musical instruments, many of them collected from wedding halls. According to the area … » Read

BAYREUTH, Germany (AP) — A giant swan sailed into the auditorium and crashed, felled by a huge arrow still protruding. Flowers burst into bloom, radiant in red and green, pink and blue. In the theater Richard Wagner conceived 150 years ago … » Read

LONDON—What to do when the star is a no-show? This July 30 BBC Prom at London’s Royal Albert Hall was to have featured Daniil Trifonov playing Mason Bates’s Piano Concerto. Alas, the Russian pianist cancelled at perilously short … » Read

“I never wanted to play trombone,” declared Hillary Simms, the new trombonist of the American Brass Quintet. “I wanted to play trumpet because I loved the solo in the middle of Nat King Cole’s song … » Read

Peter Otto, longtime first associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and acting concertmaster from 2018-2022, is to be the new concertmaster of the Nashville Symphony as of January, 2024. He succeeds Jun Iwasaki, who assumed the same job … » Read

Since 1833 C.F. Martin & Co has hand-built guitars and other stringed instruments in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, earning an international reputation for the quality of its instruments. A family-run, profit-sharing company, Martin … » Read

In a classic example of understatement, Felix Klieser, born without arms, calls his becoming a French horn player “a little miracle.” But his characterization has little to do with his physical condition. Instead, it tracks his need … » Read

Two queens; one throne; unfaithfulness; sacrilege. Such a combination can hardly miss on the opera stage. And in a rare revival of Saint- Saëns’s Henri VIII on July 23 at Bard College, it did not. The event was the school’s … » Read

On July 28, four months after its acquisition by Universal Music Group (UMG), Hyperion Records announced the first release to all streaming platforms of 200 selections from its catalogue of more than 2,000 recordings. “These first 200 … » Read