Puccini’s La bohème is a staple of the opera world, and it takes a very bold director to tinker around with it. Enter Yuval Sharon, a 2017 MacArthur Genius Grant awardee and current artistic director of the Detroit Opera who in  … » Read

Tchaikovsky’s symphonic writing is some of the most beautiful in the classical canon. And a recent performance of his Symphony No. 5 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic suggests that it might also possess considerable erotic potency. On April … » Read

TORONTO (AP)—Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84. Representative Victoria Lord … » Read

When he was 14, James Díaz started taking keyboard lessons thanks to the toss of a coin. His parents wanted to have one of their two sons receive training so as to be able to play in the local church. Díaz, born in 1990, would … » Read

If Julius Eastman’s music seems to re-invent itself with every hearing, it’s partly because the late composer encouraged performers to make his music their own, sometimes in highly interventionist ways. At the three-concert event … » Read

Kudos to the Cleveland Orchestra’s fundraisers. In March, the orchestra received $7 million from Jane Baker Nord, to create a special fund for educational concerts. Last week, the orchestra got $10 million from the Milton and Tamar Maltz … » Read

Jherrard Hardeman , 25, is to be the new assistant conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic under Andreas Delfs, as well as music director of the Rochestra Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He became assistant conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta last … » Read

In 1973 Wayne Sanders, his roommate and fellow musician Benjamin Mathews, and Sister Mary Elise Sisson, a white nun, met in an Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan to organize Opera Ebony. Their goal was to provide Black performers the … » Read

Ukrainian pianist Roman Fediurko, 18, swept the International Horowitz Competition in Geneva , which concluded a week’s worth of rounds on April 21. Fediurko, a scholarship student  at the International Music Academy in Lichtenstein, … » Read

LONDON—For a program steeped in executions and funeral marches, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s April 26 concert at Southbank Centre was surprisingly colorful. It was also full of drama, opening with a 30-minute tryout of a new … » Read