BUDAPEST, Hungary -- At a free open-air concert in Budapest last week Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO) Chief Conductor Iván Fischer removed his jacket to reveal a white dress shirt with a hole cut out of the sleeve. As he kept his … » Read

Europe has historically offered a warmer reception to Black American composers than has the U.S. William Grant Still’s music received some of its earliest performances in Paris, for example, and his Afro-American Symphony received its … » Read

Singapore-born conductor Kahchun Wong is to be the new principal guest conductor of the Japan Philharmonic as of next month, succeeding the ailing Neeme Järvi. Wong's debut with Japan Phil came last March when he stepped in for Pietari … » Read

A deal struck on Aug. 24 between the Metropolitan Opera and the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the union representing orchestra members, assures that the nation’s largest performing arts organization will open its 2021-22 season as … » Read

Plans were announced yesterday for a statue of Marian Anderson to be erected on the front steps of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the famed contralto’s hometown. The house she grew up in in South Philadelphia was placed in 2011 on … » Read

Canadian composer and writer R. Murray Schafer, whose work lent the concept of the “soundscape” wide public currency, died on Aug. 14 at his Ontario home. He was 88. Born in 1933 in the Lake Huron city of Sarnia, Ontario, Schafer … » Read

After a near half-century at the top of its game, the Emerson String Quartet is announcing today its plan to retire at the end of summer 2023. Formed at Juilliard in 1976, the group has gone on to become one of the top string quartets in the … » Read

Joshua Kosman, longtime music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle , has written a moving remembrance of the late Michael Morgan . Understandably, they came to know each other well over the years, not just as colleagues in a business, but as … » Read

An ocean traffic jam threatening to scuttle the Los Angeles Opera’s much-anticipated season opener of Il Trovatore is calling for desperate measures by company officials. The sets for the Verdi warhorse, on their way from the Opera de … » Read

In the summer of 1990, the 76-year-old John Cage admitted defeat, telling a German audience, “I no longer consider it necessary to find alternatives to harmony. After all these years I am finally writing beautiful music.” The … » Read