With the start of the 2027-28 season, Laura Jackson will begin a five-year contract as the music director of the Madison (WI) Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Only the fifth individual to hold the position in the ensemble’s 100-year history, she … » Read

Ilan Kumaranayake Mendel is to be the Calgary Philharmonic’s resident conductor with the beginning of the 2026-27 season. He arrives as the orchestra continues its search for a successor to Rune Bergmann, who left in 2025 after an … » Read

Elias Peter Brown, 31, has received the 2026 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award as announced by the Foundation’s Board Chair Penny Van Horn and Artistic and Awards Committee Chair Elizabeth Buccheri. The $30,000 prize is said to be “the … » Read

Last night’s concert staging of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL was cancelled due to hazardous air quality from the wildfires in Canada. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus … » Read

A 20-year veteran as bass trombonist of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops is to succeed Alan D. Valentine as president and CEO of the Nashville Symphony as of August 1. He is J. Mark Cantrell, arriving after two years at the helm of the … » Read

On July 15, Opera Colorado and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) announced their first-ever collective bargaining agreement. Negotiations underway since May 2025 produced a three-year contract that includes opera singers, staging … » Read

Opera Carolina has elevated Stefano Vignati, currently the company’s music director and principal conductor , to the position of general director as the organization anticipates its 77 th season. Vignati appears to have survived a period of … » Read

An artist seeking entrance to perform in the U.S. must navigate a set of rules that seem designed to dissuade them from coming. A process that may take well over a year includes four steps, with no guarantee that having completed them correctly … » Read

The ongoing crisis at the Boston Symphony Orchestra seems to have done little to dilute the quality of the ensemble’s music making. Since the March announcement that the BSO board had decided not to renew Andris Nelsons’s contract as … » Read

Colorado Music Festival, which this summer honors its 50 th anniversary (July 9-August 9) and its revitalization since Peter Oundjian arrived as music director in 2019 , has appointed a new executive director in Aren Der Hacopian. He’ll … » Read