At four hours of music and a highly complex score for huge orchestra (120 musicians in this case) and chorus, it’s no wonder that performances of Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Saint François d'Assise a re rare ; it has been … » Read

The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) should already be planning for its centennial in 2031. Instead, it faces the prospect of having no home, no 2026-27 season, and quite possibly, no future, all due to Donald Trump’s misguided effort to … » Read

Matthias Pintscher is to succeed Jaime Martin as music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as of 2027-28, with an initial contract of four years. Pintscher, also a composer, recently renewed his contract as music director of the Kansas … » Read

How much of a good thing is too much? When does wretched excess overcome commitment to one composer’s oeuvre? The Guardian’ s Flora Willson recently put herself to these tests, reviewing six operas totaling 23 hours of Wagner … » Read

Suno, the AI-generative song platform, is introducing new tools designed to prevent users from uploading its AI-generated songs on other streaming platforms to earn revenue. Audio watermarking and fingerprinting will in theory stop misuse of … » Read

SALZBURG—Markus Hinterhäuser, recently (and controversially) fired as Salzburg Festival artistic director , based this season’s program on Roland Barthes’s book, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments , which explores … » Read

The opening of the 29 th season of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (OICMF) coincided with the announcement that Aloysia Friedmann, the violinist and violist who founded the Festival in 1998 and has served as its artistic director ever … » Read

Theater-goers eager to get the biggest bang for their buck (or pound) are finding London’s West End a much better bargain than New York’s Great White Way. Since the pandemic, London’s theaters have bounced back far more … » Read

The Trump administration’s chaotic tariff policies are rife with damaging consequences. One of the most important among them is the threat posed to American music education and, by extension, the health of the music industry. The National … » Read

Despite the Sturm und Drang surrounding the Boston Symphony, the music-making during Andris Nelsons’s last 2026 weekend at Tanglewood did not disappoint. (He exits at the end of next season.) Nor did the audience’s evident commitment … » Read