Flying with instruments

The orchestra pit of the Opera Theatre in the Sydney Opera House wasn’t big enough to accommodate the 86 orchestral musicians required for Opera Australia’s present production of Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt”. Answer: take them off-site and link them to the theatre with video and acoustic technology. Matthew Westwood of The Australian has the full story: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/pits-not-up-to-it-so-piped-musics-the-go/story-fn9d2mxu-1226409545488

Is the term ‘contemporary classical music’ a contradiction in terms? Tom Service of The Guardian dispels some myths: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/26/five-myths-contemporary-classical-music?intcmp=239

The family of maestro Arturo Toscanini has placed hundreds of his valuable possessions on the market for auction by Sotheby’s in London on November 28th. The conductor died in New York in 1957. The items include Toscanini’s Steinway model D piano, some of his batons and documents hand written by Verdi, Wagner, Strauss and Mendelssohn. More at:…

This week pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has been appearing in four concerts at London’s Royal Festival Hall, performing the complete piano sonatas (11 of them – from memory) of Franz Schubert. What makes this series even more special is that Mr Barenboim has been performing on piano that he has co-designed and which took 4,000…