Conducting Business

The Metropolitan Opera's decision last week to drop its HD and radio broadcasts of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer continues to draw strong responses – from newspaper editorial boards, anti-censorship groups, and music critics around the world. But this is only the latest chapter in the fraught history of this work.

The Metropolitan Opera's decision to cancel its global HD and radio broadcasts of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer has stirred up heated responses from around the classical music world. Some have called the decision sensitive and sensible given the real-life subject matter. Others have said it showed a lack of courage of artistic convictions and principles.

June 11 is the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth—an occasion to celebrate and also to raise questions about the composer and his actions during the Nazi era.

The graying of audiences is a perennial, if growing concern for symphony orchestras. Recent data from the National Endowment for the Arts shows that senior citizens are the fastest-growing segment of the classical music audience, while 35- to 54-year-olds are turning way. One presumed reason for younger people's reluctance is the price of entry.

When news broke that Anthony McGill would be the New York Philharmonic’s next principal clarinetist, much of the attention centered on the political intrigue – that he was filling a longstanding vacancy and the perception that he'd been "poached" from the Met Orchestra. But there's also this fact: McGill, a widely respected musician, will be the Philharmonic's first African-American principal player – and part of the roughly two percent of U.S. orchestra musicians who are black.

Every concert-goer has experienced this at one time or another: a performance that is so exhilarating or so transcendent that after the final notes, the audience cheers, leaps to its feet and demands to hear more.

The Berlin Philharmonic announced last week that it is launching an in-house record label, starting on May 23 with concert recordings of the complete Schumann symphonies conducted by Simon Rattle.

When Colorado legalized pot this year, millions of music fans fantasized about the far-out musical experiences that will take place in the "Mile High" city of Denver. Now, the Colorado Symphony may have answered their wishes. In a bid to attract a new and younger audience, the Denver-based orchestra has announced "Classically Cannabis: The High Note Series," four pot-themed fundraising concerts from May through September.

New Federal rules aimed at protecting Africa's endangered elephants are sending shock waves through parts of the music world.

Last week, J&R unceremoniously closed its store in Lower Manhattan after 43 years in business. The iconic electronics and music retailer is vowing to reopen “totally reimagined and redeveloped.” But for now at least, it has gone the way of Tower Records, HMV, Virgin Megastore, Sam Goody and other brick-and-mortar shops that used to make New York City a music superstore haven.

Barber’s Violin Concerto, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Copland’s Appalachian Spring are among a small handful of American works that have become staples of the orchestra repertoire.

When San Diego Opera recently announced its plans to fold after 49 years in business, a wide swath of the California arts community was stunned, including the musicians of the San Diego Symphony, which doubles as the opera company’s pit orchestra.

When Sharleen Joynt, a coloratura soprano from Canada, was selected to be a contestant on ABC's reality dating show “The Bachelor," she knew it had the potential to be more bizarre than many opera plots. One of the show’s pivotal scenes, after all, has her stepping out of a limousine, dressed to the nines, to meet someone who ostensibly could propose to her within a few weeks.

In the current violinist-eat-violinist atmosphere for graduates of conservatories and university music schools, some institutions of higher musical learning are trying to bring academic training closer to the realities of the job market.

As the Los Angeles Philharmonic arrives in New York to give a pair of concerts on March 16 and 17 at Lincoln Center, its music director, Gustavo Dudamel, faces an increasingly difficult political situation back in his native Venezuela.

Graphic: How Four Arts Disciplines are Taught in NYC High Schools New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has put education reform at the top of his agenda, with a particular focus on universal pre-kindergarten, charter schools and after-school programs. But last week there was other news about the city's schools that may trouble education advocates: high school students aren’t getting nearly enough arts.

Possibly no orchestra has prompted more hand-wringing and ambivalence than the Vienna Philharmonic. The 172-year-old orchestra is recognized the world over for a very specific sound that’s changed little over the decades, and a playing style that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Leonard Bernstein, Paul McCartney and Osvaldo Golijov all wrote high-profile music that wasn't entirely theirs. They used orchestrators (Bernstein in West Side Story), musical collaborators (McCartney's concert works) and assistant melodists (Golijov’s Sidereus) to help get their thoughts on paper.

Despite efforts to keep the content of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics under tight wraps, a few details have emerged about the musical lineup planned for Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia on Friday.

Sunday’s Super Bowl will feature 55 commercials and chances are, some of them will feature a symphony or an opera aria embedded in the soundtrack. Classical music in advertising goes back decades but its purpose has changed – becoming more self-referential, ironic and often comedic in its use.

So, what comes next for the Minnesota Orchestra in the wake of the contract agreement that ended the bitter 15-month lockout and returns the musicians to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis on Feb. 7?

Today's Throwback Thursday looks at the continued strength of the vinyl revival. Tune in during the 8 am hour when Jeff Spurgeon plays a special vinyl track. The numbers are striking: CD sales declined nearly 15 percent last year. But vinyl sales moved in the opposite direction: up 32 percent from 2012, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Trendy retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Whole Foods are stocking vinyl records. Sales of turntables are up and artists like conductor Gustavo Dudamel, pianist Valentina Lisitsa and the Brooklyn Rider string quartet are releasing LPs.

The year 2013 saw plenty of headline-making moments in classical music. Protesters came to the opening night of the Met, while a stagehands strike cancelled the opening night at Carnegie Hall. There were heated debates over women conductors and some complicated celebrations for Richard Wagner. It was another tough year for some orchestras but a good one for Benjamin Britten fans.

We've all had moments when our mind has wandered during a Wagner opera, a Bruckner symphony or perhaps a long Mozart recitative. Some of us have even dozed off. But maybe we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when our thoughts drift to a grocery list or an e-mail we forgot to send earlier.

It’s that time of year again, when orchestras across the land are dusting off their holiday pops programs and choruses are warming up for Messiahs and sing-a-along carol extravaganzas.

It stopped just short of promising eyesight to the blind or rain from dry skies. But disciples of the 1993 "Mozart Effect" study made impressive claims: Listening to music, they said, could boost Junior's math scores and maybe even get him into Harvard. The idea sparked a cottage industry of CDs, classes and books for babies and toddlers.

The absence of women conductors at the world’s top orchestras is no longer news, but it stands out more every year, as women scale male bastions in business, sports and entertainment. Of the 20 largest orchestras in the U.S., only the Baltimore Symphony has a woman music director: Marin Alsop, who last month made history as the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms concert in its nearly 120-year history.

All the people clamoring to get into Broadway shows like "Wicked" and "The Book of Mormon" – or museum shows like the Rain Room at MoMa – are apparently the exception, rather than the rule. That's the conclusion of a new survey of public participation released last week by the National Endowment for the Arts. It shows an overall decline in arts consumption by Americans, with a particular drop-off in museum and theater attendance. There were smaller dips in classical music and ballet audiences too. But it wasn't all gloom and doom: Audiences are growing more racially and ethnically diverse.  And there are hints that technology is playing a larger role in how we consume culture.

When times are tough, a lot of arts groups go for the sure thing. For orchestras, that means a Beethoven symphony cycle over Schoenberg or Cage. For an opera house, it's Carmen and La Boheme over a risky modern opera.

Before the Minnesota Orchestra locked out its musicians in a season-long labor dispute, the orchestra's administration had already locked down a large number of domain names – buying up at least a dozen website addresses that were variations on "Save Our Minnesota Orchestra."

Anyone who has had to give a speech at a wedding or deliver a Powerpoint presentation at the office knows the symptoms: sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, even nausea.

When a new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle is planned, opera administrators bank on a significant portion of their audience coming from the ranks of Wagnerites or "Ring Nuts," a breed of Wagner-lovers known for traveling globally to feed their unrelenting hunger for opera's greatest epic.

A symphony orchestra gets a gleaming new concert hall. It’s a symbol of cultural ambition, civic pride and even a centerpiece of urban renewal. Or, is it an albatross and a money pit whose costs ultimately come back to bite the organization?

Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art said it will name its newly remodeled plaza and fountains for David H. Koch, the billionaire conservative activist who gave $65 million towards the renovation. Koch has his name on a few prominent buildings around town, including the former New York State Theater at Lincoln Center and the American Museum of Natural History's dinosaur wing. Koch presents one of the most visible examples of naming rights, a trend that some say is a necessary part of philanthropy. Yet others argue that giving should be a selfless, anonymous act. In this podcast, we consider what's driving the trend and what it signifies.

Last week, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf cancelled a Nazi-themed production of Wagner's Tannhäuser, when the premiere performance prompted booing, mass walkouts and even reports of audience members getting sick. With scenes that reportedly showed Jews being murdered and dying in gas chambers, it certainly shocked — but it was hardly the first revisionist opera production.

On May 29, 1913, the Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring provoked a riot: whistling and booing, catcalls and fisticuffs overran the performance and the police were called in to quiet the angry crowd. It became one of the most celebrated scandals in music history. Today, The Rite of Spring is practically an audience favorite and rioting in concert halls is unthinkable. But is this a good thing? Does classical music need more shock value, more scandals?

POLL: Should classical music be used to fight crime and loitering? Move along, hoodlums. Antonio Vivaldi is playing at Newark Penn Station. When New Jersey Transit upgraded the public address system at the Newark transit hub a year ago, they began piping in classical music along with the announcements on train arrivals and connections. The authority subscribed to a music service and station agents could select from different channels, which also include easy-listening and jazz. The idea, said a NJ Transit spokesperson, is to relax customers "and make it more pleasant to traverse the facilities." But in cities from Atlanta to Minneapolis and London, there's often a bigger strategy at work: turn on the great composers and turn away the loiterers, vagrants and troublemakers who are drawn to bus stations, malls and parking lots. Last month, the Associated Press reported on a YMCA in Columbus, OH that began piping Vivaldi into its parking lot, and claiming to disperse petty drug dealers as a result. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks why classical music in particular seems to be the weapon of choice – and whether it works. "It's been used as part of a larger strategy of crime prevention through environmental design," said Jacqueline Helfgott, chair of the criminal-justice department at Seattle University. She noted that classical music is often accompanied by upgrades like better lighting, improved traffic flow or trimmed shrubbery in public areas. Studies on the specific effects of music on criminal behavior are lacking. But Helfgott believes classical music is historically associated with "a cultural aesthetic that is pro-social as opposed to antisocial," making it a preferred crime prevention tool. Put another way, rowdy teenagers don't find classical very cool. Nigel Rodgers, the head of Pipedown, a group that campaigns against background music in any form, believes the strategy presents a slippery slope. “Yes, young people commit crimes and it’s a problem," he said. "I do appreciate that. But we must seek out other pro-sociable ways of dealing with the problem rather than just squirt acoustic insecticide at young people. "People who really like music of any sort don’t want to have it piped at them when they’re trying to talk, eat or shop when they don’t want it." It's also worth keeping in mind that not all classical music works as a soothing agent. As anyone who has seen "A Clockwork Orange," knows, even Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has its dark associations.

In recent months, symphony orchestras have returned to the music of J.S. Bach with a vengeance. The New York Philharmonic is in the midst of a month-long Bach festival with the expressed goal of reclaiming the master's music for modern instruments. At the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos are on the calendar this spring. The orchestra also plans to re-record the Bach transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski – those sumptuous, technicolor arrangements that had been considered passé (if enjoyably so). "There's been a weird phenomenon for a long time that has made it pretty rare to see Bach on symphony orchestra programs," said New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert in a recent video explaining the orchestra's project. He goes on to question the "exclusivity" of suggesting "there was one only one right way to play Bach." All of this is a far cry from the period-instrument movement's expressed goals to rediscover how Baroque music might have sounded using original instruments and performance practices. For years, if not decades, period-instrument players had gained the upper hand by researching appropriate tempos, ornamentation and instruments. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks three guests about this phenomenon. "I think [orchestras] are panicking," said Monica Huggett, a leading baroque violinist and conductor. "In London, where I worked most of my career, the big orchestras stopped playing Bach because in the end, there was so much good historical performance that they really didn't need to do it any more and people really didn't want to hear it any more." James Oestreich, the consulting classical music editor at the New York Times, sees things differently. "I wouldn't agree that the large orchestras are panicking," he said. "I think they've lost their balance to some extent. I think they've lost confidence in the repertory to some extent. To hold up the music scene in a world capital like London or New York and say this should set standards for who performs what, I don't think is fair." Oestreich adds that the New York Philharmonic played lots of Bach in the 1990s, and the orchestra is "perhaps overselling" the novelty of its current festival. Lewin also asks a prominent New York pianist whether she's trying to reclaim Bach for the modern instrument. "I'm not doing anything unique by playing Bach on the piano," said the pianist Simone Dinnerstein. "I think that I just have more omnivorous tastes and think that Bach sounds very interesting and different when played in many different ways on many different instruments with modern orchestras, on authentic instruments."

For the first time a soundtrack for a video game has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category usually reserved for movie scores. The composer Austin Wintory's score for the wildly popular PlayStation 3 game "Journey" has been given a nod for "Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media," pitting him against film-score giants like Ludovic Bource, Howard Shore, John Williams and Hans Zimmer. The awards take place this Sunday in Los Angeles.

With influenza reaching epidemic proportions in the United States — and the common cold not far behind — opera singers are dropping out of productions at an alarming rate.

The year 2012 supplied plenty of headline-making moments in classical music. There was the infamous marimba ring tone at the New York Philharmonic, the opera singer with the controversial tattoos, the composer accused of plagiarism, and cellos booted off airplanes. It was a tough year for American orchestras and a good year for entrepreneurship.

When the news emerged last week that Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center is to finally go under the knife in 2017, reaction was swift and vocal. "Tear the place down!" wrote more than one commenter on a recent WQXR.org blog post. "The dimensions are all wrong," said another. Some familiar complaints about hall were heard — concerning its acoustics, uncomfortable seats, dated restrooms and even the lack of a pipe organ. Others argued that a facelift should respect the integrity of the 1962 building while using the latest technology or acoustic principals. A concert hall renovation is an exceedingly long, complex and costly project involving numerous constituents — patrons, musicians, staff, boards — and Avery Fisher is home not only to the New York Philharmonic but many other presenters.

Last week was basically a write-off for many of New York City's arts organizations. Superstorm Sandy shut down theaters, knocked out power to downtown clubs and submerged art galleries. For many individuals, it destroyed paintings, musical instruments and recording equipment.

In the old days, opera singers were expected to just "park and bark," as the static style of performing on stage is referred to within the business. But that’s a thing of the past. Singers now not only have look to like their characters, but also bound across raised platforms, fly through the air and undertake graphic fight scenes. With this growing emphasis on HD-quality realism, what physical skills must an opera singer have to make it today? Is opera becoming too dangerous? Recent accidents in major opera houses have put a renewed focus on this question. In this podcast, we examine the question of physical risk-taking in opera with three experts: Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post Dale Girard, the director of stage combat studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts and a working stuntman Laura Lee Everett, the artistic services director at Opera America, a service organization representing opera houses in the US

In 1955, Canadian piano prodigy Glenn Gould made a recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations that made him world-famous. But Gould became just as famous for his eccentricities – humming along while he played, wearing gloves and overcoat in summer, middle-of-the-night phone calls and quitting the concert circuit at the height of his career. It’s the 80th anniversary of his birth, and Gould continues to provoke fascination, with tribute albums, books, DVDs, an app and even a Glenn Gould conference at the University of Toronto. All this raises bigger questions of Gould’s impact on the music industry – and how artists’ legacies are promoted – or maybe even exploited – after they’re gone.

Recently, WQXR.org polled listeners on what's needed to help troubled orchestras in several major American cities. Focusing on major symphonies in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Paul and San Antonio – all of which face contract disputes and bulging deficits – the responses varied considerably. Some listeners called for for management shakeups; others advocated more innovative programming and concert formats. A few said that orchestras need to take on a greater educational role in order to fill the void left by public school cutbacks.

U.S. airlines are more punctual and less likely to lose your bag than at any time in more than two decades, according to a recent Associated Press analysis of Bureau of Transportation data. Fewer than three suitcases per 1,000 passengers were reported lost, damaged or delayed from January through June, a record low.

The headlines from Europe this summer are as persistent as a bad sunburn: the Dutch government has slashed arts funding by 25 percent, Italy’s La Scala opera house has announced a $9 million shortfall, and Madrid and Barcelona's main opera houses have both implemented cuts in productions and staff. Portugal abolished its ministry of culture altogether. Yes, dire news about arts organizations isn’t just for Americans any more. Throughout much of Europe – most notably in Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain – generous public arts funding is being slashed as governments impose severe austerity measures.

As almost anyone with a Facebook account knows, classical music criticism is going from spectator sport to participatory activity. Some people read the comments on articles or news feeds just as avidly as the actual reviews that precede them. Meanwhile, as newspaper arts coverage is cut back in many cities, blogs and Twitter feeds are a growing force in shaping conversations about the art form. But where does this leave classical music? Is the Internet giving us a more democratic form of commentary – or a more shrill, unfiltered one?

The "Star-Spangled Banner" that kicks off opening night concerts across the U.S. is often believed to be a great patriotic tradition. But some people think it's out of place and out of mood. The Fort Worth Symphony recently drew criticism over its practice of playing the anthem before every concert. A Dallas musician sounded off on Facebook that orchestra concerts were not meant to be patriotic events, and that the anthem ruined the mood a conductor was trying to set. Many others agreed. In this week's podcast, two experts weigh in on the anthem at the orchestra. Marc Ferris, author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America's National Anthem, says he has no problem with the piece's appearance, which is a holdover from 9/11 in many concert halls. "Just to shoehorn it in there just for the sake of doing it could take away from the thematic program," Ferris said. "But you don't have to do it at the beginning. You could do it after intermission. You could do it at the end." He notes that the first time it was played at a baseball game was during the seventh-inning stretch at 1918 Brooklyn Dodgers game.

An international dispute arose last month when Russia announced its intentions to reclaim Rachmaninoff's remains from a cemetery in Valhalla, NY. Russian cultural minister Vladimir Medinsky claimed that Americans have neglected the composer's grave (pictured above) while attempting to "shamelessly privatize" his name. But Rachmaninoff's descendants have balked at the idea of moving the body, pointing out that he died in the U.S. after spending decades outside of Russia in self-imposed political exile. This week's podcast explores just how Russia has built its case for moving Rachmaninoff's body, and what larger ambitions may be driving the effort. Simon Morrison, a professor of music and Slavic studies at Princeton University, was approached by Russian officials to find evidence that the composer wanted to be buried in his homeland. "Rachmaninoff didn't express a desire to be buried anywhere, as far as I know," Morrison tells host Naomi Lewin. All that Morrison could find was an "offhand" comment, cited in a biography, about his Swiss estate, Villa Senar. "He did write a letter to his sister-in-law, saying, 'If I must die, then this wouldn't be a bad place to be buried' – or words to that effect," noted Morrison. Sergei Rachmaninoff at a Steinway grand piano. Circa 1936 or earlier. (Wikimedia commons) Morrison says that a Russian delegation then traveled to the U.S. in 2014 to secure a copy of the letter from the Library of Congress. That led to a meeting between officials from Russia and the U.S. State Department, which Morrison attended as a musicological expert witness. Ultimately, the talks fell apart over Russia's military intervention in Crimea. Welz Kauffman, president of the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation, a nonprofit established by the composer's late grandson, Alexandre, says the matter of Rachmaninoff's remains are intertwined with Russia's efforts to purchase Senar. An attempted sale last year to an unnamed Russian oligarch fell through. The Foundation maintains that any decisions over the composer's remains or effects should be done in consultation with all of the composer's heirs (his great-great-granddaughter, Susan Sophia Volkonskaya-Wanamaker, has repeatedly dismissed the idea of reinterment). Ultimately, Morrison believes that the case reflects a desire by Russian politicians to reclaim their cultural legacy, whether that involves scattered manuscripts or the bodies of long-dead artists. This, he says, would establish Moscow "as this faux imperial city that it never was in the first place. It's part of a broader effort to re-establish imperial culture back in Russia." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page, take our poll below and share your comments:

Attending a new opera? Better take it all in because there's a good chance it may not be performed again. According to a 2015 study by Opera America, of the 589 operas that were premiered over the last 20 years, just 71 (or 11 percent) received subsequent revivals. For the second of two episodes dedicated to contemporary opera, we consider why the revival percentage is so low, and what gives a new opera staying power. Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, says that historically, few operas have ever entered the standard repertoire. "In the years of the 1780s, over a thousand operas a year premiered," he noted, but only a few, including Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, have withstood the test of time and continue to be performed. "Even though we see such a flowering of American creativity in opera, we still see a relatively limited number of new works." The Opera America study found that Mark Adamo's Little Women has been revived the highest number of times, with 66 revivals since its premiere at Houston Grand Opera in 1998. David Gockley, who was general manager in Houston when Little Women premiered, says its popularity is due to its recognizable title, modest scale and ability to be performed by younger singers. "It is a gorgeous gem of a piece," said Gockley, who is now entering his 10th and final season as general director of San Francisco Opera. Gockley encourages young composers to make their operas "more portable, more performable by different-sized companies." Cori Ellison, dramaturg at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, notes that some larger companies are developing adjunct, black-box-style venues where new works can get their start. "It's good if you can commission a good old barn-burning grand opera now and again," she said. "But I think that a lot of the future of new opera in this country has to do with small venues and more modest scale." Dead Man Walking, by American composer Jake Heggie, has received the second highest number of revivals, at 42, since its 2000 premiere with the San Francisco Opera. Gockley said he's looking forward to more new works by Heggie in the season ahead. He also maintains that the current season is nearly a golden age compared with 40 years ago, when he was starting out in Houston. "Compared with 1974, this is an immense amount of activity and to be thankful for." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and please share your thoughts below.

When George Benjamin's Written on Skin had its American stage premiere at the Mostly Mozart Festival on August 11, it became an unlikely summer blockbuster: a complex, contemporary opera with an abstract storyline and a dense, modernist musical language. The work got standing ovations from audiences and rave reviews from critics – but not all of them. This summer also saw another big premiere: Cold Mountain, by American composer Jennifer Higdon, at Santa Fe Opera. That work features a more accessible language, with traditional melodies and a conventional linear storyline, though reviews were somewhat more mixed. This week's podcast explores which approach works best in contemporary opera, and what has "sticking power." Joining host Naomi Lewin are Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, which represents North American opera companies, Cori Ellison, dramaturg at the Glyndebourne Festival in England; she also teaches at Juilliard and the American Lyric Theater; and David Gockley, who is entering his 10th and final season as general director of San Francisco Opera. From 1972-2005 he ran Houston Grand Opera, where he commissioned a lot of new work. Gockley is unconvinced by the popularity of Written on Skin. "It's a connoisseur's piece," he said. "Its musical language is extraordinarily complicated. I mean, are you going to sit down and play [a recording of] that at dinner?" As someone whose job includes filling a 3,200-seat house every night, Gockley says that he looks for works with a certain "bourgeois" appeal. "That is what we are – a bourgeois art form," he said. And if audiences don't immediately embrace a new work, "they're not going to come back." Ellison points out that a very different situation exists in Europe. On a list of some 60 notable modern operas recently compiled by Washington Post readers, only about 15 of them are by non-American composers. "Those 15 operas are in a much more modernist style or spectralist style," she said. European opera houses are generally smaller, benefit from government funding and can afford to take more risks stylistically. "It's a different landscape." A scene from Jennifer Higdon's 'Cold Mountain' (© Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera) But if traditional American opera audiences balk at a complex, modern work, how do we account for the warm reception Written on Skin received, and the cooler one for Cold Mountain? All three guests acknowledge that while Higdon's first opera wasn't perfect, it showed considerable promise. "I left Cold Mountain really wanting to hear Jennifer Higdon's next opera," said Scorca. He adds, "The challenge for today's composers is to find their own sweet spot between being truly contemporary, and writing in the moment of 2015, and finding a way to connect with the audience." And then there are regional tastes – and rivalries. "I think New York feels envious in one way and critical in another way of all the new operatic activity taking place outside of New York," said Gockley. "They are willing to dismiss it as being pap, and therefore, when something like the Benjamin comes along they can jump on that and think it's the bee's knees. As far as I'm concerned, it's just rehashing the modernism that has bit the dust again and again over the last 50 years." To hear our guest's comments on operas based on novels and films, and why that can help their success, listen to the full segment at the top of this page.

It's no secret that arts coverage has been slashed by many news media outlets looking to pare costs, and there are fewer writers and less space devoted to serious classical music criticism. This year has seen critics leave national newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News; last December brought the departure of long time New York Times critic Allan Kozinn. That's not to mention magazines; the age when Time and Newsweek had full rosters of arts critics have long since passed. This week's podcast explores the consequences of these changes for readers – and arts organizations – in a changing news environment. Joining host Naomi Lewin are Scott Cantrell, the outgoing music critic for the Dallas Morning News and Douglas McLennan, the founder and editor of ArtsJournal.com, which aggregates arts news stories from around the globe. Cantrell is not optimistic about the future of music criticism. Having been the music critic in Dallas for 16 years, he just accepted a buyout offer, which leaves a grand total of zero full-time classical music critics in the state of Texas. "There's no future in arts criticism as a full-time job with benefits as we have known it," he said. But if a newspaper critic as an influential arbiter of taste has declined, this hasn't led to less music criticism. Rather, a void is being filled by bloggers and other Internet pundits, who for the most part are unpaid. McLennan also believes that with the rise in non-traditional voices, the overall level of writing has improved. "I remember in the early years it was quite a chore to try and find 20 stories in a day that would be worth putting up," he said, referring to his site, which highlights noteworthy stories. "Let's not equate the golden age of criticism with the situation 20 years ago." Both guests estimate that there are currently about a dozen classical music critics at U.S. newspapers, down from about 65 only two decades ago. New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross recently compiled a list of remaining critics on his blog, The Rest in Noise. He lists 39 critics, but most of them are not solely dedicated to classical music. Even Cantrell had to do double-duty for several years, serving as a fill-in art and architecture critic. WQXR has created a map based largely on Ross’s data about newspaper critics (radio, blogs, music magazines and other media are not included). Please have a look and tell us if there's anyone we're missing: McLennan also believes that newspapers' current obsession with website clicks will exhaust itself, and new measurements of success will take over. In Cantrell’s experience, this may be a good thing. Even though his reviews are posted on his paper's website much earlier, many older readers will wait until they appear in ink. McLennan cautions about feeling nostalgic for the past as a golden age of classical music journalism: It wasn't necessary better, just different. Please listen to the full segment at the top of this page and share your thoughts below.

When Laurence Olivier played Othello in 1964, he would spend two hours a night coating his body with black grease, dying his tongue red and using drops to whiten his eyes. Such transformations have long since been banished from television and theater as racially insensitive, but some variations on this have doggedly continued in opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, up until this week. The Met has said that for its season-opening new production of Verdi's Otello the lead tenor, Aleksandrs Antoneko (from Latvia and white), will not wear dark-colored makeup. The company says it is "old-fashioned" and a "tradition that needed to be changed." Many would agree that at a time in which other symbols of racism are being discarded, that kind of makeup must go too. But some critics of the decision have argued that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Moor is problematic too. Some say the real issue involves the lack of African-American tenors currently who can sing Otello. Lawrence Brownlee (Dale Pickett/Courtesy of the artist) In this podcast, we get three views on this. Lawrence Brownlee, who is one of today's most in-demand tenors, and who frequently appears at the Met and other companies, says he doesn't personally have a problem with a colleague wearing blackening makeup if it serves the characterization. However, if a singer "feels they're being humiliated or they cannot accurately or appropriately portray that character with makeup on – and it takes them out of their zone when performing – then I don’t think they should be forced to do it." But Naomi André, co-editor of the book Blackness in Opera and a professor at the University of Michigan, suggests that if blackening makeup is used, companies should include a disclaimer in a program note. Naomi André, co-editor of 'Blackness in Opera' (University of Michigan) "Have it discussed," she said. "Say that 'we realize that this has a very difficult history and for these reasons we've decided to use it or for these reasons we've decided not to use it.'" She adds: "What I think is most damaging is when there's no discussion about it, and then you get a situation where the cover of an artistic brochure shows somebody in blackface and then the rest of us are thinking, 'what's going on?'" (The Met's decision came after an outcry from some subscribers who took issue with a photo in its season brochure.)        Vinson Cole, tenor (Robert Schraeder) Vinson Cole, a tenor who has sung with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestras over three decades, believes that the issue can be overstated. He says the use of makeup can be done subtly and without the connotations of racist minstrelsy. "When somebody's singing Otello or Aida, you don’t have to use a great deal of makeup to make it so very heavily black," he noted. "You want to give the illusion" of a black or ethnic character.  Listen to our guest's views on Madama Butterfly and the future of audience expectations at the top of this page and leave a comment below: What do you think about the Met's decision?

"Art for art's sake?" Not any more. A growing number of economic impact studies conducted by arts groups suggest that music festivals have a big impact on local economies. "If you do these studies and show them to government officials, they might be more willing to invest in the arts in their own communities," says Timothy Mangan, the classical music critic of the Orange County Register, who recently reported on the issue in Southern California. Mangan found that festivals and venues in Orange County have sought to demonstrate how they create jobs, generate tax revenue, benefit hotels and cause a ripple effect to tourist businesses. A few years ago, arts groups in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts sought to make a similar case. They commissioned a study which found that the arts bring some 6,000 jobs to the region, and help sustain local restaurants and hotels. "The creative economy is incredibly important to this area at a time when manufacturing has moved out of the area," Julia Dixon, head of Berkshire Creative, tells Naomi Lewin. Dixon particularly cites cities like North Adams (home to MASS MoCA) and Pittsfield (which, for a decade, battled downtown vacancy with the Storefront Artist Project). But even as cultural tourism has evolved, festivals are not a surefire economic booster to regional economies. Their programming has to be unique enough that visitors will come in the first place, and communities must work to exploit their assets while also managing traffic, parking and potential environmental effects. Listen to the full discussion above and tell us: Do you travel to music festivals? How do you spend money outside of the arts events themselves? Please leave a comment below.

Scan through the websites and social media feeds of many orchestras, music festivals and concert halls and you'll notice a common theme: youth and sex appeal, especially when it comes to soloists. But it's more specific than that: Alluring young female violinists are everywhere – and brooding male conductors (or guitarists) with artfully-groomed stubble aren't far behind. These musicians may well be talented and accomplished but their prominence also raises some questions: Is there room for less attractive soloists? And, as with Hollywood, do older women get shut out of opportunities? Jessica Duchen, a classical music & dance journalist for The Independent newspaper and other publications, tells host Naomi Lewin: "I've heard some fantastic female pianists who might be overweight or they don't happen to look like supermodels, and they don't have the careers that they could. They literally do not." Duchen recently interviewed a cellist who said that colleges and conservatories are favoring attractive performers in the admissions process. "I find this quite a disturbing thought," Duchen said. Andrew Ousley, the head of the classical marketing and promotion company Unison Media (and formerly of Warner Classics), doesn't believe there's an epidemic of style trumping substance. While he admits that "sex appeal certainly can allow success to be amplified to a greater scale, it might be an oversimplification to say it's one of the main marketing tools that promoters use." But Jessica Hadler, director of artist programs at Concert Artists Guild, which manages and promotes rising classical performers, says that if an orchestra is presented with two equally accomplished soloists, it will likely hire the more attractive of the two. She frequently coaches artists on matters of wardrobe and styling – and fields occasional complaints from venues about artists' choice of attire. Whether attractive soloists' presence in concert halls is by design or happenstance – and whether it's a good or bad thing for the future of classical music – is an ongoing debate. But a question emerges: How many of them will have the sticking power of Martha Argerich and Mitsuko Uchida? Duchen notes that "what somebody does at 50 or 60 is probably going to be a lot more interesting and mature and insightful than what somebody does at 22. It does seem to me that weeds out the sheep and the goats, if you like." Listen to the segment above, look at the slideshow below, and tell us what you think in the comments: are standards of style changing on concert stages?

"The whole concept of streaming doesn't fit with the way people listen to classical music," says Kirk McElhearn, a technology writer and senior contributor to Macworld, in this week's episode of Conducting Business. The launch of the online streaming service Apple Music has raised hopes and reinforced some of the persistent complaints about Apple when it comes to delivering symphonies, concertos and operas to listeners' computers and mobile devices. In test runs, McElhearn found that Apple Music repeats a problem familiar to the tech company's iTunes store: it serves up individual movements from pieces rather than grouping them together in sequence. So a listener's encounter with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony might only involve the third movement, not the whole work in sequence. Apple is touting its streaming service, which launched on June 30 in 100 countries, for not only its depth – with more than 30 million songs – but its hand-picked recommendations. Some of its "curated" playlists are chosen by the company's editors – à la the old record store clerk. There is also a section called "for you," based on music you've previously purchased or rated. McElhearn complains that when he first opened this section he was given a playlist called "Classical Music for Elevators." Classical Music...for Elevators (Screenshot/mcelhearn.com) Craig Havighurst, a writer and broadcaster from Nashville who co-hosts the weekly show Music City Roots, also tested Apple Music and tells us that the service lacks sufficient contextual information about recordings, such as liner notes (a flaw he admits is partly attributable to record companies). Searching for artists also didn't go easily. "Fans of classical music want to be able to see who a soloist is or who a conductor is and the 'artist' catchall doesn't explain that," he said. Apple did not respond to requests for comment for this segment. But while streaming companies – including Spotify, Pandora and Google Play – inevitably make music of all kinds more accessible, Havighurst argues that "art" genres may always be neglected: "If classical and jazz listeners are 4 to 5 percent of the [total] market, they are the ones who get underserved." Listen to the full segment above and tell us below: Have you tried Apple Music? What did you like or didn't like about it?

Ronald A. Wilford, once classical music's biggest power broker, died on June 13 at age 87. Wilford was an artist manager of the old school, wielding major control over the business but keeping a very low profile. In 50 years at Columbia Artists Management, Inc. (CAMI), he was the power behind the thrones occupied by James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa and Herbert von Karajan, among other conductors. With his legendary client roster, Wilford was able to call the shots and secure bookings for lesser-known artists in exchange for one of his A-listers. But the classical music business has changed dramatically since Ronald Wilford's glory days – and so has the role of the artist manager. This week's episode looks at Wilford's legacy and the future of artist management with Bill Palant, the founder and managing director of Étude Arts, a new artist management agency; until last month he was a vice president at IMG Artists. Also joining us is David Middleton, a managing partner at Alliance Artist Management, and a onetime employee of Ronald Wilford's CAMI. "Mr. Wilford had the benefit of being in a position to shape and drive programming globally," said Palant, by essentially forcing orchestras to take the soloists his conductors wanted. But that style of deal-making has become far less routine. "It's no longer a quid pro quo where you say to the orchestra 'my conductor is coming and he or she wants this quartet for a Beethoven Ninth Symphony.'" Middleton agrees, noting, "In my days at CAMI, there was a sense of heavy-handedness, and that control wasn't felt so well in the industry, particularly on the presenting side." The management business may still exercise some hard-nosed tactics, but Palant and Middleton say that stealing other firms’ clients is a no-no. "In my experience, there is a respect for each other where we try not to poach artists if at all possible, particularly if it's from a manager that we respect," said Palant. But if a major artist approaches another manager, wanting to jump ship, "then it's fair play.” Listen to our guests' comments on the future of artist management at the top of this page and share your reactions below.

As this year's college graduates frame their diplomas, the job market is the strongest it has been in nearly a decade. The economy is improving and salaries are up in many fields. But how these developments impact classically trained musicians is a more complicated picture. In this week's episode, we explore career prospects for the class of 2015. First, we look at their earnings potential. A new study from Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce used U.S. census data to analyze wages for workers from 137 college majors. It found that the popularity of majors doesn't always match earnings potential: Music ranks 36th in popularity among bachelor's degrees but 113th in terms of earnings (graduate music degrees rank 31st in popularity, and 121st in earnings). The median national income for a musician with a bachelor's is $49,000 (top-paying fields are in science and business). Anthony P. Carnevale, the lead author of the study, says that while music falls low in the pay scale, it is possible to make a solid middle-class living in the arts. "If you make 40 to 50 grand a year and you're married to someone who makes the same, that's 100, and if you get benefits that adds 30 percent of the value to your job," he said. "You can raise a family on that." Carnevale added that students should follow their passion but be mindful: "What you take in college is going to have a lot to do with what you do after breakfast for the 45 or 50 years after you graduate and go to work." Next, a reality check from two newly-minted graduates. Weixiong Wang, a clarinetist who just received a master's degree from the Juilliard School, says that while he has a budding performance career that includes a post in the Albany Symphony Orchestra, he isn't putting his eggs in one basket: he is also starting a recording studio in Brooklyn. "From second year of undergrad," he says, "I started to realize that even though I have so much passion for music, it's very important to make a living while you're in love with music. That's the problem a lot of us are facing after school." Maria Natale, a soprano and recipient of a professional studies certificate from the Manhattan School of Music, has already performed with the Sarasota Opera and other companies. Now, she’s facing an endless round of auditions. "I never once saw opera from the business side and now that is the most difficult part," she admits. "Everybody has their definition of a dream job....I want it all." We also ask whether conservatories are adequately preparing students for careers. Listen to the musicians' responses in the segment above and tell us in the comments below: What advice do you have for new college graduates?

When Reynold Levy became president of Lincoln Center in 2002, the organization was “a community in deep distress, riven by conflict,” according to New York magazine. No surprise that the title of Levy’s new memoir is They Told Me Not to Take That Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center. While much of Levy’s book offers an upbeat look at Lincoln Center's $1.2 billion redevelopment and its years of balanced budgets, he also surprised many with his scathing take on the management blunders at some of Lincoln Center's resident organizations, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera. On this edition of Conducting Business Levy tells host Naomi Lewin why he chose to write in such forthright terms – and name names: “When governance goes astray, when management is not being held accountable, they get themselves into deep trouble. Because this whole sector is relatively unregulated, it’s important to call attention to the public those that are not so well-governed or well-managed.” Levy, who stepped down from the Lincoln Center presidency last year, elaborates on the “self-inflicted wound” that led to the collapse of City Opera in 2013; the “shocking” lack of due diligence by the Philharmonic when it tried to merge with Carnegie Hall in 2003; and the still-uncertain outcome of last summer’s labor strife at the Met. He names five things the Met and its unions could do right now to improve the company’s finances, and he considers Alan Gilbert's surprise announcement to leave the Philharmonic. Levy also tells us what he is most proud of as he looks back at the redevelopment of Lincoln Center’s 16-acre campus. Listen to the full interview above and share your reactions in the comments box below.

It's hard to talk about Tchaikovsky these days without getting into, well, sex. That probably says less about the Russian composer, who was born 175 years ago Thursday, than it does about us, according to Simon Morrison, a professor of Slavic Studies at Princeton University.  Tchaikovsky's letters and journal entries leave little doubt that he was gay. But Morrison cautions against reducing his operas, ballets and symphonies to coded expressions of his private life. "Generally these works are very rich," said Morrison, who recently wrote about Tchaikovsky for the Times Literary Supplement. "And to some degree, I wonder whether the average gay person looking at the kind of things that are written about this composer – his suffering and his identity – would actually find them rather offensive." Homophobia has figured in some of the attacks on Tchaikovsky over the years, including criticisms that his music is overly emotional and sentimental. Things get murkier, too, when we consider Tchaikovsky's music in the context of contemporary Russia, where the church and state wield a lot of influence on cultural matters. In 2013, for instance, when a prominent Russian screenwriter, Yuri Arabov, set out to make a bio-pic about Tchaikovsky, with state funding, he announced that he wouldn’t be mentioning the composer's sexual orientation. It came on the heels of Vladimir Putin's newly enacted "gay propaganda" laws. And a recent conference at the Glinka Museum in Moscow featured a panel that took a sharply critical line on Western critiques of the composer.  "There's a broader agenda within cultural circles to look at a composer who's legitimately Russian," said Morrison, "and look at how his local legacy has been tarnished and distorted through an over-emphasis on his personal life and intimate matters. There's a pullback and a reaction against it. But to write articles saying he was not homosexual – that's not true." How should audiences come to terms with Tchaikovsky's love life? Listen to the full segment at the top of the page and please leave your thoughts below.

According to several recent studies, young musicians are still following traditional gender stereotypes when they choose an instrument. Girls at a young age go for what they perceive as "feminine" instruments, such as the flute, piccolo, violin, and clarinet; boys gravitate towards trumpets, tubas and percussion. Kids’ views of masculinity and femininity can lead to other problems; for instance, boys who take up the flute are more susceptible to social isolation and bullying. Hal Abeles, the co-director of the Center for Arts Education Research at Columbia University's Teachers College, cites several reasons that these gender perceptions persist: a lack of role models, the physical size of an instrument, and general societal pressures. "Adolescents, males in particular, get intimidated by not being with the majority," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "So if the majority of students in your middle school who are playing flute are girls, young boys feel 'I want to belong.'" Abeles co-authored a 2014 study in the journal Music Education Research, which found that choosing the "wrong instrument" can provoke young students to drop out of instrumental music completely as they face online "cyber-bullying" and other forms of harassment. But our guests note that instrument-based stereotypes vary from culture to culture. Sivan Magen, a New York-based harpist, said he experienced few harp stereotypes growing up in Israel, "Especially in the States, it has become a woman's instrument." Magen notes that among his eight harpist classmates at the Paris Conservatory, four were male. Being strong-willed and successful can lessen a student's risk for harassment. Carol Jantsch, the principal tuba of the Philadelphia Orchestra, says she never got grief from her classmates as a kid in Ohio. "If you're good at your instrument, your peers don't care what you play," she said. But today, she'll occasionally encounter conductors who use the phrase "gentlemen of the brass." "Usually I'll cough very loudly and they'll correct themselves after that," she noted (Jantsch appears in Part Two of this segment). Ricky O'Bannon, a writer in residence at the Baltimore Symphony, recently interviewed several teachers about this issue. Among his takeaways: It's better for teachers not to address the issue in the classroom. "The moment you start saying 'this instrument is not just for girls or not just for boys'" is the kiss of death, he noted. "Teachers are also playing YouTube videos in classrooms of counter-stereotypes," such as a beatboxing flutist. "It's about having a child find the instrument that they're going to enjoy and not having any extra pressures on that." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and please tell us what you think below: have you experienced gender associations with an instrument? What can be done to lessen these?

If you've ever looked out on an orchestra audience and marveled at all of the gray hair and empty seats, the next question that may enter your mind is, how will this picture look in 10, 20 or 30 years? And should I be alarmed? In this week's episode, Michael Kaiser, known as the arts world's "Mr. Fix-It," gives some less-than-rosy answers – as well as some advice for orchestras and opera companies. For 14 years, Kaiser was president of Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and before that, he helped rescue faltering organizations including the Royal Opera House, American Ballet Theater and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Kaiser currently serves as president of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland. His new book is Curtains?: The Future of the Arts in America. Kaiser tells Naomi Lewin that the financial model of arts organizations has become unsustainable as aging audiences aren't replaced by enough younger patrons. He points to several related maladies: the lack of standard arts education, fatigued donors, and especially, cheaper online entertainment options that will continue to siphon away audiences. But Kaiser believes playing it safe is the wrong response. "As arts organizations have gotten more and more scared about the changing world, there's been a pressure to do 'what sells' and do 'the popular stuff' because that's what's going to bring in ticket buyers," said Kaiser. "The problem is, if everyone does Beethoven's Ninth or everyone does Swan Lake, a) we get very dull, and b) there are many versions of Beethoven's Ninth that you can get online. We compete less well with online entertainment and we look less interesting and surprising." Listen to the podcast to hear what Kaiser has to say about HD movie theater broadcasts – and what he would do if he were running the Metropolitan Opera.

Chicago Tribune chief theater critic Chris Jones tells Naomi Lewin that nothing lights up his e-mail inbox like an opera company staging a Broadway musical using full amplification. "It's full of disgruntled patrons," he said. "You get the natural hall acoustics working – and then you get a miked performer." The controversies go beyond acoustics and amplification – there's also the question of how to blend performers from the worlds of opera and Broadway in a single cast. On the other hand, there’s a huge potential upside for opera houses: the ability to reach new audiences clamoring for the sound of a full orchestra, which has all but vanished from Broadway pits. The trend has been particularly pronounced at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which in recent years has staged “Oklahoma,” “Show Boat" “The Sound of Music” and now, Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Carousel." Elsewhere, Stephen Sondheim's “Sweeney Todd” is coming to Houston Grand Opera next week and San Francisco Opera in September. Companies in Los Angeles and Washington, DC as well as the Glimmerglass festival have also been bit by the Broadway bug. James Jorden, editor of the opera website Parterre Box and a contributor to the New York Observer, notes that the now-defunct New York City Opera made a staple of musicals in the 1980s. And yet, "opera houses are not made for talking in," he said referring to the spoken dialogue. "Even with very excellent sound design, it's going to be difficult to do 'Carousel,' which is very talky." Jorden and Jones also weigh in on the decline of the Broadway touring circuit and how that has opened up a place for opera companies, and whether more musicals means fewer operas for major houses. Jorden also tells us what musical he believes would be particularly well-suited for the Metropolitan Opera. Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think of the trend in the comments box below.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra's decision to drop its piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa this week because of her Twitter comments about Ukrainians and other ethnic groups raises a crucial point: orchestras and arts organizations find themselves walking a fine line with protecting their brand when they engage an artist with controversial views. In this episode, Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette argues that the Toronto Symphony handled the Lisitsa situation poorly by not presenting its case properly to the public. "The orchestra decorously cited distasteful Tweets and Lisitsa, who is a very savvy social media person, went on the warpath and said 'free speech,'" Midgette said. "Because the Toronto Symphony didn't come out and cite the Tweets they were talking about – and because Lisitsa was able to marshal opinion on her side – this has developed into a kind of cause celebre and people are jumping to conclusions based on inadequate information." Peter Himler, a P.R. strategist who advises clients on crisis management, agrees that the TSO didn't get out ahead of the story. "There is not one Tweet from them bringing up this issue," he said. "I think they should be up front and continually communicating their point of view. That's one of the rules of thumb in crisis communication." [Listen to WQXR's interview with TSO president Jeff Melanson.] Himler believes that many of Lisitsa's social media supporters may in fact be paid trolls who operate on behalf of the Russian government. "Vladimir Putin has people that go out and bolster the posts that are in his court," he noted. Both Himler and Midgette agree that artists should be free to speak their minds, but orchestras should realize that guest soloists become the temporary representative of the symphony. "Your soloist is certainly your face that week in terms of marketing," said Midgette. "You are hiring somebody as an ambassador with the assumption that your organization is aligned with what they represent." Hear our guests' examples of successful crisis management in the full segment at the top of this page, and tell us what you think in the comments below.

Toronto Symphony president Jeff Melanson tells WQXR's Conducting Business that pianist Valentina Lisitsa's politics had nothing to do with the orchestra's decision to drop her from its program this week. "The concerns raised were not about a political perspective but were about directly offensive and intolerant comments directed at other human beings," he told host Naomi Lewin. Melanson disputed Lisitsa's contention that the orchestra had made the decision in December after a donor threatened to withhold funds if she performed as scheduled. The orchestra produced a seven-page list of the Twitter commentary it found most offensive and sent it to ask if the posts were made by her, or by a proxy. "A week-and-a-half ago she confirmed that these were her words and we had to make a decision," he said. Melanson continued that "a contract provision allows us to pay an artist her fee and remove them from the program. We tried to do it in a way that was protective of the artist, in terms of not publicly discussing any of this, and of course she's chosen to turn the story into one for the Twitter-verse." Lisitsa is an ethnic Russian who was born in Ukraine. Through her active Twitter account, she has been highly critical of the Kiev government, comparing its leaders to Nazis and dog feces. In one frequently-cited Tweet, she juxtaposed a photo of contemporary Ukrainian teachers wearing traditional embroidered shirts with a photo of black costumed dancers. The pianist has not responded to multiple requests by WQXR for comment on the Tweets, but she told the CBC that the Tweets were "satirical" and "there is a great space for exaggeration and hyperbole." Melanson said the Toronto Symphony does not habitually screen artists' social media before it offers them work, nor does take a side on political matters. "We are not taking a side here between Russia and the Ukraine," he noted. The orchestra president also implied that the decision to cancel the replacement soloist, Stewart Goodyear, was made out of concern for the musicians' safety. "We could not put an orchestra, an artist and a guest artist up on stage in the context of this week's discussions," he said. For more on how Melanson said the TSO's decisions were made, and who blew the whistle, listen to the full interview at the top of this page.

If you're a music fan of a certain age you’ll remember your first Walkman: likely a cassette player with a belt clip and possibly a built-in radio. Long before the smartphone and the iPod, Sony’s player defined portable audio. And it actually never completely disappeared: Last month Sony introduced a new model – a digital music player that promises high-res audio and costs a cool $1200. But how groundbreaking was that original Walkman? In this week's episode, we ask Robert Klara, a senior editor at Adweek, who recently looked back at this miniature marvel. "The iPod was extremely significant when it debuted in 2001," said Klara, "but it was really the Sony Walkman that ushered in the idea, which was radical at the time, that you could walk around and take your music with you. "It came with very, very good audio quality plus lightweight headphones, and that was a remarkable thing in 1979 when it hit the market." But Klara contends that the Walkman become "one of branding's cautionary tales," when the MP3 era arrived and Sony "became complacent." Listen to the full interview above to find out why. Plus, watch a slideshow of classic Walkman models below, and tell us: What do you remember about your first Walkman (or Discman)?

Virtual reality technology has revolutionized the way pilots train for flight, soldiers prepare for battle and surgeons learn delicate procedures. So it might be inevitable that musicians entering the cutthroat classical music world would turn to high-tech virtual reality equipment. A team at the Royal College of Music in London and the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland has developed a performance simulator that's intended to mimic concert hall and audition conditions. On this week's episode, we consider the potential of the Performance Simulator with two guests: Dr. Aaron Williamon, a professor of performance science at the Royal College of Music, who helped to develop the technology; and Holly Mulcahy, concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony and author of the blog Neo-Classical, where she's written about auditioning.  Segment Highlights According to Williamon, the simulator is designed to help performers learn to cope with the heightened pressures of a stage environment: a musician appears before a life-sized video projection of an audience, which can be appreciative (clapping, smiling) or downright hostile (coughing, sneezing and even booing). The room is fitted out like a concert hall, with spotlights, curtains, a back-stage area and stage furniture. The virtual audience's response can be manipulated by a stage manager behind the scenes. "Access to actual concert halls tends to be rare," noted Williamon. With the simulator, he says, "we've come up with one scenario that seems to be quite realistic." But Mulcahy questions whether a performer can suspend disbelief and buy into the simulated environment. She says that the interaction between musicians – or auditioners  – and audience is highly subtle and "the split-second timing of somebody's facial expression or how they perceive your playing can make or break you." Mulcahy adds that, for audition preparation, gathering friends to watch your performance is most effective. Williamon believes the Performance Simulator can be one tool among many. "I'm not proposing that this is everybody's solution," he said. "We're doing a lot of basic research into the physiology and psychology of performance. We will continue to chip away at that. What we have at the moment is a training facility which we can experiment with." Watch a video of the performance simulator below, listen to the full segment above, and tell us what you think in the comments.

Last week, a Los Angeles jury found that the pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give it Up" in their song "Blurred Lines." The jury awarded the singer's estate $7.4 million. Gaye’s family celebrated the decision. But a lot of composers wondered if copyright is now being extended to cover not just song lyrics and melody but much else – tone, rhythm, tempo. On this week's episode, Naomi Lewin speaks with two experts about the case's implications: Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Lawrence Ferrara, a professor of music at New York University. He's also a music copyright consultant for record labels, music publishing companies and film studios, and was briefly involved in the "Blurred Lines" case. Segment Highlights Add Caption Here Our guests have vastly different takes on the case's implications. For Swed, "the tradition in music, in most musical traditions, is to build one thing on another. Rhythmic patterns, bass lines, and things like this are generally thought of as common property." Besides, Renaissance composers such as Josquin des Prez frequently built "paraphrase" or "parody" masses on preexisting Gregorian chants. J.S. Bach lifted entire from Vivaldi. Debussy quoted Wagner's "Tristan" chord. "Everything is very vague and nobody is quite sure how this is all going to work out," said Swed, who recently wrote about the case. "Music works in a different way than the courts work. The arts are often about breaking rules and the courts are about maintaining rules." Robin Thicke (L) and T.I. perform the song 'Blurred Lines' at the The Grammy Nominations Concert Live. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images) Ferrara, however, believes that the rules around copyright enforcement are clear. "One can always find works with similarities," he said, but the "feel and vibe" of a composition cannot be monopolized by one composer. "Melody tends to be the meat in a copyright issue. That's what gets you at the musical expression that's ultimately the test of whether there's ultimately been an infringement." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think below: Is plagiarism a problem in music? Should copyright laws be more or less strictly enforced?

When Frank Music Company, the last store in New York City dedicated to selling classical sheet music, closed its doors last Friday, there was much dismay about its significance: yet another brick-and-mortar store was bowing to the pressure of online competition. So without a shop where one can browse and get advice, what digital options are there for the classical musician? On this week's episode we put this question to two digital sheet music converts: Todd Reynolds, a violinist and composer in New York who performs almost exclusively using digital formats; and Ron Regev, a pianist and head of Tonara, an "interactive" sheet music app for iPads. Segment Highlights: Sheet music is now accessible in a variety of digital ways, including through retail websites and online apps or free catalogs like the Internet Music Score Library Project. Downloads are instantaneous, which means touring artists are no longer forced to stuff their suitcases with fraying scores – their entire library fits onto a hard drive or the cloud. Turning pages isn't a problem when performing from an iPad either. Some programs involve foot pedals; Tonara can detect your position on the page via the microphone on your tablet, and flip the page automatically at the right moment. At the same time, traditional music publishers face a host of piracy concerns as scores can be downloaded and easily shared among musicians. "The question of ownership is changing," said Reynolds. "We don't have the infrastructure in place now to really serve composers and performers well enough in terms of protecting and having the music paid for." Regev agreed, adding: "There are a few publishers that understand the problem and are adjusting in the way that recording companies adjusted to the MP3 revolution. The problem is that many of them are trying to cling to their old models as they see their income dwindling. This is a tragedy because no one will produce this high-quality type of musical research that their editions will produce." Listen to the full segment above and tell us in the comments box below: Are you sad to see traditional sheet music stores disappear? What is lost or gained with digital formats?

The conductor an orchestra chooses says a lot about how it sees its mission in the 21st century. Factors to consider include taste in repertoire, age, nationality, race, gender, fundraising skills -- and of course, musicianship. The New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestras in Washington, DC are about to grapple with all of this as they look for successors to Alan Gilbert and Christoph Eschenbach, who are both leaving their music director jobs in 2017. This week, we ask three industry watchers what are – or what should be – chief considerations for these orchestras as they begin their searches. Joining us are Zachary Woolfe, a freelance classical music critic for the New York Times; Anastasia Tsioulcas, who covers classical music for NPR Music; and Nick Matthias, a senior vice president at IMG Artists, who manages a number of top conductors. Segment Highlights Christoph Eschenbach leads the National Symphony Orchestra (Scott Suchman/NSO)  For Matthias, "chemistry must be evident right from the word go, right from the point the conductor meets the orchestra in a rehearsal. Of course, no one has any control over the chemistry aspect at all. This is something very special. Once the conductor walks out on that podium, it's out of all of our hands." Woolfe emphasizes the importance of fundraising and outreach skills. "Especially with the New York Philharmonic," he said, "you're looking at the prospect of somebody who's going to have to be a key person in the raising of a substantial nine figures for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall." That person must excite both the musicians and the board. Some observers have suggested that New York or Washington would benefit from a woman or minority conductor in order to better reflect their diverse communities. Tsioulcas notes that while women conductors have made particular strides among regional orchestras, "I'm not sure that anyone – aside from a couple very established [women] conductors – is established enough to pivot into such a prominent role as the New York Philharmonic. We may still be a decade or more away from that, I'm sorry to say." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page, take our poll, and tell us in the comments below: What qualities do you think are most important in selecting a new music director?

In the last week, two top violinists got a visit by the Repo Man…so to speak. Frank Peter Zimmermann was forced to give up his 1711 Stradivarius just days before soloing with the New York Philharmonic – and before his 50th birthday – after a contract on a loan expired. Meanwhile, a Pressenda violin played by Alexander Pavlovsky of the Jerusalem Quartet was sold by a syndicate that owned it, forcing him to look for another fiddle while he's out on tour. What do these cases tell us about the market for rare violins? And is there a stronger case to be made for modern instruments? In this week's episode, we get some perspective from Jason Price, the director of the auction house Tarisio Fine Instruments & Bows; and Ariane Todes, a writer, violinist and former editor of The Strad magazine who now writes for the website Elbow Music.  Zimmermann never owned his Strad. Rather, he leased it from a now defunct German bank WestLB AG, whose assets are now controlled by Portigon Financial Services. The contract dates to 2002 and expired on Sunday. The violinist, who has offered to buy the instrument, declined to comment to WQXR, as "talks are continuing." The Jerusalem String Quartet. (Felix Broede) Segment Highlights Todes finds it "sad in some ways" that banks or syndicates control a greater share of the rare instrument market. "If a museum or foundation is going to understand the needs of the players and the needs of history, then it's not necessarily a bad thing," she noted. "If you get syndicates that think of these investments in a really short-term way and as [pure] investments rather than philanthropic ways to help musicians, then it's not so good." Price acknowledges that there are problems with the current model. However, "there are so many creative solutions that allow the people who are the top of their field to be playing the top instruments." He points to the growth in foundations that buy rare instruments and lend them out to musicians. There also remains a larger question of whether old instruments really sound better than modern ones – or are they a product of their mystique. To hear what our guests think, listen to the full segment at the top of the page. Tell us what you think below: Do you associate Strads or Guarneri instruments with better quality? Leave your comments by clicking on the gray bar below.

After a long decline, RadioShack recently filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to shutter more than 1,700 stores. As many music lovers know, RadioShack was once the place to get speaker wire, headphones, adapters, or even a Realistic-brand stereo system. But how times have changed.  On this week's show, Christopher Mims, the Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, tells us about the cultural shifts that are behind Radioshack's demise. In a recent article he argued that the loss of RadioShack paralleled the decline of leisure time for would-be hobbyists and tinkerers. "The kind of leisure that we're engaging in has shifted," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "Apps and mobile devices are appealing because they let us snack during our leisure time. What we're missing is the loss of big, unbroken blocks of time that would allow somebody to be a hobbyist, to learn a new skill or repair something like a computer." Mims remembers getting his first Tandy computer at RadioShack during the 1980s, and being "totally blown away and feeling like I was looking at the future." What are your favorite memories of RadioShack? What will you miss or not miss about the stores? Please share your thoughts below.

Ethnic diversity remains a troublesome question for American orchestras. Just over four percent of their musicians are African-American and Latino, according to the League of American Orchestras, and when it comes to orchestra boards and CEOs, the numbers are even starker: only one percent. Ethnic diversity is also a rare sight among guest soloists and conductors. This issue was front and center during the third annual SphinxCon conference, hosted last weekend by the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization. Its founder and president, Aaron Dworkin, joins us for this week's Conducting Business, along with two active musicians: Weston Sprott, a trombonist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; and Melissa White, a violinist who performs in the Harlem Quartet. In this segment our guests discuss: The advantages and shortcomings of blind auditions, in which orchestra job candidates perform behind a screen. The challenges of developing a diverse audition pool in the first place. Where Dworkin believes orchestras fall short compared with other sectors. How orchestras and ensembles can broaden repertoire and formats beyond the traditional concert hall. Where subtle (and not-so-subtle) forms of racism emerge in the hiring process for orchestra players. Where signs of change are occurring (including in Nashville and New York). The graph below illustrates the percentages of black and Hispanic musicians enrolled in major music conservatories. Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and share your thoughts below.

Improvisation is a nearly obsolete art in classical music these days. But virtuosos used to improvise all the time. Mozart freely improvised on his own tunes, Liszt would strike up an aria from a Wagner opera and embellish it. Even legendary piano showmen of the 20th century made it part of their performance practice early in their careers – people like Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein and Leopold Godowsky. In this week's episode, Clive Brown, a professor of applied musicology at University of Leeds in England, explains why it's fallen by the wayside. He believes that modern recordings, music competitions and regimented conservatory instruction have all contributed to suppressing this practice. "One of the factors that makes classical music seem stuffy and less interesting to young people is this rigidity with which we play it now," said Brown. "More or less every performance is tied to the notation." Gabriela Montero, pianist (Colin Bell) There are a few performers who have taken up the improvisation mantle, including pianist Gabriela Montero. In both recitals and as concerto encores, she spins out elaborate original creations based on a given theme; sometimes she even asks audience members to sing melodies on which she elaborates. But she notes that despite public interest, this has become a double-edged sword, with some music executives mistakenly labeling her a crossover artist. "There are so few of us that do it on the concert platform that you become an oddity," Montero said. "The way the business is set up, people pigeonhole you and they have to find a label for you. So if you improvise, you're too creative or too free to be a classical concert pianist, which is absolute nonsense." Montero maintains that artists must resist "the pressures of careers or the imaginary limitations that people impose on themselves." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and share your thoughts below: Do you think classical musicians should be freer with their interpretations and improvise?

Some 31 million American adults said they wanted to go to an arts event in the past year but chose not to. The NEA has published a study exploring a few reasons why.

Usually, a polite discourse pervades arts journalism, but two recent cases underscore the tricky relationships between classical music organizations and the media that covers them. After Opera House Revokes Critics' Tickets, Examining Practice of 'Freebies' Last month, Opera Australia removed a music critic for the Sydney Morning Herald from its complimentary press ticket list after the company's artistic director was reportedly "very offended" by a piece on the newspaper's arts website. This was followed Jan. 2 by a similar “comp” list ban against a critic for the publication Stage Noise. And in New York, a theatrical press agent blacklisted Wall Street Journal writer Joanne Kaufman, after she admitted to "bolting" from Broadway shows during intermission. These cases together raise ethical questions about the relationship between critics and the organizations they cover, and especially, the practice of providing free press tickets to reviewers covering a performance. Joining us to look more closely at this practice is Kelly McBride, a media ethicist who is vice president for academic programs at the Poynter Institute. "In the ideal world, I think journalism organizations would pay for their own tickets all the time," McBride tells host Naomi Lewin. "But we do not live in an ideal world," she added, referring to the difficult financial environment at many news organizations. That being said, "the audience does expect those journalists to put their loyalties with the audience. If journalists don't do that, and it becomes apparent to the audience, they'll lose credibility." Listen to the full segment above. Colorado Symphony and Radio Station Part Ways Colorado Symphony at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver (©Jedediah Liddell) The complex relationship between arts organizations and the media was brought to light in another recent case. Late last year, Colorado Public Radio announced that it will no longer carry broadcasts of the Colorado Symphony, ending a 15-year partnership. The reasons are varied, but the key sticking point was editorial: specifically, the orchestra wanted a lot more positive coverage on the radio. Ray Rinaldi, the fine arts critic of the Denver Post, tells us what was at the heart of the split. "Basically the orchestra wanted the radio station to collude with it in turning the live broadcasts into marketing for the symphony," he explained. "The station didn't want to be promoting the symphony. They were happy to be a neutral party in bringing the concerts to the community, but they didn't want to appear to be doing marketing in favor of one organization over the other." There were other issues in the breakup as well. The Colorado Symphony also bought underwriting on the station, anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 worth, and expected more preferential treatment as a result. Rinaldi tells us where things went off the rails and why this is significant in an age of Internet distribution. Listen to the full podcast above and tell us what you think by clicking on the gray comments bar below.

New York's Department of Cultural Affairs is embarking on the first comprehensive effort to measure diversity at the city's museums, venues and performance groups. The survey, announced on Monday, will collect information on the demographics of employees, boards, and visitors at arts organizations. The goal: to determine if these groups are keeping up with the increasingly multicultural makeup of New York. "The statistics that we've seen elsewhere show that a very large sector of the employees and boards at cultural institutions are white," said Tom Finkelpearl, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs. "We're in a city now where 60 to 65 percent of people do not describe themselves as white. This is about the future and what the place of cultural institutions in New York City should be in the future." The city agency plans to survey about 1,200 arts organizations and use the data to draw profiles of various professions, be it orchestra administrators, museum curators or choreographers. "Then we'll know where the most work needs to be done," said Finkelpearl. Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in the WQXR studio. (Kim Nowacki/WQXR) Previous studies have shown that the classical music field particularly falls short when it comes to participation among Blacks and Hispanics, and the League of American Orchestras has found that these groups represent less than four percent of orchestra players. Finkelpearl says this points to a larger "pipeline" problem, of getting young minority musicians on a career track (and providing resources to manage student debt). "It's all fine and good to get kids in high school playing instruments," he notes. "What gets them into conservatory? What gets the kids in conservatory to stay on and have a classical music career?" In the interview Finkelpearl also talks about: Plans for re-integrating the arts into the New York City Public Schools. Where music education figures into these plans. Why New York City is tough for artists (it's not just about high rents) but why he isn't as pessimistic as some are. Listen to the full interview above and share your reactions by clicking on the gray comments bar below.

A pianist recited Yiddish poetry during a Washington, DC recital, the Seattle Symphony premiered a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece about the environment, and Anna Netrebko made a surprising transformation as Lady Macbeth – these were a few of the high points of 2014, according to three top music critics.

There are still hoops to be jumped through, but it looks like, as Monty Python would say, New York City Opera is not dead yet. Last week, the bankrupt company's board of directors voted to approve the sale of its remaining assets – minus the endowment – to a group, called NYCO Renaissance, headed by Michael Capasso and Roy Niederhoffer. Capasso is general director of the Dicapo Opera Theatre; Niederhoffer is the founder of R.G. Niederhoffer Capital Management, Inc., and a former City Opera board member. Both join us on this episode to talk about their plans. NYCO Renaissance is, in fact, one of several suitors who have been angling to take over the City Opera name and assets, and the group still has to win approval from a bankruptcy judge. But Capasso and Niederhoffer have raised $2.6 million in pledges, garnered support from former City Opera musicians, and have planned an all-star tribute gala to the late City Opera maestro Julius Rudel in March. The event is to feature singers that Rudel worked with over the years, including Plácido Domingo, Frederica von Stade and James Morris. Nevertheless, these plans have drawn skepticism from some observers, in part because of the checkered financial past of Capasso's company. Host Naomi Lewin asks him about that, and also speaks with James Jorden, the editor of the opera website Parterre.com. "No one will be happier than I if New York City has another major opera company," says Jorden, who also writes for the New York Observer. He also cautions: "But I just can't understand how such a plan might work, especially when right now, the Metropolitan Opera is hurting for ticket sales." Listen to the full segment above and tell us in the comments below: what you think of the plans to revive City Opera?

For any artist, glowing reviews and standing ovations are great – but they don't pay the rent. A big-money prize can serve as an early-career springboard, a mid-career boost, or a way to fund the next big project. But just because there's a lot of cash, does that make the honor meaningful? And how many big-money awards are given because of altruism and how many are, to put it frankly, good marketing gimmicks?

With the recent announcement that Lincoln Center will release Avery Fisher Hall's naming rights, the question of brand recognition comes into sharper focus.

The sacred choral works of J.S. Bach are regularly performed on secular stages, and are enjoyed by people of many religions, as well as atheists. Yet there is no getting around the fact that Bach, a devout Lutheran, saw his passions, cantatas and other pieces as an outgrowth of his personal faith.

In 2010, the Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic played a recital in Washington, D.C., and got a mildly critical review. Somehow that stuck: It's the second item that comes up when you Google Lazic's name, after his own website. Now he wants it permanently removed from the search engine in Europe, citing the European Union's new "right to be forgotten" ruling as legal justification.

Last week, Michael Tilson Thomas was conducting the New World Symphony in Miami when he stopped the concert in its tracks. A fidgety child and her mother were in his line of sight, and he reportedly asked them to change seats. Some details remain unclear but the mom and child did more than that – they left the hall. The incident caused quite a sensation on the Internet and raised questions: What is the appropriate age for kids to start attending grown-up concerts? And how do you prepare them for the experience?

Vladimir Jurowski just finished a four-city North American tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, where he's been the chief conductor since 2007. Last month, the Philharmonic renewed his contract through 2018, and critics have frequently praised his artistic bond with the ensemble. But along with his London ties, Jurowski also has some strong feelings about his native Russia, whether it's parsing the political subtexts in Soviet repertoire or speaking out on present-day civil liberties.

The United Kingdom is blessed with any number of top-flight orchestras – the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, umpteen BBC orchestras, and specialist groups like Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. But among connoisseurs, there's one group that has often batted above its league: The Ulster Orchestra. Considered one of the jewels in Northern Ireland's cultural crown, it was founded in 1966 and has since released nearly 100 recordings and worked under many respected conductors, including JoAnn Falletta, Sergiu Commissiona and Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Protests in the concert hall are nothing new: think of the riot-inducing premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 1913 or the backlash at the 1861 premiere of Wagner's Tannhauser. Recently, protesters for a variety of causes have picketed the Metropolitan Opera, the Israel Philharmonic and the Valery Gergiev's Mariinsky Orchestra, among others. It happened again on Oct. 4 at a St. Louis Symphony concert, when a group of demonstrators protesting the police shooting of Michael Brown began to sing, chant and unfurl banners from the balcony, moments before the Brahms Requiem.

Classical music's ability to soothe the weary soul has been used to market everything from yoga classes to an endless supply of albums like "The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe" and "Nature Sounds with Classical Music."

As the lockout of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians enters its third week, the two sides appear to be digging in for a fight that threatens to get more acrimonious before it's resolved. "We're into the third week and the two sides haven't even sat down together," says Howard Pousner, a cultural reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in this podcast.

Nostalgia, force of habit, and sometimes sheer laziness play a significant role in the kinds of music, movies and books that people consume, according to a growing body of consumer and academic research.

Many of us have posted things online that we wish we hadn’t. The question of how unfiltered classical musicians should be on Facebook and Twitter re-emerged recently with the controversy surrounding American bass-baritone Valerian Ruminski. His contract with Opera Lyra, a Canadian company, was cancelled after he posted a rant on Facebook about seeing a man on a bus with diamond-studded fingernails.

• Share your thoughts below by clicking on the 'Show Comments' button The refined world of classical music is not usually linked to addiction. But a documentary airing on Channel 4 in England this week opens the door to a lesser-known side of the business. "Addicts' Symphony" took ten musicians whose lives have all been plagued by drug and alcohol addiction, and prepared them for a one-off performance with members of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Memorization is ingrained in the protocol of classical music performance. Singers, solo pianists and concerto soloists are usually expected to play "by heart." However, trios, string quartets and larger ensembles almost never play from memory (with occasional exceptions).

Members of the stagehands union were advised this week to prepare for a picket at the Metropolitan Opera in anticipation of a lockout. And according to one union source involved in the current talks between the Met and 12 of its unions, "there's virtually no chance of a deal" this week.

Last month, John McCauley of the band Deer Tick was preparing to fly to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island when he was told by the airline, US Airways, that he'd have to check his guitar. Knowing what can happen to instruments that get checked on planes, he wound up taking a train to Rhode Island instead. U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) heard about the incident and decided to get involved.

For the past 20 years, some psychologists have made an appealing argument: that it's possible to achieve success or expertise in your craft by putting in lots of practice time. It's a nice idea: work hard enough and you have a shot at becoming, say, a great violinist. But this is an active debate among psychologists, and a new statistical analysis of 88 studies suggests that the exact opposite is true: that success mostly reflects other factors, like innate talent. The new meta-analysis finds that practice only accounts for only about 12 percent of performance differences across all areas of expertise. For games like chess and scrabble, practice mattered the most (26 percent). In music, it was less important (21 percent). In sports, it accounted for 18 percent and in education, four percent.

Mother Nature is unpredictable, as WQXR was reminded last summer in a broadcast of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Central Park. Heavy rain arrived halfway through a Haydn symphony and musicians and station recording engineers were forced to pack it in quickly. Of course, outdoor summer concerts present many hazards: relentless mosquitoes, noisy airplanes, chatty audiences, and stages baked by the afternoon sun.