Cate Blanchett isn’t the only conductor in Todd Field’s “Tár” (2022). There is her predecessor at the Berlin Philharmonic, Andris, and the Gilbert Kaplan cipher Eliot (Mark Strong). There are also two assistant conductors: the aspirant Francesca Lentini (Noémie Merlant), who hopes to take the assistant position at the Berlin Phil, and the hapless Sebastian (Allan Corduner).

Can musical nationalism be a forward-looking project?

How error-riddled scores get in the way of promoting music of marginalized composers.

A way to remain alive. 

Under conductor Carlos Kalmar, the CIM hoped to become a mecca of orchestral training. So why are some students now in open revolt?

In April, tenor Ian Bostridge released his latest book, a brief meditation on the intricacies of vocal interpretation in music by Monteverdi, Ravel, and Britten titled Song and Self: A Singer’s Reflections on on Music and Performance. In May, he gave a recital at the Boulez Saal in Berlin, with pianist Julius Drake, of works by Robert and Clara Schumann, Schubert, Mahler, and Hans Werner Henze.

For decades, he embodied the classical jet set. Then he became persona non grata around the world. What happened to Valery Gergiev?

An interview with pioneering sound artist Christina Kubisch.

What will last longer than any of the money that Jeffrey Epstein gave to Bard is Leon Botstein’s defense for accepting it.

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto on his return to action.

In October 2020, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music acquired the management company Opus 3 Artists. In May 2022, the conservatory bought the boutique Dutch record label Pentatone. And in December 2022, SFCM added the prestigious London agency Askonas Holt to its portfolio.

What we got wrong about Blair Tindall’s “Mozart in the Jungle.”

Conductor Kent Nagano on the challenges of contemporary repertoire, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, and the elusive notion of quality.

Composer, improviser, and trombonist Alex Paxton has had a busy few months. Between winning both this year’s Ernst von Siemens Composer’s Prize and Paul Hindemith Prize, preparing for the release of his upcoming album “Happy Music for Orchestra” on Delphian Records, and commissions for Riot Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, and Ensemble Modern, it felt like a privilege for both of us to spend a gloomy London afternoon drinking tea in a board game café.

An interview with researcher Laura Wesseldijk, one of the authors of a study that found people engaged in making music are at a higher risk for mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. It suggests there is an overlap between inherited genetic variants associated with a tendency to make music, and those that increase the risk for mental illness.

Violinist Gidon Kremer was unusually quick to develop an aesthetic of his own and has long been ahead of his time. This independence is most obvious in his love for contemporary music, which he developed as a conservatory student in Moscow and which brought him into contact with composers such as Pärt, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, and later on, Weinberg.

Classical musicians of color search for belonging in a homogeneous world.

A scientific survey and ranking of the actual best deaths in opera based on the most deserved, the most satisfying, and the most defensible.

The app's greatest strength is in making the most of classical music's existing idiosyncrasies.

Conductor Riccardo Muti reflects on his tenure with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The Berlin Opera Academy's annual summer courses promise to give young singers a final layer of polish and a coveted foot in the door of the opera industry in Germany. Young artists refer to BOA, and the many other courses like it, as "pay to sing" programs.

An interview with Serhiy Lykhomanenko, a Ukrainian conductor stationed at the front.

Often the most interesting nuggets of interviews arrive when questioning dissolves into chatting. “Sorry, that previous answer was a bit wishy-washy,” Robin Ticciati says on reflection: Following the tenor David Butt Philip’s recent Times of London interview, where he advised young UK singers to head abroad for the betterment of their careers post-Brexit, I’d asked Ticciati whether the same applies to budding UK conductors. 

An interview with Eamonn Quinn, founder and curator of the Louth Contemporary Music Society.

The BBC is in dire straits, but it's hard to see this particular funding decision as anything other than a dereliction of duty.

Nicole Mitchell is a leading flutist in jazz, a player with one of the strongest senses of swing there is, either inside a beat or playing freely. Her thematic albums and projects like “Mandorla Awakening” and “EarthSeed” are inspired by, and develop, Afrofuturist ideas that she first discovered through the great speculative fiction writer Octavia Butler.

In for a pound.

At Opera Philadelphia, Margaret Bonds’s “Credo” inoculates against Orff’s pervasive, poisonous cantata.

Director Oksana Taranenko on staging Alexander Rodin’s opera “Kateryna” at the Odessa National Opera during wartime.

“I don’t know why I’m angry, I’m angry, I’m angry...”

The production of light.

An interview with the concert and opera photographer Monika Rittershaus.

An interview with Ian Nagoski, the founder of Canary Records.

A pioneer of modern electronic music, Morton Subotnick not only encouraged technical innovations but defined new sonic paradigms for the creation of electronic music. Approaching his 90th year in April, he remains as energized and dynamic as ever.

Retrospection for a ragtime king.

How the London-based live music group through the noise combines informality and quality.

An interview with conductor, lutenist, theorbist, and Baroque guitarist Vincent Dumestre.

The legendary conductor resigns from the Berlin Staatsoper.

“You’re afraid to ask your friends how they are."

Former Juilliard composition students share allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.