"Confessions of a First-Time Operagoer" host rings up big role

"Boxes lining the walls read: "Socks and knee highs." "Leotards and unitards." "Pantyhose." Busy crew members scurry up and down stairs as costumers sew and fit fabric and ribbons onto waiting busts.

This is where Cassidy Brettler is spending her summer — in a cavernous basement warehouse in the South Lake Union neighborhood where booming echoes of song waft toward tall ceilings."

For the full story, please see the Seattle Times.

Merce Cunningham Dies

"Merce Cunningham, the American choreographer who was among a handful of 20th-century figures to make dance a major art and a major form of theater, died Sunday night. He was 90 and lived in Manhattan."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Sharing Intense Emotions Motivates Maestros

"In movies, orchestra conductors tend to be portrayed as egomaniacs. But a new study of why certain musicians gravitate to the podium suggests a very different set of motivations are at play."

For the full story, please see Miller-McCune.

Two New Mozart Works Discovered

" The International Mozarteum Foundation says it has discovered two new works composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."

For the full story, please see Google News.

An Architect Puts Bach in a Musical Cocoon

" A rewarding experiment in creating an ideal space to hear some of Bach’s most intimate music — the solo suites for piano, for cello and for violin — is taking place here at the Manchester International Festival. Zaha Hadid Architects was commissioned by the festival to take a top-floor exhibition room at the Manchester Art Gallery and turn what is basically a big black box into an acoustically and visually perfect place for performances of the Bach works."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Seventy years later, Prokofiev's 'Music for Athletes' gets its premiere

"During Stalin's Great Terror, propaganda was inextricable from artists' lives. When Soviet officials organized an athletics spectacle in 1939 to mobilize youth, complete with 30,000 "physical culturists," Sergei Prokofiev composed music for the event. But when the event's choreographer, Vsevolod Meyerhold, vanished before the premiere, "Music for Athletes" went unheard. Tonight marks its first performance."

For the full story, please see nj.com.

Critics split on Wainwright's move from pop to opera

"Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright says opera saved his life more than once, and he has begun to pay it back with his first full-length work Prima Donna which premiered in Manchester earlier this month."

For the full story, please see canada.com.
Photo by Ella Mullins.

They’ve Got Those Old, Hard-to-Find Blues

"JOHN HENEGHAN tugged a large shellac disc from its brown paper sleeve, placed it on a turntable and gently nudged a needle into place. Behind him, in the corner of his East Village apartment, sat 16 wooden crates, each filled with meticulously cataloged 78-r.p.m. records. The coarse, crackling voice of the blues singer Charley Patton, performing “High Water Everywhere Part 1,” his startling account of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, rose from the speakers, raw and unruly. The record is worth about $8,000."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

The UW Music Library has a collection of 78's. For more information, please see the Offenbacher Mozart Collection.

Vinyl LPs haven't lost their groove

"Everywhere you turn, traditional media are dying. Yet against all odds, a cumbersome, fussy and pricey method of consuming recorded music isn’t just surviving — it’s thriving."

For the full story, please see the Star-Telegram.

Photo by DGHdeeo.

New York Philharmonic May Perform in Cuba

"The New York Philharmonic, hoping to notch another exotic destination in its touring history, said on Thursday it had been invited to perform in Cuba and was seriously considering such a visit."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Kindle the Muse: Sheet Music Now Available for Download

"FreeHand Systems has announced that its Novato Music Press catalog, which includes thousands of classical, traditional and American music titles, is now available on Kindle. This marks the first time that a comprehensive collection of sheet music is being offered for this exciting new medium."

For the full story, please see Amazon's blog.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Announces Grants: Washington State Arts Supported!

"This past year saw bailouts for our nose-diving auto makers and for the country's largest financial institutions. Where is the booster for the arts, an industry that produces 30,000 local jobs?"

For the full story, please see the Seattle PI.

Seattle Opera gets $500,000 grant

"Seattle Opera has been awarded a $500,000 grant for "Amelia," a new American opera scheduled to debut in Seattle next year, the Opera announced Friday.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funding will allow "Amelia" to be produced by two other production companies following its May 2010 debut at Seattle Opera, assuring that the opera will be seen in more cities."

For the full story, please see the Seattle Times.

Vibe Magazine, Showcase for Hip-Hop and R&B, Dies at 16

"On Tuesday an independent magazine backed by private equity owners succumbed to the punishing ad market and announced it would cease publication immediately. It was, as things go in publishing these days, a fairly routine story."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Identity of Beethoven's Für Elise revealed by music expert

"The identity of Elise, however, has eluded scholars down the years, hampered as they were by the loss of the original manuscript. Now Klaus Martin Kopitz, a German musicologist and Beethoven expert, believes he has identified the woman of the title as Elisabeth Röckel."

For the full story, please see Telegraph.uk.