The Great Shift

The Music Library is currently shifting the score collection! Need help finding a score during the shift? Ask us! Follow our blog for shift updates!

'The Golden Ticket' Is Finally Unwrapped

"The opera called The Golden Ticket seemed like just that — a natural way for opera companies to attract new audiences by bringing families into the opera house. But the world premiere underway now at Opera Theatre of St. Louis did not have a sweet ride from conception to opening night."

For the full story, please see npr.org.

Pianos as Public Art, and the Public’s Playthings

"Jerome Ware Jr. pressed his palm into a tray of orange paint. Then he found exactly the right spot for a handprint on the top of an upright piano he had just painted gold."

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

Compose Your Own, Part 2

"In a recent post on The Score, I invited readers to use an interactive Web site to create and share their own unique versions of four solo piano etudes, regardless of their background in music or in composition. The Web site presents each etude as a graphical “open-form” collection of short musical fragments that can be arranged in an almost infinite number of ways."

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

2010 Tony Award Winners

"A complete list of winners at the 2010 Tony Awards (denoted in bold with a *), with links to the original New York Times reviews."

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

Soprano Renee Fleming Turns To Rock And Pop With 'Dark Hope'

"When you think of Renee Fleming, perhaps you don't think next of Death Cab For Cutie. Heck, if you frequently think of Renee Fleming, perhaps you don't even care about Death Cab For Cutie, and vice-versa."

For the full story, please see npr.org.

Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, 1971-2010

"There’s a lot of shock and sadness in the Mexican classical community just now: last week one of the finest violists in Mexico and the world, Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, was found dead in his hometown of Tijuana, four days after apparently being kidnapped."

For the full story, please see Sequenza21.

UW jazz program energized by 'The Vu Effect'

"Several flights underground in the bunkerlike rehearsal room of the Music Building at the University of Washington, nine students in the modern-jazz-ensemble class spent most of the spring practicing an 11-movement composition they wrote to musically convey the birth of the universe."

For the full story, please see the Seattle Times.

Sewage plant plays Mozart to stimulate microbes

"Mozart has been credited with everything from increasing the intelligence of unborn babies to boosting the milk yield of cows. Now the head of a German sewage plant has introduced piped Mozartian music to stimulate the activity of microbes that break down waste."

For the full story, see the Guardian.

The Iraqi National Symphony Comes Out Of Hiding

"The Iraqi National Symphony is slowly making a comeback, and the symphony's conductor, Karim Wasfi, is the driving force behind it. He says that as Iraqis wait for their leaders to form a new government, music is more important than ever."

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

UW's Erös leads final concert on June 4

"Friday, Peter Erös — the University of Washington School of Music's Morrison Endowed Professor of Conducting — will lead his final concert with the University Symphony. Erös, who came to the UW in 1989, is retiring from both his teaching and conducting posts. He was born in Budapest in 1932, migrated to the Netherlands in 1956 in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution and first came to the U.S. in 1965 when George Szell invited him to be a Kulas Foundation Fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra."

For the full story, please see the Seattle Times.

Scholars Scale Up Music Studies

"Finding patterns in music is nothing new. Scholars have studied rhythms, melodies, and harmonies for centuries. Now a project slated for completion in June 2011 wants to achieve something bigger."

For the full story, please see the Chronicle of Higher Education.

For dogs only: near-silent recital at Sydney Opera House

"Legendary rocker Lou Reed and artist wife Laurie Anderson will next month bring one of the most bizarre performances to Sydney's Opera House -- a recital for dogs, largely inaudible to human ears."

For the full story, please see Google News.

Cuong Vu interview excerpts