jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 03/30/2023 - Classical Gas, Global Music Vault, Blurred Harbinger of Doom, John Luther Adams, Robert Glasper...

All the questions, and all the answers, are in the music itself. Open in browser Thursday March 30, 2023 Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, Aug. 7, 2014. (Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images) quote of the day "All the questions, and all the answers, are in the music itself." - Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, conductor rantnrave:// Classical Gas Woe be the soul looking for a good recording of MAHLER's FIFTH in an online world designed to lead you to the oeuvre of FIFTH HARMONY. Imagine walking into an old-school record store, hiking up to the third floor or down to the basement where the classical records are tucked away, and discovering that the titles and credits on the album covers are all wrong. And nothing's filed where's it's supposed to be. And there are no employees you can go to for help. (And let's not even talk about the sound system.) That's sort of what it's always been like for classical fans trying to conduct their way through SPOTIFY, APPLE and AMAZON, which have room for a thousand styles of music but only one style of metadata—and only one style of each thing that springs forth from there. There have long been boutique alternatives, among them the much loved classical service PRIMEPHONIC, which Apple bought and shuttered 18 months ago, promising to replace it with something new, improved and Apple-y, and then, for quite some time, not doing so. But it's finally here, a year behind schedule, and it might just prove to have been worth the wait. APPLE MUSIC CLASSICAL is a free-standing app that requires an APPLE MUSIC subscription to use but doesn't otherwise integrate with Apple's main subscription music app. It has Primephonic's innards and an almost old-school Apple design vibe: elegant and easy to understand. It allows users to search by composer, conductor, orchestra, works and more, in ways that are all but impossible in pop-leaning services. For works with dozens of recordings in print, it tells you which ones are most popular and, often, which ones it thinks are best, an invaluable tool for someone trying to find their way into MOZART or MAHLER or MESSIAEN or MUHLY. If you type "Mahler's Fifth" in Spotify's desktop search box, the service will return a list of more than 100 albums in no discernible order. Do the same in Apple Music Classical and you'll quickly be directed to an "Editor's Choice" recording—a recent version with RAFAEL PAYARE conducting the ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTREAL—along with a list of the most popular versions, starting with a 1958 SIR RUDOLF SCHWARZ/LONDON SYMPHONY offering. (GQ's CHRIS COHEN includes a nice visual comparison of the difference in his glowing review of the launch.) You don't have to guess which entity, between the composer, conductor and orchestra, the service considers to be the "artist" on any given recording. The service knows what everyone's role is, and there's room on the metadata sheets for all of them. Almost everyone, anyway. It's unclear if Apple Music Classical knows who W.S. GILBERT, aka the front half of GILBERT & SULLIVAN, is, never mind who KEITH RICHARDS, the back half of JAGGER & RICHARDS, is. The lone composer rules here. THE MIKADO and the rest of Gilbert & Sullivan's operas are credited to composer SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, and your search for librettist W.S. Gilbert anywhere on the app will come up all but empty. There's no ROLLING STONES artist page, of course, but all those Stones songs that classical ensembles have recorded, or that show up on film soundtracks that bridge the classical and pop words, are attributed simply to JAGGER, which is weird and unhelpful. Things can get trickier for composers whose entire careers bridge the classical, experimental and pop worlds. You'll find a handful of works and albums by PETER GORDON but you can't click on his name because Apple doesn't appear to recognize him as a classical entity. Or maybe its programmers just haven't got around to adding him to the system yet? (In general, the offerings of artist pages and playlists seem a tad thin at launch; hopefully the service is continuing to build them out.) These aren't deal killers but they are problems to be solved, especially looking forward into a musical future that may not distinguish between pop, rock, hip-hop, jazz and classical quite so clearly and confidently as it used to. A bigger question will be whether, and how, to fully integrate the two services someday. Which service do you open in search of HANS ZIMMER? Will the answer depend on whether you want to listen to MAX RICHTER or SKRILLEX next? What if you want to explore both? The Biz WARNER MUSIC is laying off 270 staffers as part of a global reorg that CEO ROBERT KYNCL described as "not a blanket cost-cutting exercise" but a reallocation of resources. That's about 4% of Warner's staff. The top three execs at Warner's Parlophone Records are all stepping down... A US rate court granted BMI a significant raise in the royalties it gets from live performances. The new rate is 0.5% of event revenues, including, for the first time, a cut of ticket service fees and income from tickets that promoters sell on the secondary market. BMI had been seeking more than 1%, but president MIKE O'NEILL called the decision "a massive victory for BMI and the songwriters, composers and publishers we represent"... There appears to be a vinyl record made out of, um, you don't have to click on this link, I promise. Rest in Peace KEITH REID, who wrote the lyrics for "A Whiter Shade of Pale" "and about 100 subsequent songs" by Procol Harum, a group he co-founded and helped lead even though he didn't sing or play an instrument. "I wasn't trying to be mysterious with those images," Reid once said of the prog-rock ballad that propelled the band to stardom in the late 1960s. "I was trying to be evocative." His longtime co-writer, lead singer Gary Brooker, described him as "a very deep person and a very private person. Although we work together, and we sometimes communicate in a very intimate way... at the end of the day, I don't know who he is"... Canadian composer JOCELYN MORLOCK... Blues and soul singer PEGGY SCOTT-ADAMS. - Matty Karas, curator trauermarsch The Independent The Global Music Vault wants to preserve the world's music in case of disaster -- but how will they do it? By Will Pritchard As the Doomsday Clock ticks even closer to midnight, Will Pritchard speaks to the people hoping to preserve centuries worth of music in a vault beneath the permafrost of Svalbard. Pitchfork 'Blurred Lines,' Harbinger of Doom By Jayson Greene How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.'s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture. Texas Monthly San Antonio Almost Lost Its 80-Year-Old Orchestra. The Musicians Didn't Go Quietly By Molly Glentzer The Alamo City's once-legendary symphony officially collapsed last year. But its musicians have continued to play just steps from their former home. The New York Times John Luther Adams, Praying for the Earth in Music By David Allen The composer has long been inspired by nature without sending an explicit political message. But his latest work takes on a newly urgent tone. GQ Apple's New Classical Music App Is a Ton of Fun By Chris Cohen It's an exciting moment for classical music, and Apple's new dedicated music streaming app is the perfect way to experience it. Billboard 5 Ways a TikTok Ban Might Affect the Billboard Charts By Andrew Unterberger The potential loss of the app could have a widespread impact on the type of songs that reach the Billboard Hot 100 - as well as how long they might stay there. Norah Jones Is Playing Along: Norah Jones Is Playing Along: Robert Glasper (Part 1) By Norah Jones and Robert Glasper A fellow piano player, songwriter and Texan, this episode with Robert Glasper was meant to be! Norah and Robert reminisce about their days at Performing Arts High Schools and band camp, and recollect all the alums that have inspired them from the start. The Guardian A moment that changed me: I lost my memories in an accident. A song brought them flooding back By Thomas Leeds A decade later, I'd lost hope of ever recollecting my childhood or recovering my creativity. A hit from the 80s changed everything. The Daily Beast Miley Cyrus Is Our Most Confusing Pop Star By Kyndall Cunningham After the tepidly received "Endless Summer Vacation," we wrestle with Miley's puzzling position in pop culture. The New Yorker David Sulzer's Wild World of Music By Burkhard Bilger What can elephants, birds, and flamenco players teach a neuroscientist-composer about music? rondo-finale The Telegraph The Taylor Swift-loving 'car wreck lawyer' planning to take down Ticketmaster By James Hall Jennifer Kinder, backed by hundreds of furious Swifties, is taking the ticketing giant to court. Is this music's Erin Brockovich moment? Billboard 'It's Definitely Also Business, Otherwise We Wouldn't Be Allowed to Fly Over': What Gets Done During Miami Music Week? By Kat Bein Each year the dance music industry descends on Miami for a week of music and partying. But in a sector that parties for work, what kind of business is actually accomplished? Broken Record Broken Record: The Edge By Rick Rubin and The Edge Rick Rubin talks to The Edge about his theory behind U2's longevity. Rolling Stone Brazilian Musicians Sound Off on Their Country's Challenging Political Future By Felipe Maia How artists, from Pabllo Vittar to BaianaSystem, are expressing themselves in a post-Bolsonaro world. The Guardian 'I have to lie low. I'm totally on edge': Uganda's club scene fears anti-gay law By Frank L'Opez Kampala's wildly innovative underground music scene has become a home for queer east Africans. A proposed law change not only endangers them, but an entire cultural movement. Money 4 Nothing Streaming in the Dark: No One Knows Anything (w/ Meredith Rose) By Saxon Baird, Sam Backer and Meredith Rose No one knows anything about the streaming economy. That's the stark message at the heart of Public Knowledge's new whitepaper "Streaming in the Dark," which catalogs the remarkable "wall of NDAs" operating at every level of the modern music industry. We spoke with Meredith Rose, the lead author on the report. Tape Op Evelyn Glennie: 'Sound can be the most subtle thing, but the body does need to slow down in order to connect with it' By Ian Brennan Experimental and classically-trained percussionist Evelyn Glennie has released almost 50 albums and collaborated with the likes of Björk, Mark Knopfler, Fred Frith, Béla Fleck, Bobby McFerrin and filmmaker Danny Boyle. She became deaf at the age of 12 and she is the only deaf artist known to have won a Grammy – which she has done twice. Pitchfork Kara Jackson's Mournful, Joyful, Unapologetic Guitar-A** Music By Britt Julious In this Rising interview, the singer-songwriter talks about flying in the face of racism, why it's good to be petty, and her artfully honest debut album. Stereogum God Laughs: A Word With Maxo By Jayson Buford The LA rapper on 'Even God Has A Sense Of Humor,' his family history, avoiding being pigeonholed, and more. what we're into Music of the day "Mieczysław Weinberg: Aria, Op. 9" Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla & Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Video of the day "The Conductor" Bernadette Wegenstein Bernadette Wegenstein's 2021 documentary about conductor Marin Alsop, streaming at Amazon Prime, Apple+ and elsewhere. Music | Media SUBSCRIBE Suggest a link "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" Jason Hirschhorn CEO & Chief Curator HOME | ABOUT | SETS | PRESS Redef Group Inc. LA - NY - Everywhere Copyright ©2021 UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION