Latest Classical music News
André 3000's alt-jazz, 'no bars' solo album stunned fans. Now, it's up for Grammys
NEW YORK (AP) — No one was expecting it. Late last year, André 3000 released his debut solo album, “New Blue Sun,” 18 years after his legendary rap group Outkast's last studio album, “Idlewild.” But “New Blue Sun” has “no bars,” he jokes. It's a divergence from rap...
Popeye and Tintin enter the public domain in 2025 along with novels from Faulkner and Hemingway
Popeye can punch without permission and Tintin can roam freely starting in 2025. The two classic comic characters who first appeared in 1929 are among the intellectual properties becoming public domain in the United States on Jan. 1. That means they can be used and repurposed without permission or...
AP's top under-the-radar albums of 2024: Mabe Fratti, Arooj Aftab, Blood Incantation and more
NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of every year, when critics rush to compile their best of the year lists, great art inevitably gets overlooked. A top 10 list doesn't leave a lot of room for discovery and, in music, that sometimes means the most innovative records lose out to make room for other...
La Scala's gala season premiere vanquished bad-luck vibes around long-absent Verdi opera
MILAN (AP) — Milan’s storied Teatro alla Scala presented Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” for its gala season premiere Saturday for the first time in 59 years, determined to shake the opera's reputation for bringing bad luck. The production conducted by Riccardo...
Car rams and injures orchestral musicians in Belgrade during a protest over station roof collapse
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra said four of its musicians were injured Friday in an incident during a weekly 15-minute traffic blockade commemorating the 15 people who died when a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station in a northern Serbian city last month. ...
Semyon Bychkov conducts through pain in celebrating Year of Czech Music with North American tour
NEW YORK (AP) — Eva Krestová remembered Semyon Bychkov’s first rehearsal as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, leading Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” symphony. “I was shaking,” the viola leader recalled of that day in Prague’s Rudolfinum. “He smiled at me and...
American tenor Brian Jagde gets last-minute call to sing in La Scala's gala season premiere
MILAN (AP) — American tenor Brian Jagde was just wrapping up Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” in Barcelona last month when he got a last-minute offer to sing the same role in La Scala’s gala season premiere this Saturday, arguably the opera world’s most prestigious gig. ...
Kate Hamill delivers a 'feminist primal scream' with her new play 'The Light and the Dark'
NEW YORK (AP) — The inspiration for Kate Hamill's latest play came from across centuries and the planet. The actor-playwright was honeymooning in Italy in 2020 when she walked into the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and spotted a painting by pioneering Baroque painter Artemisia...
Bayreuth trims 150th anniversary festival, citing budget cuts
The Bayreuth Festival dropped four productions from its 150th anniversary season in 2026 because of budget cuts, the festival said Thursday. The German festival devoted to composer Richard Wagner attributed the decision to its employees' public-service sector labor contracts and an...
From Bach to Beyonce, why a church orchestra aims to lift up young musicians of color
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — For over two years, Ebonie Vazquez searched to find a mentor of color for her son, Giovanni, now 11 and passionate about playing the violin. She has now found that space at a local church. New Hope Presbyterian Church, a multiethnic congregation led by a...
