Podcast appearances and mentions of naomi lewin

Georg Philipp Telemann composed during the Baroque period, which ran from about 1600 to 1750. Suzanne Bona, host of the National Public Radio program Sunday Baroque, talks with Naomi Lewin about Baroque music.

Opera singer Denyce Graves talks with Naomi Lewin about what it's like to be an international opera star.

Ballet is a theatrical performance that tells a story using music, costumes, sets, and dance. Victoria Morgan, artistic director of the Cincinnati Ballet, talks with Naomi Lewin about ballet and ballet terms.

Zoltan Kodaly developed a method for teaching music. It is still used by teachers around the world today. Jill Trinka, who teaches the Kodaly Method, talks with Naomi Lewin.

The United States Marine Band is this country's oldest military band. Each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces has its own band, and song. Captain Don Schofield, associate conductor of the United States Air Force Band of Flight, talks with Naomi Lewin about all the U.S. military bands.

The Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms were never really intended for dancing. But that doesn't mean that people in Hungary don't dance! Richard Graber, the director of a Hungarian dance company in Cleveland, talks with Naomi Lewin about Hungarian dancing.

Beethoven was a pianist. During his lifetime, the piano changed quite a bit, and those changes were reflected in the music Beethoven composed for the instrument. William Black, who was head of the piano department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, talked with Naomi Lewin about how Beethoven's music followed the development of the piano.

Hosted by the award-winning classical music radio announcer, Naomi Lewin, this episode of the Tippet Rise Podcast features a conversation with Francis Kéré, the world-renowned architect behind the art center’s latest installation, Xylem.

Opera singer Denyce Graves talks with Naomi Lewin about what it's like to be an international opera star.

Today's episode, produced by Naomi Lewin, features Pedja Muzijevic, the newly appointed Artistic Advisor of Tippet Rise.

Today's episode, produced by Naomi Lewin, is about the extraordinary pianos at Tippet Rise – including one that belonged to legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz.

Georg Philipp Telemann composed during the Baroque period, which ran from about 1600 to 1750. Suzanne Bona, host of the National Public Radio program Sunday Baroque, talks with Naomi Lewin about Baroque music.

Hosted by the award-winning classical music radio announcer, Naomi Lewin, this episode features Aaron Jay Kernis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, and explores two pieces he wrote for Tippet Rise: First Club Date, for piano and cello, and Oasis, for string quartet. We hear musicians, audience members and the art center’s cofounders reflect on Kernis’ work, and we hear the composer discuss a major inspiration for Oasis: the rugged Montana landscape, which he calls “a heavenly place.”

Ballet is a theatrical performance that tells a story using music, costumes, sets, and dance. Victoria Morgan, artistic director of the Cincinnati Ballet, talks with Naomi Lewin about ballet and ballet terms.

Zoltan Kodaly developed a method for teaching music. It is still used by teachers around the world today. Jill Trinka, who teaches the Kodaly Method, talks with Naomi Lewin.

The United States Marine Band is this country's oldest military band. Each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces has its own band, and song. Captain Don Schofield, associate conductor of the United States Air Force Band of Flight, talks with Naomi Lewin about all the U.S. military bands.

The Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms were never really intended for dancing. But that doesn't mean that people in Hungary don't dance! Richard Graber, the director of a Hungarian dance company in Cleveland, talks with Naomi Lewin about Hungarian dancing.

William Grant Still has been called the Dean of Afro-American composers. Judith Anne Still, the composer's daughter, talks with Naomi Lewin about her father's life, and the difficulty he faced in the first half of 20th century America as a black man writing classical music.

William Grant Still has been called the Dean of Afro-American composers. Judith Anne Still, the composer's daughter, talks with Naomi Lewin about her father's life, and the difficulty he faced in the first half of 20th century America as a black man writing classical music.

Beethoven was a pianist. During his lifetime, the piano changed quite a bit, and those changes were reflected in the music Beethoven composed for the intstrument. William Black, head of the piano department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, talks with Naomi Lewin about how Beethoven's music followed the development of the piano.

This week, we interview David and Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist to talk about the hype in escape rooms! Manpans was quite happy because we were able to get Naomi Lewin to do the sound editing. We are eternally grateful.Also, behold our new look! It's glorious!

In our first ever Podcast, journalist Naomi Lewin and opera dramaturg Cori Ellison discuss the Met’s production of Kaija Saariaho‘s 2000 opera “L’Amour de Loin.” Naomi Lewin  has produced the podcast, which includes interview clips with the composer, as well as the conductor Susanna Mälkki.   We also hear audio clips from the opera, and […]

The "Star-Spangled Banner" that kicks off opening night concerts across the U.S. is often believed to be a great patriotic tradition. But some people think it's out of place and out of mood. The Fort Worth Symphony recently drew criticism over its practice of playing the anthem before every concert. A Dallas musician sounded off on Facebook that orchestra concerts were not meant to be patriotic events, and that the anthem ruined the mood a conductor was trying to set. Many others agreed. In this week's podcast, two experts weigh in on the anthem at the orchestra. Marc Ferris, author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America's National Anthem, says he has no problem with the piece's appearance, which is a holdover from 9/11 in many concert halls. "Just to shoehorn it in there just for the sake of doing it could take away from the thematic program," Ferris said. "But you don't have to do it at the beginning. You could do it after intermission. You could do it at the end." He notes that the first time it was played at a baseball game was during the seventh-inning stretch at 1918 Brooklyn Dodgers game. Leon Botstein, the conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College, is more ambivalent. "I don't think it necessarily spoils the mood," he said in the second part of the segment. "But to repeat it at every concert is a kind of cheap patriotism. It has, unfortunately, a negative effect. It's like repeating a prayer every day without understanding its meaning."  However, Botstein believes the "Star-Spangled Banner" can be effective when American orchestras play it on international tours. He also thinks it provides an opportunity for an otherwise passive audience to participate in a concert. Ferris dismisses the notion that the anthem's octave-and-a-half range and complicated lyrics are overly challenging. "It's a real myth that this is hard to sing," said Ferris. "What, a professional singer can't remember 81 words? We're only singing the first verse." Botstein disagrees. "The 'Star-Spangled Banner' is not a great national anthem," he said. "It happens to be ours. It's slightly unsingable and the words don't really make a lot of sense. But it is our national anthem. If the audience actually likes it, maybe it doesn't spoil the mood." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and leave a comment below: How do you feel about playing the Star-Spangled Banner before concerts? After four years, this is Naomi Lewin's final episode as host of WQXR's Conducting Business. We thank her for her steadfast dedication to the show, her commitment to quality arts journalism, her sense of humor and willingness to dive into a wide range of topics involving classical music. We wish her best of luck in her next endeavors.

An international dispute arose last month when Russia announced its intentions to reclaim Rachmaninoff's remains from a cemetery in Valhalla, NY. Russian cultural minister Vladimir Medinsky claimed that Americans have neglected the composer's grave (pictured above) while attempting to "shamelessly privatize" his name. But Rachmaninoff's descendants have balked at the idea of moving the body, pointing out that he died in the U.S. after spending decades outside of Russia in self-imposed political exile. This week's podcast explores just how Russia has built its case for moving Rachmaninoff's body, and what larger ambitions may be driving the effort. Simon Morrison, a professor of music and Slavic studies at Princeton University, was approached by Russian officials to find evidence that the composer wanted to be buried in his homeland. "Rachmaninoff didn't express a desire to be buried anywhere, as far as I know," Morrison tells host Naomi Lewin. All that Morrison could find was an "offhand" comment, cited in a biography, about his Swiss estate, Villa Senar. "He did write a letter to his sister-in-law, saying, 'If I must die, then this wouldn't be a bad place to be buried' – or words to that effect," noted Morrison. Sergei Rachmaninoff at a Steinway grand piano. Circa 1936 or earlier. (Wikimedia commons) Morrison says that a Russian delegation then traveled to the U.S. in 2014 to secure a copy of the letter from the Library of Congress. That led to a meeting between officials from Russia and the U.S. State Department, which Morrison attended as a musicological expert witness. Ultimately, the talks fell apart over Russia's military intervention in Crimea. Welz Kauffman, president of the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation, a nonprofit established by the composer's late grandson, Alexandre, says the matter of Rachmaninoff's remains are intertwined with Russia's efforts to purchase Senar. An attempted sale last year to an unnamed Russian oligarch fell through. The Foundation maintains that any decisions over the composer's remains or effects should be done in consultation with all of the composer's heirs (his great-great-granddaughter, Susan Sophia Volkonskaya-Wanamaker, has repeatedly dismissed the idea of reinterment). Ultimately, Morrison believes that the case reflects a desire by Russian politicians to reclaim their cultural legacy, whether that involves scattered manuscripts or the bodies of long-dead artists. This, he says, would establish Moscow "as this faux imperial city that it never was in the first place. It's part of a broader effort to re-establish imperial culture back in Russia." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page, take our poll below and share your comments: .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "should-rachmaninoffs-remains-be-moved-back-russia", "survey_should-rachmaninoffs-remains-be-moved-back-russia");

When George Benjamin's Written on Skin had its American stage premiere at the Mostly Mozart Festival on August 11, it became an unlikely summer blockbuster: a complex, contemporary opera with an abstract storyline and a dense, modernist musical language. The work got standing ovations from audiences and rave reviews from critics – but not all of them. This summer also saw another big premiere: Cold Mountain, by American composer Jennifer Higdon, at Santa Fe Opera. That work features a more accessible language, with traditional melodies and a conventional linear storyline, though reviews were somewhat more mixed. This week's podcast explores which approach works best in contemporary opera, and what has "sticking power." Joining host Naomi Lewin are Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, which represents North American opera companies, Cori Ellison, dramaturg at the Glyndebourne Festival in England; she also teaches at Juilliard and the American Lyric Theater; and David Gockley, who is entering his 10th and final season as general director of San Francisco Opera. From 1972-2005 he ran Houston Grand Opera, where he commissioned a lot of new work. Gockley is unconvinced by the popularity of Written on Skin. "It's a connoisseur's piece," he said. "Its musical language is extraordinarily complicated. I mean, are you going to sit down and play [a recording of] that at dinner?" As someone whose job includes filling a 3,200-seat house every night, Gockley says that he looks for works with a certain "bourgeois" appeal. "That is what we are – a bourgeois art form," he said. And if audiences don't immediately embrace a new work, "they're not going to come back." Ellison points out that a very different situation exists in Europe. On a list of some 60 notable modern operas recently compiled by Washington Post readers, only about 15 of them are by non-American composers. "Those 15 operas are in a much more modernist style or spectralist style," she said. European opera houses are generally smaller, benefit from government funding and can afford to take more risks stylistically. "It's a different landscape." A scene from Jennifer Higdon's 'Cold Mountain' (© Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera) But if traditional American opera audiences balk at a complex, modern work, how do we account for the warm reception Written on Skin received, and the cooler one for Cold Mountain? All three guests acknowledge that while Higdon's first opera wasn't perfect, it showed considerable promise. "I left Cold Mountain really wanting to hear Jennifer Higdon's next opera," said Scorca. He adds, "The challenge for today's composers is to find their own sweet spot between being truly contemporary, and writing in the moment of 2015, and finding a way to connect with the audience." And then there are regional tastes – and rivalries. "I think New York feels envious in one way and critical in another way of all the new operatic activity taking place outside of New York," said Gockley. "They are willing to dismiss it as being pap, and therefore, when something like the Benjamin comes along they can jump on that and think it's the bee's knees. As far as I'm concerned, it's just rehashing the modernism that has bit the dust again and again over the last 50 years." To hear our guest's comments on operas based on novels and films, and why that can help their success, listen to the full segment at the top of this page.

It's no secret that arts coverage has been slashed by many news media outlets looking to pare costs, and there are fewer writers and less space devoted to serious classical music criticism. This year has seen critics leave national newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News; last December brought the departure of long time New York Times critic Allan Kozinn. That's not to mention magazines; the age when Time and Newsweek had full rosters of arts critics have long since passed. This week's podcast explores the consequences of these changes for readers – and arts organizations – in a changing news environment. Joining host Naomi Lewin are Scott Cantrell, the outgoing music critic for the Dallas Morning News and Douglas McLennan, the founder and editor of ArtsJournal.com, which aggregates arts news stories from around the globe. Cantrell is not optimistic about the future of music criticism. Having been the music critic in Dallas for 16 years, he just accepted a buyout offer, which leaves a grand total of zero full-time classical music critics in the state of Texas. "There's no future in arts criticism as a full-time job with benefits as we have known it," he said. But if a newspaper critic as an influential arbiter of taste has declined, this hasn't led to less music criticism. Rather, a void is being filled by bloggers and other Internet pundits, who for the most part are unpaid. McLennan also believes that with the rise in non-traditional voices, the overall level of writing has improved. "I remember in the early years it was quite a chore to try and find 20 stories in a day that would be worth putting up," he said, referring to his site, which highlights noteworthy stories. "Let's not equate the golden age of criticism with the situation 20 years ago." Both guests estimate that there are currently about a dozen classical music critics at U.S. newspapers, down from about 65 only two decades ago. New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross recently compiled a list of remaining critics on his blog, The Rest in Noise. He lists 39 critics, but most of them are not solely dedicated to classical music. Even Cantrell had to do double-duty for several years, serving as a fill-in art and architecture critic. WQXR has created a map based largely on Ross’s data about newspaper critics (radio, blogs, music magazines and other media are not included). Please have a look and tell us if there's anyone we're missing: McLennan also believes that newspapers' current obsession with website clicks will exhaust itself, and new measurements of success will take over. In Cantrell’s experience, this may be a good thing. Even though his reviews are posted on his paper's website much earlier, many older readers will wait until they appear in ink. McLennan cautions about feeling nostalgic for the past as a golden age of classical music journalism: It wasn't necessary better, just different. Please listen to the full segment at the top of this page and share your thoughts below.

"Art for art's sake?" Not any more. A growing number of economic impact studies conducted by arts groups suggest that music festivals have a big impact on local economies. "If you do these studies and show them to government officials, they might be more willing to invest in the arts in their own communities," says Timothy Mangan, the classical music critic of the Orange County Register, who recently reported on the issue in Southern California. Mangan found that festivals and venues in Orange County have sought to demonstrate how they create jobs, generate tax revenue, benefit hotels and cause a ripple effect to tourist businesses. A few years ago, arts groups in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts sought to make a similar case. They commissioned a study which found that the arts bring some 6,000 jobs to the region, and help sustain local restaurants and hotels. "The creative economy is incredibly important to this area at a time when manufacturing has moved out of the area," Julia Dixon, head of Berkshire Creative, tells Naomi Lewin. Dixon particularly cites cities like North Adams (home to MASS MoCA) and Pittsfield (which, for a decade, battled downtown vacancy with the Storefront Artist Project). But even as cultural tourism has evolved, festivals are not a surefire economic booster to regional economies. Their programming has to be unique enough that visitors will come in the first place, and communities must work to exploit their assets while also managing traffic, parking and potential environmental effects. Listen to the full discussion above and tell us: Do you travel to music festivals? How do you spend money outside of the arts events themselves? Please leave a comment below.

When Reynold Levy became president of Lincoln Center in 2002, the organization was “a community in deep distress, riven by conflict,” according to New York magazine. No surprise that the title of Levy’s new memoir is They Told Me Not to Take That Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center. While much of Levy’s book offers an upbeat look at Lincoln Center's $1.2 billion redevelopment and its years of balanced budgets, he also surprised many with his scathing take on the management blunders at some of Lincoln Center's resident organizations, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera. On this edition of Conducting Business Levy tells host Naomi Lewin why he chose to write in such forthright terms – and name names: “When governance goes astray, when management is not being held accountable, they get themselves into deep trouble. Because this whole sector is relatively unregulated, it’s important to call attention to the public those that are not so well-governed or well-managed.” Levy, who stepped down from the Lincoln Center presidency last year, elaborates on the “self-inflicted wound” that led to the collapse of City Opera in 2013; the “shocking” lack of due diligence by the Philharmonic when it tried to merge with Carnegie Hall in 2003; and the still-uncertain outcome of last summer’s labor strife at the Met. He names five things the Met and its unions could do right now to improve the company’s finances, and he considers Alan Gilbert's surprise announcement to leave the Philharmonic. Levy also tells us what he is most proud of as he looks back at the redevelopment of Lincoln Center’s 16-acre campus. Listen to the full interview above and share your reactions in the comments box below.

According to several recent studies, young musicians are still following traditional gender stereotypes when they choose an instrument. Girls at a young age go for what they perceive as "feminine" instruments, such as the flute, piccolo, violin, and clarinet; boys gravitate towards trumpets, tubas and percussion. Kids’ views of masculinity and femininity can lead to other problems; for instance, boys who take up the flute are more susceptible to social isolation and bullying. Hal Abeles, the co-director of the Center for Arts Education Research at Columbia University's Teachers College, cites several reasons that these gender perceptions persist: a lack of role models, the physical size of an instrument, and general societal pressures. "Adolescents, males in particular, get intimidated by not being with the majority," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "So if the majority of students in your middle school who are playing flute are girls, young boys feel 'I want to belong.'" Abeles co-authored a 2014 study in the journal Music Education Research, which found that choosing the "wrong instrument" can provoke young students to drop out of instrumental music completely as they face online "cyber-bullying" and other forms of harassment. But our guests note that instrument-based stereotypes vary from culture to culture. Sivan Magen, a New York-based harpist, said he experienced few harp stereotypes growing up in Israel, "Especially in the States, it has become a woman's instrument." Magen notes that among his eight harpist classmates at the Paris Conservatory, four were male. Being strong-willed and successful can lessen a student's risk for harassment. Carol Jantsch, the principal tuba of the Philadelphia Orchestra, says she never got grief from her classmates as a kid in Ohio. "If you're good at your instrument, your peers don't care what you play," she said. But today, she'll occasionally encounter conductors who use the phrase "gentlemen of the brass." "Usually I'll cough very loudly and they'll correct themselves after that," she noted (Jantsch appears in Part Two of this segment). Ricky O'Bannon, a writer in residence at the Baltimore Symphony, recently interviewed several teachers about this issue. Among his takeaways: It's better for teachers not to address the issue in the classroom. "The moment you start saying 'this instrument is not just for girls or not just for boys'" is the kiss of death, he noted. "Teachers are also playing YouTube videos in classrooms of counter-stereotypes," such as a beatboxing flutist. "It's about having a child find the instrument that they're going to enjoy and not having any extra pressures on that." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and please tell us what you think below: have you experienced gender associations with an instrument? What can be done to lessen these?

If you've ever looked out on an orchestra audience and marveled at all of the gray hair and empty seats, the next question that may enter your mind is, how will this picture look in 10, 20 or 30 years? And should I be alarmed? In this week's episode, Michael Kaiser, known as the arts world's "Mr. Fix-It," gives some less-than-rosy answers – as well as some advice for orchestras and opera companies. For 14 years, Kaiser was president of Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and before that, he helped rescue faltering organizations including the Royal Opera House, American Ballet Theater and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Kaiser currently serves as president of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland. His new book is Curtains?: The Future of the Arts in America. Kaiser tells Naomi Lewin that the financial model of arts organizations has become unsustainable as aging audiences aren't replaced by enough younger patrons. He points to several related maladies: the lack of standard arts education, fatigued donors, and especially, cheaper online entertainment options that will continue to siphon away audiences. But Kaiser believes playing it safe is the wrong response. "As arts organizations have gotten more and more scared about the changing world, there's been a pressure to do 'what sells' and do 'the popular stuff' because that's what's going to bring in ticket buyers," said Kaiser. "The problem is, if everyone does Beethoven's Ninth or everyone does Swan Lake, a) we get very dull, and b) there are many versions of Beethoven's Ninth that you can get online. We compete less well with online entertainment and we look less interesting and surprising." Listen to the podcast to hear what Kaiser has to say about HD movie theater broadcasts – and what he would do if he were running the Metropolitan Opera.

Chicago Tribune chief theater critic Chris Jones tells Naomi Lewin that nothing lights up his e-mail inbox like an opera company staging a Broadway musical using full amplification. "It's full of disgruntled patrons," he said. "You get the natural hall acoustics working – and then you get a miked performer." The controversies go beyond acoustics and amplification – there's also the question of how to blend performers from the worlds of opera and Broadway in a single cast. On the other hand, there’s a huge potential upside for opera houses: the ability to reach new audiences clamoring for the sound of a full orchestra, which has all but vanished from Broadway pits. The trend has been particularly pronounced at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which in recent years has staged “Oklahoma,” “Show Boat" “The Sound of Music” and now, Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Carousel." Elsewhere, Stephen Sondheim's “Sweeney Todd” is coming to Houston Grand Opera next week and San Francisco Opera in September. Companies in Los Angeles and Washington, DC as well as the Glimmerglass festival have also been bit by the Broadway bug. James Jorden, editor of the opera website Parterre Box and a contributor to the New York Observer, notes that the now-defunct New York City Opera made a staple of musicals in the 1980s. And yet, "opera houses are not made for talking in," he said referring to the spoken dialogue. "Even with very excellent sound design, it's going to be difficult to do 'Carousel,' which is very talky." Jorden and Jones also weigh in on the decline of the Broadway touring circuit and how that has opened up a place for opera companies, and whether more musicals means fewer operas for major houses. Jorden also tells us what musical he believes would be particularly well-suited for the Metropolitan Opera. Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think of the trend in the comments box below.

Toronto Symphony president Jeff Melanson tells WQXR's Conducting Business that pianist Valentina Lisitsa's politics had nothing to do with the orchestra's decision to drop her from its program this week. "The concerns raised were not about a political perspective but were about directly offensive and intolerant comments directed at other human beings," he told host Naomi Lewin. Melanson disputed Lisitsa's contention that the orchestra had made the decision in December after a donor threatened to withhold funds if she performed as scheduled. The orchestra produced a seven-page list of the Twitter commentary it found most offensive and sent it to ask if the posts were made by her, or by a proxy. "A week-and-a-half ago she confirmed that these were her words and we had to make a decision," he said. Melanson continued that "a contract provision allows us to pay an artist her fee and remove them from the program. We tried to do it in a way that was protective of the artist, in terms of not publicly discussing any of this, and of course she's chosen to turn the story into one for the Twitter-verse." Lisitsa is an ethnic Russian who was born in Ukraine. Through her active Twitter account, she has been highly critical of the Kiev government, comparing its leaders to Nazis and dog feces. In one frequently-cited Tweet, she juxtaposed a photo of contemporary Ukrainian teachers wearing traditional embroidered shirts with a photo of black costumed dancers. The pianist has not responded to multiple requests by WQXR for comment on the Tweets, but she told the CBC that the Tweets were "satirical" and "there is a great space for exaggeration and hyperbole." Melanson said the Toronto Symphony does not habitually screen artists' social media before it offers them work, nor does take a side on political matters. "We are not taking a side here between Russia and the Ukraine," he noted. The orchestra president also implied that the decision to cancel the replacement soloist, Stewart Goodyear, was made out of concern for the musicians' safety. "We could not put an orchestra, an artist and a guest artist up on stage in the context of this week's discussions," he said. For more on how Melanson said the TSO's decisions were made, and who blew the whistle, listen to the full interview at the top of this page.

Last week, a Los Angeles jury found that the pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give it Up" in their song "Blurred Lines." The jury awarded the singer's estate $7.4 million. Gaye’s family celebrated the decision. But a lot of composers wondered if copyright is now being extended to cover not just song lyrics and melody but much else – tone, rhythm, tempo. On this week's episode, Naomi Lewin speaks with two experts about the case's implications: Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Lawrence Ferrara, a professor of music at New York University. He's also a music copyright consultant for record labels, music publishing companies and film studios, and was briefly involved in the "Blurred Lines" case. Segment Highlights Add Caption Here Our guests have vastly different takes on the case's implications. For Swed, "the tradition in music, in most musical traditions, is to build one thing on another. Rhythmic patterns, bass lines, and things like this are generally thought of as common property." Besides, Renaissance composers such as Josquin des Prez frequently built "paraphrase" or "parody" masses on preexisting Gregorian chants. J.S. Bach lifted entire from Vivaldi. Debussy quoted Wagner's "Tristan" chord. "Everything is very vague and nobody is quite sure how this is all going to work out," said Swed, who recently wrote about the case. "Music works in a different way than the courts work. The arts are often about breaking rules and the courts are about maintaining rules." Robin Thicke (L) and T.I. perform the song 'Blurred Lines' at the The Grammy Nominations Concert Live. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images) Ferrara, however, believes that the rules around copyright enforcement are clear. "One can always find works with similarities," he said, but the "feel and vibe" of a composition cannot be monopolized by one composer. "Melody tends to be the meat in a copyright issue. That's what gets you at the musical expression that's ultimately the test of whether there's ultimately been an infringement." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think below: Is plagiarism a problem in music? Should copyright laws be more or less strictly enforced?

After a long decline, RadioShack recently filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to shutter more than 1,700 stores. As many music lovers know, RadioShack was once the place to get speaker wire, headphones, adapters, or even a Realistic-brand stereo system. But how times have changed.  On this week's show, Christopher Mims, the Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, tells us about the cultural shifts that are behind Radioshack's demise. In a recent article he argued that the loss of RadioShack paralleled the decline of leisure time for would-be hobbyists and tinkerers. "The kind of leisure that we're engaging in has shifted," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "Apps and mobile devices are appealing because they let us snack during our leisure time. What we're missing is the loss of big, unbroken blocks of time that would allow somebody to be a hobbyist, to learn a new skill or repair something like a computer." Mims remembers getting his first Tandy computer at RadioShack during the 1980s, and being "totally blown away and feeling like I was looking at the future." What are your favorite memories of RadioShack? What will you miss or not miss about the stores? Please share your thoughts below.

Usually, a polite discourse pervades arts journalism, but two recent cases underscore the tricky relationships between classical music organizations and the media that covers them. After Opera House Revokes Critics' Tickets, Examining Practice of 'Freebies' Last month, Opera Australia removed a music critic for the Sydney Morning Herald from its complimentary press ticket list after the company's artistic director was reportedly "very offended" by a piece on the newspaper's arts website. This was followed Jan. 2 by a similar “comp” list ban against a critic for the publication Stage Noise. And in New York, a theatrical press agent blacklisted Wall Street Journal writer Joanne Kaufman, after she admitted to "bolting" from Broadway shows during intermission. These cases together raise ethical questions about the relationship between critics and the organizations they cover, and especially, the practice of providing free press tickets to reviewers covering a performance. Joining us to look more closely at this practice is Kelly McBride, a media ethicist who is vice president for academic programs at the Poynter Institute. "In the ideal world, I think journalism organizations would pay for their own tickets all the time," McBride tells host Naomi Lewin. "But we do not live in an ideal world," she added, referring to the difficult financial environment at many news organizations. That being said, "the audience does expect those journalists to put their loyalties with the audience. If journalists don't do that, and it becomes apparent to the audience, they'll lose credibility." Listen to the full segment above. Colorado Symphony and Radio Station Part Ways Colorado Symphony at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver (©Jedediah Liddell) The complex relationship between arts organizations and the media was brought to light in another recent case. Late last year, Colorado Public Radio announced that it will no longer carry broadcasts of the Colorado Symphony, ending a 15-year partnership. The reasons are varied, but the key sticking point was editorial: specifically, the orchestra wanted a lot more positive coverage on the radio. Ray Rinaldi, the fine arts critic of the Denver Post, tells us what was at the heart of the split. "Basically the orchestra wanted the radio station to collude with it in turning the live broadcasts into marketing for the symphony," he explained. "The station didn't want to be promoting the symphony. They were happy to be a neutral party in bringing the concerts to the community, but they didn't want to appear to be doing marketing in favor of one organization over the other." There were other issues in the breakup as well. The Colorado Symphony also bought underwriting on the station, anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 worth, and expected more preferential treatment as a result. Rinaldi tells us where things went off the rails and why this is significant in an age of Internet distribution. Listen to the full podcast above and tell us what you think by clicking on the gray comments bar below.

It's the early days of January, and you know what that means when it comes it movies: great awards shows and horrible movies. Will this week's releases buck the trends? On the chopping block: "Taken 3" and "Inherent Vice." Rafer and Kristen also take a deep dive into "Mozart in the Jungle" in this week's Sweatpants pick. Helping them to deconstruct the series, and separate fact from fiction is Naomi Lewin, the weekday afternoon host on New York's classical music station WQXR, and the host of the weekly podcast Conducting Business.  There's also lots of listener mail and, as usual, trivia!

A pianist recited Yiddish poetry during a Washington, DC recital, the Seattle Symphony premiered a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece about the environment, and Anna Netrebko made a surprising transformation as Lady Macbeth – these were a few of the high points of 2014, according to three top music critics. Joining host Naomi Lewin for this discussion of the year's highs and lows of classical music are Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post; David Patrick Stearns, classical music critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer and for WQXR's Operavore blog; and Zachary Woolfe, freelance classical music critic for the New York Times. Segment Highlights Midgette noted that Evgeny Kissin's poetry-infused recital was part of a larger trend of artists making more personal, introspective statements in concert halls. But she also lamented the way in which classical music in America seemed disconnected from broader national discussions of race and social change. And when debates did turn up in classical music, they proved one-dimensional. Midgette was particularly "saddened at the level of discourse" around John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer, which drew protests at the Met. Our other panelists agreed. "I thought the [Klinghoffer] debate was such a straw man," said Stearns, "because most of the protesters didn't know much about the piece." All of the critics agreed that serious pros and cons about the opera needed to be raised but often weren't. The Met's eventful year also featured an epic struggle to cut costs and to reach contract deals with its unionized employees; the eventual outcomes didn't entirely solve the company's financial challenges, said Woolfe.  Poor labor-management relations were an ongoing national story in 2014. But the year saw many causes for optimism, say the panel, including some inventive programming at Philadelphia and Seattle orchestras (the latter of which premiered John Luther Adams's much-discussed Pulitzer Prize winner Become Ocean); new leadership at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; and the continued emergence of China on the orchestra landscape. Listen to the full discussion above and tell us in the comments below: What were your highs and lows of 2014? Bonus audio: Our guests consider the changing marketing of classical concerts:  

In 2010, the Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic played a recital in Washington, D.C., and got a mildly critical review. Somehow that stuck: It's the second item that comes up when you Google Lazic's name, after his own website. Now he wants it permanently removed from the search engine in Europe, citing the European Union's new "right to be forgotten" ruling as legal justification. The review, titled "Sparks But No Flame," is by Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette. It describes Lazic's performance as technically well-played but a little superficial. In this WQXR exclusive, the two parties involved – Anne Midgette and Dejan Lazic – join host Naomi Lewin to make their cases. Anne Midgette For his part, Lazic expresses his frustration that a four-year-old review ranks so high in Google search results, giving the public what he considers an unbalanced view of his musicianship. He calls Midgette's column "slightly defamatory" and argues that such criticism can have damaging effects beyond his own career. Midgette counters that she does not write reviews for musicians but for the benefit of her readers, and she hopes that her criticism will spark enlightened discussion. She notes that there is even one paragraph where she calls Lazic "prodigiously gifted" and says there's no way the Post itself would ever pull such a review. She and Lazic also come to some agreement. Listen to the above segment and tell us what you think in the comments box below: What do you think of Dejan Lazic's argument?

Vladimir Jurowski just finished a four-city North American tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, where he's been the chief conductor since 2007. Last month, the Philharmonic renewed his contract through 2018, and critics have frequently praised his artistic bond with the ensemble. But along with his London ties, Jurowski also has some strong feelings about his native Russia, whether it's parsing the political subtexts in Soviet repertoire or speaking out on present-day civil liberties. We caught up with Jurowski before a recent Carnegie Hall performance and the conversation turned from Shostakovich to a daring Moscow performance of Britten’s War Requiem that he led this past April. The concert, which was intended to celebrate British and Russian cultural ties – and reportedly attended by many high-level dignitaries – was nearly called off because of Russia's invasion of Crimea. But it continued, and Jurowski viewed the Requiem – written by and dedicated to gay artists – as a way to honor victims of persecution. In this podcast he tells Naomi Lewin how his potentially incendiary remarks were received. Interview Highlights: On Shostakovich: I'm absolutely certain that there are political messages in his music but it doesn't make him by definition either a dissident or a brave Soviet citizen. He was neither. I think Shostakovich was the last great symphonist of the 20th century. On Dissent in Russia: The interesting thing is that you can still say a lot in Russia unpunished if you do it in the right way. The problem is that it can hardly influence the political situation because people who are at the helm of the politics don't give a damn about any criticism coming from below. Like Owen said, 'All that poetry can do is but to warn.' On The London Philharmonic: We're mainly harvesting the fruits of a long-standing relationship. Now there is this real chemistry and trust on both sides. It's a difficult life we lead there but an extremely exciting and artistically satisfying one. Bonus Audio: On the art of conducting:  

The United Kingdom is blessed with any number of top-flight orchestras – the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, umpteen BBC orchestras, and specialist groups like Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. But among connoisseurs, there's one group that has often batted above its league: The Ulster Orchestra. Considered one of the jewels in Northern Ireland's cultural crown, it was founded in 1966 and has since released nearly 100 recordings and worked under many respected conductors, including JoAnn Falletta, Sergiu Commissiona and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Now comes word that the Ulster Orchestra faces bankruptcy and possible shutdown by the end of the year due to a funding crisis. For some perspective on this, host Naomi Lewin speaks with Oliver Condy, the editor of BBC Music Magazine. "It beggars belief," said Condy. "I can't quite understand how an orchestra can go from operating at full tilt to being told it's going to be offered 28 percent cut in its public funding." Condy describes how the Ulster Orchestra has been the ultimate "show-must-go-on ensemble," having played for years against a backdrop of social unrest in Northern Ireland. "This is an orchestra that played every single concert during the Troubles of the 1970s and '80s when all of Northern Ireland was threatened with bombings either from the IRA or loyalist groups," said Condy. "The Ulster Orchestra's offices were threatened daily with bombings and they never cancelled any of their concerts." The Ulster Orchestra has also championed many lesser-known composers including the works of the Classical Czech Jan Ladislav Dussek (WQXR's Album of the Week), and a number of British composers like Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge and Arnold Bax. Condy notes that the ensemble recently began an "exciting new chapter" under a new music director, Venezuelan Rafael Payare. But perhaps what's most surprising is why there hasn't been more outcry among the Ulster public. To find out why, listen to the full segment at the top of this page.

Classical music's ability to soothe the weary soul has been used to market everything from yoga classes to an endless supply of albums like "The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe" and "Nature Sounds with Classical Music." Some promoters say this is a good thing, and should be embraced in our distracted, stressed out world. But others argue that the recording industry and even radio stations have oversold the stress-buster angle, which feeds a misperception that classical is benign and boring. We debate this marketing strategy with two guests. Patrick Castillo, a Brooklyn-based composer and writer, says that the relaxation message discourages engaged listening, and marginalizes great music that doesn't always soothe. "Active listening should be encouraged as a means of inspiring a visceral connection," Castillo tells host Naomi Lewin. "But I don't think 'classical music for relaxation' CDs are branded in that way. I think they are marketed more in the spirit of, 'this whole swath of music can exist unobtrusively in the background as you're going about your daily chores.'" Dmitri Shostakovich Castillo recently stirred up strong reactions on this topic in an editorial for Minnesota Public Radio. He argues that newcomers to the artform are given fewer opportunities to discover challenges like Shostakovich's string quartets, Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time or Schulhoff's Sonata Erotica. But Michael Morreale, a producer and blogger at CBC Music in Toronto, says that millions of listeners are actively seeking out relaxation in classical music. Morreale programs the CBC's Serenity Stream, a mix of calming classics that is among the network's most popular channels. "Classical music can be so many different things – it can pump you up, it can intrigue you, it can challenge you, it can introduce you to some new ideas," Morreale says. "But yes, a small piece of that pie is that classical music is great for relaxing you or helping you focus on something." Morreale sees the Serenity Stream as a kind of "gateway drug" and notes that listeners who are turned on to Debussy's Clair de lune may go on to explore contemporary works by Arvo Part, Philip Glass or Steve Reich, for example. Listen to the full segment above and tell us what you think below: How do you most listen to classical music? Is it okay to play it for relaxation?

Many of us have posted things online that we wish we hadn’t. The question of how unfiltered classical musicians should be on Facebook and Twitter re-emerged recently with the controversy surrounding American bass-baritone Valerian Ruminski. His contract with Opera Lyra, a Canadian company, was cancelled after he posted a rant on Facebook about seeing a man on a bus with diamond-studded fingernails. The man turned out to be a drag queen and Ruminski's post – which was screen-grabbed by other social media users – attracted a barrage of criticism. Ruminski later apologized for his remarks but the damage was done. As he tells host Naomi Lewin in this podcast, "You are lulled into complacency after years and years of doing spur-of-the-moment posts. It's like you're in your living room talking to your friends. I thought these nails were worth commenting on. It turned into a conflagration." It's no secret that Facebook and Twitter can help classical musicians promote their work outside of traditional news media outlets. But when artists cross certain boundaries or get overly political, they can quickly find their careers at risk. Tamar Iveri, a Georgian soprano, was dropped from productions in Australia and Belgium earlier this year after she allegedly made homophobic remarks on Facebook about a gay rights parade. Another soprano, Deborah Voigt, received some angry responses after writing on Twitter and Facebook in July that she hoped a compromise could be reached in the Metropolitan Opera labor talks. In the second part of this podcast, guests Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post, and Michelle Paul, a director of product development at Patron Technology, offer advice on social media dos and don't's for those in the public eye. Listen to the segment above and weigh in by clicking on the gray bar below: What classical musicians do you enjoy following on Facebook or Twitter?

• Share your thoughts below by clicking on the 'Show Comments' button The refined world of classical music is not usually linked to addiction. But a documentary airing on Channel 4 in England this week opens the door to a lesser-known side of the business. "Addicts' Symphony" took ten musicians whose lives have all been plagued by drug and alcohol addiction, and prepared them for a one-off performance with members of the London Symphony Orchestra. The project's mastermind, composer and filmmaker James McConnel, is himself a recovered alcoholic. He notes how addiction frequently starts in response to performance anxiety. "Quite a few musicians use either a pill or a drink just to steady their nerves and keep calm," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "Unfortunately, what happens is the cure then becomes the curse. It's such a competitive world that no one is likely to own up to it out of fear of losing their jobs, and understandably so." Little data is available on the percentage of classical musicians with substance abuse problems, but anecdotal evidence suggests it's not uncommon. Rachel Lander, a London-based session cellist, is one of the ten musicians profiled in the film. "People don't imagine that under the surface of the refined world of classical music there is an element of fear, and medicating that fear," she said. The film shows the musicians – all recovering addicts – through a mix of rehearsals, personal back-stories, group therapy sessions, and a climactic performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Lander emerges as a central character. Some years ago her promising career came to a temporary halt due to the vodka and prescription drugs she used to ward off panic attacks in the concert hall. She now believes better treatment and awareness is needed at the college and conservatory level: "I felt like I was asking for help and it was falling on deaf ears." (Above: James McConnel, creator of Addicts' Symphony.) Listen to the full segment above and tell us: have you experienced or witnessed addictions in the classical music world?

Within the last month, the string trio Time for Three has had the unusual distinction of being covered by the Today Show, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Strad and yes, WQXR. The reason? Violinists Zachary De Pue and Nicolas Kendall were told they couldn’t take their violins inside the cabin on a US Airways flight from North Carolina to Arkansas. It was at that point that De Pue began playing J.S. Bach's Partita No. 3 on the tarmac while Kendall, recording the incident on his phone, shows the pair being ignored by various US Airways personnel. The musicians’ video of the incident was posted on YouTube, which quickly set off a social media storm. (US Airways later described it as a misunderstanding of carry-on rules between its employees and the musicians.) Even as Time For Three came on a wider public's radar (and its Facebook feeds) with the incident, the trio has been active for over a decade, appearing everywhere from symphony halls to jazz clubs to football games and even the Indianapolis 500 auto race. The musicians first met and began jamming together in 1999 while classmates at the Curtis Institute of Music. They got their first formal gig in 2001 and soon the sideline became a more serious pursuit. “Our common ground is classical music and each one of us brought a different genre to the table,” Double bassist Ranaan Meyer said in an interview with WQXR host Naomi Lewin. Kendall’s interests included gypsy jazz, hip-hop and R&B; De Pue specialized in Texas fiddling and folk music; Meyer played jazz. “What was really unique was we were able to teach each other some of the influences from those other genres, respectively. In the WQXR Café, the group played two selections for their new, self-titled album on Universal Classics, starting with "Roundabouts," an intimate piece by Kendall that features a round structure. Since 2009, Time for Three has been in residency with the Indianapolis Symphony, where De Pue is the concertmaster. The trio's next song, “Banjo Love,” by Meyer, gives a hint of the American fiddling tradition that has become a part of its musical DNA. It also pays homage to the noted banjo player Béla Fleck, who is a musical hero of the group. The trio’s final song in the café is a cover version of Coldplay’s "UFO." While it attests to the strong pop influences on Time for Three, the musicians are quick to call attention to their classical credits. Along with appearing at Carnegie Hall and other major venues, they have commissioned high-profile composers including Jennifer Higdon, William Bolcom and Chris Brubeck to write works for the group and are currently developing a new piece with the Portland, OR-based composer Kenji Bunch. “When people ask us what we are we have no idea,” noted Meyer, laughing. “We're a marketing nightmare for most record companies. The fact that we're actually signed with Universal is a major pat on the back for us. When we're getting together, frankly it's not a purist thing." Video: Amy Pearl; Audio: Edward Haber; Text & Production: Brian Wise; Interview: Naomi Lewin

Every concert-goer has experienced this at one time or another: a performance that is so exhilarating or so transcendent that after the final notes, the audience cheers, leaps to its feet and demands to hear more. But what follows can be maddeningly routine, insipid and uninspired, says David Oldroyd-Bolt, a writer and pianist who recently covered the phenomenon for the Telegraph. "I think it's not only what has gone wrong with encores, it can be seen as a wider symptom of what's gone wrong with recital programs in general," he tells Naomi Lewin in this podcast. He feels that recitalists, especially pianists, have become safe and predictable in their choice of repertoire. And this starts with conservatory training. "When you come to your professional career you think, 'what would someone like?' And unfortunately, it seems to be the same three, four or five pieces. It's a failure of imagination and it's a failure of artistic expression." Particularly overdone are chestnuts like Chopin's Nocturne in D-flat Major, Schumann's Traumerei and Liszt's La campanella etude, Oldroyd-Bolt argues. Too often missing are the "party pieces" that used to make encores delightful and surprising – opera transcriptions, jazz arrangements and other novelties. Other Highlights of this Segment: A Pianist Who Bucks the Trend: Not everyone falls into a routine. Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin explains that the point of an encore should be to "delight, perhaps amuse, intrigue and maybe even astonish if that's your bag." He often doesn't know what he'll play until he returns to the piano and gauges an audience's reaction. Among his current favorites is Chopin's "Minute Waltz" – but with a twist: The Opera Encore: The encore has also come in for renewed scrutiny lately in the opera world, after Javier Camarena delivered one in the middle of La Cenerentola at the Metropolitan Opera on April 25. The tenor was only the third singer to do that at the company in 70 years. Tim Smith, the classical music critic of the Baltimore Sun, tells Lewin that he generally finds opera encores "disruptive," although not in relatively light fare. "If you're doing a comedy, I don't think it's going to destroy the evening," he said. "I think you could even make a case for an encore in one of the bigger bread-and-butter operas – a Tosca, for example." Smith recently reviewed a performance of Verdi's Nabucco by the Lyric Opera of Baltimore in which the company was so intent on taking a customary encore of the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves ("Va, pensiero") that it even turned up the house lights, switched the surtitles to Italian and rehearsed the audience to sing along. Both Smith and Oldroyd-Bolt argue that such encores should be used sparingly or they become routine. "If the audience is wild with enthusiasm, then I think there's a case for it," said Oldroyd-Bolt. "If you're going through rehearsing choruses and tenors going on and off stage like a jack in the box simply for tradition's sake, then I think it becomes rather stale and hackneyed."          Both audiences and performers may also think of the missed trains home, car services idling outside theaters and unions demanding overtime. "If you see some of them leaving for their train, maybe it's not such a good idea to press the issue too much," said Hamelin. "And that's fine." Listen to the full podcast above, which includes our guests' all-time favorite encores. And tell us what you think: Have encores grown stale? Do you have any memorable encore experiences?

New Federal rules aimed at protecting Africa's endangered elephants are sending shock waves through parts of the music world. Under new regulations that began to take effect in February, musical instruments that have even the smallest amount of ivory are banned from entering the U.S. unless it can be proved that they were purchased before 1976. That includes any violin bows with a small piece of ivory at the tip, and also some bassoon bells and piano keys. “In the string world, it’s the hottest story around,” Yung Chin, a bowmaker who lives in New York, tells Naomi Lewin in this podcast. “The suddenness of the ruling that came out on February 25 has really caused a problem.” The ruling came in response to a dramatic increase in elephant poaching in Africa. Some 30,000 elephants per year, over the last several years, have been slaughtered to supply the global demand for ivory, said Craig Hoover, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) wildlife trade and conservation branch. He admits that the demand "is not to put small pieces of ivory at the tips of violin bows but for whole tusks and for large carvings and other products." But, Hoover added, "We are limited by the laws that Congress gives us. It becomes very difficult to say, 'We are going to cover this commodity but not this commodity when you’re trying to protect a species.'" Ivory is used to protect the head of violin bows and support the plug that holds the hair into the stick (right). After an international treaty was enacted in the 1970s, most of the string trade switched from elephant ivory to that made from the tusks of long-extinct mammoths. For musicians who can prove any ivory in their instrument was legally acquired before 1976, it’s possible to obtain a travel permit through the USFWS, Hoover said. That process takes 30 to 45 days and costs $75. Still, there is concern among musicians who are scheduled to perform abroad, and then re-enter the U.S. Zachary Lewis, the classical music and dance critic of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, spoke with several members of the Cleveland Orchestra who fear that their instruments will be confiscated when the group travels to Europe in September. "I’ve talked to a couple violinists, a bassoonist, and they’re concerned about it,” he said. Hoover says that the USFWS is currently gathering feedback from musicians' trade groups, including the American Federation of Musicians and the League of American Orchestras. Potential amendments to the rules could start to take shape this summer. Meanwhile, Chin and his fellow bow-makers are developing synthetic tips that can be exchanged for ivory in order to facilitate travel. But the complications may not end there. “This material is an ivory imitation – totally a synthetic,” he said. “But this thing looks very close to ivory. I would be nervous. Hopefully we will work on this so people won’t have the fear and trepidation of traveling around with their materials.” Chin, Lewis and Hoover have a lot more to say about the complications around this law in the full podcast above. Take a listen and please share your thoughts in the comments box below: How do you feel about the new regulations concerning ivory?

Last week, J&R unceremoniously closed its store in Lower Manhattan after 43 years in business. The iconic electronics and music retailer is vowing to reopen “totally reimagined and redeveloped.” But for now at least, it has gone the way of Tower Records, HMV, Virgin Megastore, Sam Goody and other brick-and-mortar shops that used to make New York City a music superstore haven. Steve Smith, a freelance music critic for the New York Times, believes that online shops have filled much of the void, but the communal aspect of record-buying has largely gone by the wayside. "What's really missing now is the social element of shopping for CDs,” he tells Naomi Lewin in this week's podcast. “That's a very real thing. If you went to a show any given night at Lincoln Center, you could tell whether it was a success or not by going over to the Lincoln Center Tower Records afterwards and see how many people were hovering around the bins in the classical section." Saturday is Record Store Day, an annual retail promotion started in 2008 to help struggling independent stores. The event’s organizers – a consortium of independent stores and trade groups – hope that it can trumpet the benefits of stores where opinionated clerks give advice and point you to special deals. As in past years, this Saturday’s event brings collectible rarities and limited-edition pressings to serve as draws for shoppers at some 1,200 stores around the country.   “Record stores don't sell food, they don't sell water, and things you need to live,” said Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton. “But there's something that makes life a lot better when you love it. I think it's best to have a physical place for human interaction." Colliton isn’t discouraged by J&R's closing, or of Rizzoli's plans to leave its longtime 57th Street location (the bookstore carried a small selection of music). “Of course it's tough,” she said of the real estate environment. “And the larger you are in a more expensive city, the more difficult that can be, no matter what it is that you sell inside the store.” So where does Smith suggest shoppers go to find classical music? For used product, Academy Records satisfies the urge to “get carried away by the experience of flipping through CDs." There are small but select offerings at the Met Opera Shop and the Juilliard Bookstore. And if you’re not too picky, the Barnes and Noble locations on East 86th Street and in Union Square in Manhattan still have modest selections. For deeper tastes? "Arkivmusic.com caters to a clerk-like mentality,” said Smith (disclosure: Arkivmusic has a retail partnership with WQXR). But often, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are the best places to seek advice on recordings, something you can't find as much on iTunes. "I think you are looking at a scenario that's split in two, where you get your advice in one place and then you go shop in another place." Listen to the full podcast above and subscribe to Conducting Business on iTunes. And tell us below: where do you go most often to buy recordings?

Leonard Bernstein, Paul McCartney and Osvaldo Golijov all wrote high-profile music that wasn't entirely theirs. They used orchestrators (Bernstein in West Side Story), musical collaborators (McCartney's concert works) and assistant melodists (Golijov’s Sidereus) to help get their thoughts on paper. But while many composers farm out tasks to students and assistants with full transparency, the scandal surrounding the Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi goes far deeper. The man known as “Japan’s Beethoven” — because he supposedly continued to compose despite a profound hearing loss — admitted last week that he’d been paying someone else to write his music for nearly two decades. What’s more, his ghost writer also came forward to reveal how little he had been paid, and to claim that Samuragochi’s deafness was all an act (Samuragochi on Wednesday offered an apology and an explanation that his hearing had partially returned). And it’s not only Japanese musicians who have expressed outrage over the revelations. On this episode of Conducting Business, Francisco J. Núñez, director of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC), tells host Naomi Lewin that his chorus is currently in a bind, trying to determine whether to go ahead with a long-scheduled performance of Samuragochi’s choral piece Requiem Hiroshima on March 26, alongside two visiting Japanese choruses. The YPC, whose core program serves 1,300 New York City children from ages 7 to 18, performed the requiem in Tokyo last summer and briefly met with Samuragochi. “I was very sad,” Núñez said when asked about the revelations. “I’ve been receiving texts and snap-chats from all of our singers actually. He had won our hearts with the story. It seems to me, music is always about the way you paint the picture around the actual music and a picture was painted around Samuraguchi.” The piece in question is a choral tribute to a 15-year-old boy who died from the effects of radiation from the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. “If anyone else had given me this piece of music I would not say, ‘Wow, this is an incredible piece of music,’” Núñez admitted. “But it was because it came from someone who we thought couldn’t hear.” Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post, agrees that the outrage is not over his use of a ghostwriter, but the fictional persona he developed to create the ruse. “I feel the outrage is about the personal fraud – the deception, the pretending to be deaf, pretending to be a genius,” she said. “If he had been open about the collaboration, I think there would be no outrage at all because this kind of collaboration is a normal part of the artistic process these days.” The case comes as a culture of borrowing and collaboration has opened up new gray areas in music, says Richard Elliott, a cultural musicologist at the University of Sussex in England. “In popular music it’s become kind of accepted that what we’re hearing is a fabrication," he noted. "Authorship goes far beyond the composer and the lyricists and involves all kinds of technologists – engineers, mixers, producers." Núñez said his choir is still debating whether to perform the Requiem Hiroshima with a correct attribution – or pull it from the program altogether. “I have received many e-mails from Japan asking me to no longer perform this piece of music,” he noted. “Even I don’t understand what actually happened here – that someone is able to deceive so many people for so long.” Listen to the full segment above, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and share your own thoughts on this case in the comments box below. Photo: Takashi Niigaki, ghost writer of deaf composer Mamoru Samuragochi dubbed 'Japan's Beethoven,' leaves a press conference in Tokyo on February 6, 2014.

Despite efforts to keep the content of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics under tight wraps, a few details have emerged about the musical lineup planned for Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia on Friday. Several Russian performers have been linked to the ceremony, including conductor Valery Gergiev, violist Yuri Bashmet, and Mariinsky Theater ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina. They'll join a parade of athletes and other pageantry to create what is reportedly the most expensive opening ceremony in Olympics history. To help explore the cultural significance of the Sochi games, host Naomi Lewin speaks with Simon Morrison, a professor of music history at Princeton University who specializes in Russian music and dance. He’s currently writing a book on the history of the Bolshoi Ballet.   What is conductor Valery Gergiev’s role and why was he chosen to participate? President Vladimir Putin named Gergiev as an official ambassador of the Sochi Olympics "because he is really the leading cultural export of Russia," said Morrison. Gergiev has a well-publicized friendship with Putin, and "can basically pick up the phone and get a hold of the president." This has made Gergiev a lightning rod. In recent months, his concerts in the West have been targeted by protesters against Russia's law that criminalizes the dissemination of "gay propaganda" to minors. "Naturally, given his jet-setting, his prominence and his panache, he's an emblem of Russia today," added Morrison.   Along with the celebrity performers, there are plans for a 1,000-voice children’s choir. What do we know about this? Gergiev has been making the rounds with a newly-formed, national children's chorus. Morrison believes it’s an effort to project an inclusive, diverse image for the country. "I think they’ll sing some big hymn," he said. “I don’t think it will be a nationalist hymn like ‘Slava’ from [Glinka’s] A Life for the Tsar since that’s a hymn that deals with Russia suppressing Poland and that wouldn’t be very international and cosmopolitan.” The chorus is reminiscent of the "Friendship of the Peoples," an old Soviet mantra referring to cooperation among Russia's ethnic and social groups. "Plus, a thousand children really suggests they want to rival with Beijing,” Morrison adds, referring to the grand spectacle of the 2008 Beijing Olympics ceremonies. Below is a video of the enormous Russian choir performing last month at the Mariinsky Theater: What other types of music can we expect? This has been a closely-guarded secret, but the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow may provide a few clues to current thinking. Expect Tchaikovsky ballet music, perhaps some Rimsky-Korsakov and grand choral numbers. “For choral music, maybe something that reaches back to the Catherine the Great era since, in many respects, this current regime would like to see itself – and the public would like to see it – as a sort of more benign imperialism,” said Morrison. "So I think the opening ceremonies will be a reinforcement of that.”   Any surprises in the works? "One of the things that’s rumored – and if this happens, it will be truly sensational and a real stick in the eye to the West – is that there is this pop duo named t.a.T.u.,” said Morrison. The duo consists of two young women whose stage show involves Lesbian schoolgirl imagery. “That’s part of their shtick. They were notorious as well as popular with the younger set." If that happens, argues Morrison, it will be a subversion of Western protests against the anti-gay law. Last week, several Russian news outlets reported that the duo Tweeted about their involvement in the ceremony (the alleged Tweet was later deleted and doubts persist about the post's truthfulness). Photo: Wikipedia Commons.   What other figures from Russian culture or entertainment may take part in the opening or closing ceremonies? The soprano Anna Netrebko will sing the Olympic Anthem in the Opening Ceremony and has also been rumored to sing in the closing ceremony. There have been suggestions that Sergei Filin, artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet who was the victim of an acid attack last January, will have a role. “So I’m sure we will see the elite cultural representatives,” Morrison said. A spokesman for pianist Denis Matsuev told WQXR that he will be performing not in the opening ceremonies, as has been reported, but in the closing events.   Any bets on a grand musical finale? Says Morrison: “My money is on Swan Lake.”   The opening ceremony to the Sochi Olympics will be televised on NBC this Friday starting at 7:30 ET. (Updated 2/7.)

So, what comes next for the Minnesota Orchestra in the wake of the contract agreement that ended the bitter 15-month lockout and returns the musicians to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis on Feb. 7? Short answer: a considerable amount of work. Settling the lockout is only the first mountain in a series of precarious peaks that the Minnesota Orchestra has to climb on its way to a healthy future, says Graydon Royce, classical music critic of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “Somehow the social fabric between the management and musicians has to be repaired and that’s a big, big question here of whether that can happen,” Royce tells Naomi Lewin. “There are still people who write letters to the editor who say, 'We'll come and see the players because I like the players but I’m not donating to the orchestra anymore,’” added Royce, who has chronicled the labor dispute since it began in October 2012. Relations between players, management, donors and audiences are such that “you have an orchestra that is still mad at itself.” At the heart of the lockout was a dispute over the size of pay cuts aimed at reversing a multi-million-dollar deficit that had peaked at $6 million in 2012. After musicians refused to accept pay cuts of up to 40 percent, and the two sides failed to agree on on new contract terms, management locked the musicians out on Oct. 1, 2012. The new contract cuts base pay by 15 percent. Minnesota announced its 2014 season on Friday, one that includes 39 classical concerts, plus educational and family programming. A series of guest conductors are to take the podium including Yan Pascal Tortelier, Mark Wigglesworth and Eric Whitacre. Osmo Vänska, who resigned as music director in October, will return to conduct an all-Sibelius program in March, followed by a single performance with soloist Joshua Bell in April. Despite the new season plans, the lockout has taken an enormous toll, said Royce. Not only did the orchestra lose millions in ticket income with more than a season cancelled, but each musician lost over a year's salary. Whether Vänska will return full-time is a long shot. “There are certainly board members who feel that Vänska was not a perfect soldier – that he should not have made a public ruckus that he would quit if there was not a deal by October 1,” said Royce. "At the same time, I think that he felt really personally hurt by that, and felt he was a put in that position where he felt he had to stand up and say something.” It could take a long time to woo back alienated audiences and donors; other orchestras that have lived through debilitating strikes have found that recovery can be frustratingly slow. Yet there is a model to be found: in the Detroit Symphony. Three years after its six-month strike, it has been on a roll, performing at Carnegie Hall last season, streaming its concerts online, and balancing its budget for the first time in six years. Last week, the musicians ratified a three-year contract. "I think Detroit is actually really instructive,” said Royce. “They got out into the communities and did a lot of concerts basically intended to repair the personal capital."

It’s that time of year again, when orchestras across the land are dusting off their holiday pops programs and choruses are warming up for Messiahs and sing-a-along carol extravaganzas. But for the recording industry, Christmas music has changed. The big orchestral albums of the sort that conductors like Arthur Fiedler or Eugene Ormandy used to make have fallen by the wayside. So have the grand star vehicles, with a sequined opera diva belting out Christmas songs backed up by a choir and orchestra. But as we hear in this edition of Conducting Business, what remains are plenty of smaller-scale recordings that either attempt to make a cozier or refined spiritual statement (as with many early-music groups), or round up a bunch of stars from different genres to perform the standards. The changes are partly driven by economics, said Anastasia Tscioulcas, who covers classical music for NPR Music. “Where did the recordings go? They’re very expensive to make,” she told host Naomi Lewin. “The big star-studded album with the full symphony orchestra behind them and maybe chorus thrown in for good measure is extremely expensive to produce.” The new realities are a reflection of changes in the classical music business. “The number of stars that have that sort of appeal has descended dramatically,” noted Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post. “Renee Fleming and Anna Netrebko are the only opera singers who have that sort of mass appeal.” Of course, Christmas is not a time for snobbery or strict adherence to high-minded artistic ideals, say the panelists. Nostalgia is a big part of what drives the business. Listeners are often attracted to a holiday album by their favorite star, which sticks with them later in life. Steven Epstein, a multi-Grammy Award-winning record producer, says a simpler aesthetic has come to dominate. “The most successful Christmas albums are those where the arrangements are not complex and that the melodies don’t get lost,” he said. Epstein’s imprint can be found on several albums that follow an increasingly popular template: gather together stars from different genres and try and capture some of their respective fan bases. The most recent recording of this sort is “Musical Gifts from Joshua Bell and Friends,” which was released last month, but Epstein cites a similar effort from back in 1989: "Crescent City Christmas," for which Wynton Marsalis was joined by singers like Jon Hendricks and Kathleen Battle. “That is what really brings in the consumer are the additional guest artists,” Epstein noted. Midgette sees no loss in the decline of the diva Christmas record. “Artistically these things are negligible – and I say that as somebody who has my favorite Christmas albums, which have been basically the same since I was about seven." Listen to the full podcast above and tell us below: What are your most and least favorite holiday albums? Sidebar: A Few of our favorite Christmas Recordings Anne Midgette:Christmas from a Golden Age (Naxos) (singers including Victoria de los Angeles, John McCormack, Rosa Ponselle and others)The Messiah Remix (Cantaloupe) (featuring remixed versions by Paul Lansky, Eve Beglarian, Phil Kline and others) Anastasia Tsioulcas:Vince Guaraldi: "A Charlie Brown Christmas"Robert Shaw Chorale: "The Many Moods of Christmas" Steven Epstein:Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Naomi Lewin:Britten's Ceremony of Carols (Philadelphia Singers, Benita Valente, Maureen Forrester, David Gordon)...And an honorable mention for worst Christmas collaboration: Michael Bolton and Placido Domingo sing "Ave Maria" from "Merry Christmas from Vienna" .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "which-piece-classical-holiday-music-most-overexpos", "survey_which-piece-classical-holiday-music-most-overexpos");

It stopped just short of promising eyesight to the blind or rain from dry skies. But disciples of the 1993 "Mozart Effect" study made impressive claims: Listening to music, they said, could boost Junior's math scores and maybe even get him into Harvard. The idea sparked a cottage industry of CDs, classes and books for babies and toddlers. But the now-famous study was vastly misconstrued, and 20 years and many studies later, neuroscientists are giving us a broader understanding of how musical training can impact brain development and cognition. The latest addition to the body of research came with a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience. It showed that people who took music lessons during childhood seem to have a faster brain response to speech much later in life – even if the child musicians hadn't picked up their instruments in decades. “What happens when we get older is that neural responses slow down, especially in response to very fast and complicated sounds like consonants,” Dr. Nina Krauss, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University tells Naomi Lewin. The study included 44 adults, aged 55 to 76, who listened to a recorded speech sound while the researchers measured electrical activity in the auditory brainstem, the region of the brain that processes sound. The more years that a person spent playing instruments during childhood, the faster their brains responded to the speech sound. Kraus’s lab has been a driving force in research around music and brain development. Among her other recent studies is one involving the Harmony Project, a program providing free instruments and instruction to at-risk kids in Los Angeles. Students there were tested on their ability to identify rhythmic patterns. "After a year of training, the kids who have been in the music training are better able to synchronize to the beat and to remember the beat,” said Kraus. This can serve to promote other cognitive skills, such as reading and speech. Virginia Penhune, a psychology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, says there's a "sensitive period" when musical training most interacts with normal brain development. Earlier this year, her lab published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience in which 36 adult musicians had their brains scanned while performing a simple movement exercise. Half of these musicians began musical training before age seven; the other half began at a later age. “What we found is that the younger you start your training, the stronger the connection between the two motor regions of your brain,” she said. Crucial to this phenomenon is the high level of hand coordination involved in playing a violin or piano, for instance. So, according to Penhune, "We think it’s that part of what you practice that changes these connections [in your brain]." And what of the Mozart Effect? Do those "Mozart for Babies" recordings haunt scientists today, misrepresenting music’s intrinsic capabilities? Or did the 1993 study raise the overall awareness for cognitive research involving music? "One of the difficulties of the Mozart Effect was it was associated with the passive listening of music,” said Kraus. "The work that Virginia and I have been talking about is really in stark contrast to that. It is the active engagement with an instrument.” Penhune agrees. “It also brings up this idea of, what do you expect music to do for you? Really why we take music lessons is we want kids to learn music and enjoy music and have social benefits of music. Thinking of it only as a way to change other things is a little bit of a mistake.” Listen to the full discussion above and weigh in: Have you studied music or prescribed musical studies specifically to boost brain power? Has it worked? Leave your comments below.

The absence of women conductors at the world’s top orchestras is no longer news, but it stands out more every year, as women scale male bastions in business, sports and entertainment. Of the 20 largest orchestras in the U.S., only the Baltimore Symphony has a woman music director: Marin Alsop, who last month made history as the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms concert in its nearly 120-year history. In New York this season, women conductors are noticeably scarce, their scheduled appearances countable on one hand. A similar male-to-female ratio can be found in London. But that’s not to say that there's a lack of women conductors in the field. Recently, the British journalist and author Jessica Duchen compiled a list of more than 100 women conductors. “It’s quite clear to me that there are plenty of women conductors but they’re just not getting the top gigs,” she tells host Naomi Lewin in this podcast. Many of the women on Duchen’s list are not recent college graduates or newcomers, but mid-career conductors, well at the point where a major podium is theoretically in reach. Some, like the conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm, have found that the niche of early-music remains an easier entry point. “Early music is more of a collaborative effort,” said Haïm (right), who this Saturday conducts her ensemble, Le Concert d’Astrée, at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. “Therefore you shock fewer people maybe in that field.” By contrast, when faced with 19th century masterworks, the principal of male power is deeply ingrained in the conductor mythology. “If I had gone that path it would have been much harder for me to conquest those bastions." Some recent, highly-publicized remarks suggest that prejudice is alive and well in the business. The young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko told a Norwegian newspaper, perhaps ironically, that orchestras simply play better for men, and that “a sweet girl on the podium can make one’s thoughts drift towards something else.” And Bruno Mantovani, the head of the Paris Conservatory, recently made headlines when he said in a radio interview that conducting is too demanding for women: “The profession of a conductor is a profession that is particularly physically testing. Sometimes women are discouraged by the very physical aspect – conducting, taking a plane, taking another plane, conducting again. It is quite challenging.” Duchen believes that this reflects wider obstacles in music schools and conservatories. “Several of the women conductors that I have interviewed say they were deliberately deterred at college level,” she said. “There were people at the institutions where they wanted to study who actively tried to put them off.” Charlotte Lee, a vice president and artist manager at IMG Artists, sees less evidence that sexism is widespread in the classical music business, and believes that hiring boils down to questions of supply and demand. “I don’t feel that female conductors tend to get hired or not hired based solely on anything other than their talent,” she said. “The artistic programmers that I work with, at least, tend to hire you based on your talent.” While many in the classical music business prefer not to talk about gender prejudice, Lee and Haïm both acknowledge that double standards exist. Orchestras have been known to ask woman conductors to change their hairstyle or tone down a style of dress. But Haim believes there are deeper societal questions at work too. “Behind a great man, there is always a great woman – or another great man,” Haim said. “It’s somebody helping out. As a woman, it’s more difficult because it puts the man accompanying you in a difficult position. Socially speaking they are looked at as weird.” Lee believes classical music will ultimately be forced to keep in step with society at large. “As time goes on we’ll have fewer firsts in general,” she said. “I should hope in 10 years we won’t be having this conversation.” Listen to the full discussion above and tell us below what you think: has there been adequate progress for women conductors?

All the people clamoring to get into Broadway shows like "Wicked" and "The Book of Mormon" – or museum shows like the Rain Room at MoMa – are apparently the exception, rather than the rule. That's the conclusion of a new survey of public participation released last week by the National Endowment for the Arts. It shows an overall decline in arts consumption by Americans, with a particular drop-off in museum and theater attendance. There were smaller dips in classical music and ballet audiences too. But it wasn't all gloom and doom: Audiences are growing more racially and ethnically diverse.  And there are hints that technology is playing a larger role in how we consume culture. On Oct. 3, Conducting Business brought a group of prominent arts leaders to The Greene Space to explore these recent findings and their implications. Joining us were Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York’s Public Theater; Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras; Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post, and Graham Parker, general manager of WQXR. Naomi Lewin hosted the event, of which the archived video is below.   What do you think is behind the decline in audiences? What can arts organizations do to attract new patrons? Please leave your comments in the box at the bottom of this page, or Tweet us at @WQXR. Below are three salient findings from the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: Please leave your questions in the comments box below, or Tweet us at @WQXR #NEASPPA.

When times are tough, a lot of arts groups go for the sure thing. For orchestras, that means a Beethoven symphony cycle over Schoenberg or Cage. For an opera house, it's Carmen and La Boheme over a risky modern opera. But some companies think differently. In the face of all its hardships, New York City Opera planned a season that includes J.C. Bach's Endimione, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, and the U.S. premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole – hardly proven audience bate. So what’s the proper balance? Does safe programming equal more "butts in seats?" Or do you need to take risks, even in tough times? Philip Kennicott, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic of the Washington Post, tells host Naomi Lewin that arts organizations often get into trouble by neglecting more serious-minded audiences in an effort to chase niche listeners. "Orchestras very often think that their audience falls into two categories: there's a conservative, old audience that only wants Beethoven and Mozart and Haydn, and then there is this ideal audience that’s interested in everything," he said. "I argue that there is another audience out there." Kennicott recently wrote an article for The New Republic, in which he chastised orchestras for an over-reliance on star soloists, a handful of over-familiar concertos, and a cookie-cutter mix of "special events" – video game music, crossover tenors, Broadway crooners and movie screenings. Lost in this mix, Kennicott tells Lewin, is the listener who is "open to new pieces, open to obscure pieces, interested still in the traditional repertoire. The panic response of reflexively programming familiar works that you see in orchestras actually doesn’t serve the serious listener very well." Krishna Thiagarajan, the executive director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, notes that many orchestras don't want to take risks with unfamiliar programming because "the funding isn’t there to back it up," he said. "When you’re being very creative and breaking the mold, you have to know that’s an area where you have to invest.” By investment, Thiagarajan means that an orchestra must take the long view and condition audiences to leave their comfort zone. As an example, he points to Esa-Pekka Salonen's tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 to 2009, where he premiered 120 works, including 54 commissions. "If you initially get a poor reaction from your audience, if you pull back you won’t know what the full effect was," he said. Marc Scorca, president of Opera America, a national service organization, says there are no surefire hits anymore. "There are fewer and fewer safe pieces," he said. "Operas that used to be reliable box office producers are no longer pulling the way they used to." Scorca adds that he's seen an audience fatigue with La Traviatas and Carmens, whereas new works can energize an organization and create excitement. To some observers, the performing arts are mirroring the homogenization of mass media and popular culture as a whole. "There is something going on in this country at large, and what we’re seeing in the arts scene is a symptom," Thiagarajan cautioned. But Kennicott is more optimistic. "I think there are audiences out there," he said. “I call them countercultural audiences that are really eager for stuff that doesn’t fit that homogenized cultural model. That’s the great hope of any organization that’s producing live art.” Listen to the full discussion in the audio link above and take our poll below: .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "classical-music-programming", "survey_classical-music-programming");

Anyone who has had to give a speech at a wedding or deliver a Powerpoint presentation at the office knows the symptoms: sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, even nausea. That age-old curse, stage fright, is nothing new. But for classical musicians it's come with a considerable stigma. Despite the fact that famous artists like Vladimir Horowitz, Renee Fleming and Glenn Gould have all experienced crippling performance anxiety, a hush-hush attitude has long prevailed. "The reason people don't talk about it is because it would affect your opportunities,” Diane Nichols, a psychotherapist who calms a stage-fright class in Juilliard's evening division, told host Naomi Lewin (listen to the full discussion above). “How seriously is someone going to look at you if they're auditioning you, if they know you have a history of choking or of panicking?” But in an age when people broadcast details of their daily lives through social media, there are also signs that the taboo may be lifting. Holly Mulcahy, a violinist who won the job of concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera in May, says there’s a greater openness than even a decade ago, and new methods of coping. "Some of my teachers in conservatory days would gladly carry around a flask of Scotch and take it before they went on stage," she said. “But I don’t see that in any of the orchestras that I've played in recently.” Instead, Mulcahy and other orchestra musicians increasingly turn to beta blockers. According to Mulcahy and other musicians who spoke with WQXR, in some backstage areas, they're passed around like chewing gum or mints. Mulcahy recalls panicked colleagues calling "Oh my God, does anybody have any Inderal?" Beta blockers have been common in classical music since the 1970s. Originally prescribed to treat high blood pressure, they became performance enablers when it became clear that Inderal (the brand name) controlled stage fright. As long ago as 1987, a study of the 51 largest orchestras in the U.S. found one in four musicians using them to improve their live performances, with 70 percent of those getting their pills illicitly. But there are new stresses since a generation ago. Fewer jobs and heightened competition mean less room for error. For opera singers, looks are becoming as important as voice. A 2012 study from the University of Paderborn in Germany found that 30 percent of orchestra musicians suffer from stage fright; 13 percent said it was severe. Mulcahy finds that not taking beta blockers puts an aspiring orchestra player at a competitive disadvantage. “When I’d get to the finals of orchestra auditions and I wouldn’t be winning, the people that would be winning were the ones that had the beta blockers,” she noted. Even so, she cautions that Inderal does not "enhance" a performance, nor is it a cure-all: "It doesn’t help your concentration. It doesn’t help your confidence. All it does is it keeps the shakes down and keeps the panic to a minimal level." Some musicians still find other means of managing nerves. Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin, a violist and composer, was once steered towards everything from psychotherapy to eating bananas. He eventually overcame stage fright by taking a non-traditional career path that didn’t involve constant auditions. "I’ve become heavily invested in the music that I play,” said Zhurbin, whose ensemble, Ljova and the Kontraband, combines gypsy, folk and chamber music. Nichols believes that stage fright will never go away entirely, and maybe it shouldn't. “I do think that it can be managed and careers are not devastated because of stage fright right now, because of Inderal.” .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "coping-stage-fright", "survey_coping-stage-fright"); Photos: 1) Bo Huang 2) Anna Rozenblat

When a new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle is planned, opera administrators bank on a significant portion of their audience coming from the ranks of Wagnerites or "Ring Nuts," a breed of Wagner-lovers known for traveling globally to feed their unrelenting hunger for opera's greatest epic. Wagnerites are classical music's super-fans. They gather in Wagner Societies, sign up for group ticket offers, attend conferences and debate finer points of productions and recordings. Many are enthralled with the ritual aspects of attending a Ring Cycle, which typically takes place over the course of a week. And in this, the composer's bicentenary year, there have been plenty of opportunities. This represents a degree of fandom that one seldom finds with Puccini or Verdi, says Will Berger, author of the book Wagner without Fear and a producer at the Metropolitan Opera. "Just by the resources you need to produce Wagner, it’s going to be a different sort of experience,” he told host Naomi Lewin. "It is a destination. It has to be. It’s meant to take up a week of your life and be a thing apart." Like Deadheads or Trekkies, Wagner fans are drawn together by a shared expertise, said Joli Jensen, a communications professor at the University of Tulsa who has studied fans and fandom. "Fans are misrepresented as crazy people trying to compensate for something missing in their lives,” she noted. “But in fact they’re really experts. They’re experts who don’t have institutional credentials but are eager to enact and display and share their expertise and their passion." One such fan is Andrew Zacks, a self-professed Wagnerite who estimates he has attended nearly 50 Ring Cycles, including one in the Amazon jungle. "To me Wagner signifies the 19th century," he said. "If I want to have a time transport to the 19th century I go see a Wagner opera. It changes your perception of time, the politics – everything is tumultuous in the way the 19th century was." Zacks embraces the social rituals, starting with elaborate intermission meals and post-performance gatherings with fellow fans and occasionally, performers. Avoiding the usual "business casual" dress, he enjoys wearing black tie to some performances and even Lederhosen when attending a show in Germany (no horned helmets, however). “The conviviality of experiencing it in that fashion is beyond compare," he notes.  But how does one become obsessed with a composer who is also known for his nasty anti-Semitism and misogyny? "I think you have to put him in his historical context," said Zacks. "A lot of people would like to ban Wagner's music and blame him for the people who liked his music in the future, which I think is a little unfair. There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the 19th century." Of course, Hitler became a Wagner fan of sorts, too. But the composer’s admirers have also included many who are eager to understand and confront his darker side head on. Jensen believes that such fans can serve as a model for others. "That’s why I want fans to have a voice, where they can share their enthusiasm and their passion and their experience," she said. "We can all learn to become richer aesthetically by learning through fans what we’re missing when we’re not fans." Weigh in: Are you a Wagnerite? What draws you to the composer's music? Leave your comments below.

VIDEO: Richard and Mika Stoltzman play in the WQXR Cafe Richard Stoltzman really wants to feel that he's connecting with his audiences – even if it means resorting to nudity. In an interview with Naomi Lewin, the veteran clarinetist at first rebuffed a question about a mid-concert streaking incident from his past. But the interrogation began with a remark he made before his WQXR Café Concert, which featured jazzy duets with his wife, the marimba player Mika Stoltzman. In introducing the concert, Stoltzman recalled a recent school outreach performance, in which he found himself before a room of distracted students, all glued to their iPhones and other electronic devices. "First of all, you don’t perform until you have the attention of the people who you are going to perform for,” Stoltzman explained. "These kids, they came because they were told to. And nobody told them, ‘by the way, take off your earphones and don’t use your cellphones.’” The clarinetist has long been known for getting audiences to pay attention through non-traditional means, particularly through occasional crossover projects with artists like Judy Collins, Wayne Shorter, Mel Tormé, Gary Burton and George Shearing. His latest such effort, which he calls "New Genre," takes place on Thursday at Weill Recital Hall and features a host of jazz artists including Mika Stoltzman, whom he married last year. But there was a moment, in a 1974 concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that has entered clarinet lore. After some pressing by Lewin, Stoltzman explained why he decided to streak naked across the stage. "It was a very frustrating motivation, having played these great concerts with Felix Galimir,” Stoltzman said, referring to the great Viennese violinist. “We were playing the Adagio from Alban Berg’s Kammerkonzert. We were playing in a very establishment kind of chamber music concert and I know how hard we had worked on the Alban Berg piece.” Stoltzman and his colleagues had barely left the stage before the applause had ended. “I saw Felix backstage and he looked so slumped over. Here I am in my own city. Here we were playing these great composers and the response is so dispiriting – there was no visceral reaction from the audience. Are they alive? What’s going on here?” “So that’s what got me started.” The incident was hardly covered in the local news media, and aside from a 1979 article in People magazine, it has seldom been mentioned since. But to a large extent, it was indicative of Stoltzman’s free-spirited early years, when he was a member of TASHI, classical music's answer to a progressive rock supergroup. Also comprised of violinist Ida Kavafian, pianist Peter Serkin and cellist Fred Sherry, the quartet's members shunned ties and gowns for ponytails and love beads (its name is a Tibetan word meaning "good fortune.") Like a '70s rock band, TASHI had a reunion tour, in 2008, which Stoltzman recalls fondly. “Our first one was in Portland,” he said. “I saw it was packed with all people that looked like me, with gray hair. Some of the guys still had headbands and they had their LPs with them. They wanted us to sign their LPs. “I thought, 'this is unbelievable.' We sat down and they wouldn’t stop clapping. I think they were clapping more for themselves than for us. I think they felt like, ‘we went through a lot. We love music and we wanted to have our own champions and people who carried the torch that we believed in and you guys did it.’" Video: Amy Pearl; Sound: Edward Haber; Text & Production: Brian Wise

Last week, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf cancelled a Nazi-themed production of Wagner's Tannhäuser, when the premiere performance prompted booing, mass walkouts and even reports of audience members getting sick. With scenes that reportedly showed Jews being murdered and dying in gas chambers, it certainly shocked — but it was hardly the first revisionist opera production. In this podcast, Naomi Lewin asks three prominent opera-watchers whether Düsseldorf was right to cancel the production, and what radical updates can bring to the art form. To some commentators, the Dusseldorf Tannhauser was a stretch: the opera is set in the Middle Ages and based on a ballad about a bard called Tannhäuser. Yet the intention of the director, Burkhard Kosminski, had a logic that many could understand. In the month of Wagner’s bicentennial, he wanted to link the opera to the Holocaust – an event which the composer’s own ardent anti-Semitism seemed to presage. John Berry, the artistic director of English National Opera, called the Düsseldorf company “extremely well established” and he praised its talented leadership. But a company should also prepare its audience for a provocative concept. "Usually, in an opera house, you receive a model and an outline of the ideas a year, two years, sometimes even longer [beforehand] so the Düsseldorf management would have had a good idea of the overall vision for the piece,” he said. “On the face of it, it does seem shocking that the whole production has been pulled due to the audience response," he continued. "I haven’t heard of that anywhere. But I haven’t seen the piece.” James Jorden, opera critic of the New York Post and editor of the blog Parterre Box, took a sterner view of the company’s cancellation. “The job of opera management is to present the vision of people who create opera – the director, the conductor and the singers,” said Jorden. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing and a cowardly thing to send the message to these artists that we’re not going to support you. If someone complains about your work, we’re out of here. We'll drop you like a hot potato." Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post, noted that Nazi references are not uncommon in German Wagner productions, typically as a way of exploring issues around German nationalism. But what may have ignited the Düsseldorf controversy was the fact that "it actually showed people being killed." Still, Midgette believes that opera has the power to confront and challenge. "You’re dealing with an art form that many, many people approach with a sense that it's safely distant," she said. “A production that puts people being gassed on stage is going in there wanting to grab the audience by the collar."  (In a statement, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein said that although it knew that the production would be "controversial" it did not expect the extreme reactions that followed the premiere.) But when does a strong directorial concept (aka "Regietheater," or "director's theater") lose focus and cross over into what detractors label “Eurotrash?" Berry believes modern updates can be highly successful if essential ingredients are in place. "In the end, whether it’s a modern updating or not, is it well-sung, is the director telling the story, does it have a dramatic and musical power?” Sometimes a concept will completely miss the mark. Jorden recalls seeing a Carmen in Stuttgart where the title character "died six or seven times in the course of the opera – but not at the end." Yet he also remembers Calixto Bieito’s staging of Wagner’s Parsifal, set in an apocalyptic landscape inspired by Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. "Not only did this make me question completely my ideas of what the opera was about, it still to this day has me wondering what the purpose of religion in human existence is," Jorden said. "I don't think you could ask for a more profound meaning in an operatic performance." Weigh in: What modern updates of operas have you seen that did or didn't work for you? Tell us about it in the comments box below. Photo: Piotr Beczala as the Duke and Oksana Volkova as Maddalena in the Met's "Vegas" Rigoletto (Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

On May 29, 1913, the Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring provoked a riot: whistling and booing, catcalls and fisticuffs overran the performance and the police were called in to quiet the angry crowd. It became one of the most celebrated scandals in music history. Today, The Rite of Spring is practically an audience favorite and rioting in concert halls is unthinkable. But is this a good thing? Does classical music need more shock value, more scandals? In his latest column for BBC Music Magazine, music critic Richard Morrison argues that classical music needs more Rite-style uproar. "Never in my 30 years as a critic have I witnessed that kind of reaction," Morrison tells host Naomi Lewin in this podcast. "It just struck me that maybe we’re a bit too polite these days and composers aren’t provoking us enough." Composers today rarely seek the label enfant terrible, added Morrison. "I think they rather like to be liked rather than creating an uproar." Leon Botstein, the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College, believes the reason audiences were shocked by the Rite of Spring was a sense of ownership over a received musical language. Classical music signaled respectability to audiences "and these young composers were sticking their proverbial finger in their eye." But Botstein believes that many of today's concert-goers lack a frame of reference for challenging new music. "The problem is the audience is musically illiterate and therefore if you want to do something very daring and sophisticated you’re presuming a literate audience," said Botstein, who will devote the 2013 Bard Music Festival to Stravinsky. "So there’s very little for a composer to push back on. That’s the dilemma they face." To some extent, it isn't possible to shock audiences because everything seems to have been done. By the 1960s, composers had explored the outer extremes of total Serialism, computer music and John Cage-style chance. The hybrid, postmodern styles embraced by composers in the last two decades, by contrast, are seldom driven by a need to provoke. Even Minimalism, a style that provoked an uproar with the 1973 premiere of Steve Reich's Four Organs, is now part of the mainstream, featured in film scores and TV commercials. Morrison believes that classical music has long shifted between radical and conservative modes. "If you look at the history of classical music, it’s a very fine balance between tradition and revolution," he noted. "You had Haydn and Mozart, who were craftsman in an established tradition. But then you had Beethoven who came and turned everything upside down. You need both polarities." But Botstein doesn't believe that headline-making disturbances are what's needed to move classical music forward in the name of progress. "I don’t think classical music should be about scandal or riots," he argued. "Leave it to football matches, leave it to political rallies. This is an entirely different art form and I think we should walk away from the way Hollywood makes success." Weigh in: Should classical music do more to shock audiences? Is it possible to shock anymore? Take our poll and leave your comments below. .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "music-shocks", "survey_music-shocks");

POLL: Should classical music be used to fight crime and loitering? Move along, hoodlums. Antonio Vivaldi is playing at Newark Penn Station. When New Jersey Transit upgraded the public address system at the Newark transit hub a year ago, they began piping in classical music along with the announcements on train arrivals and connections. The authority subscribed to a music service and station agents could select from different channels, which also include easy-listening and jazz. The idea, said a NJ Transit spokesperson, is to relax customers "and make it more pleasant to traverse the facilities." But in cities from Atlanta to Minneapolis and London, there's often a bigger strategy at work: turn on the great composers and turn away the loiterers, vagrants and troublemakers who are drawn to bus stations, malls and parking lots. Last month, the Associated Press reported on a YMCA in Columbus, OH that began piping Vivaldi into its parking lot, and claiming to disperse petty drug dealers as a result. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks why classical music in particular seems to be the weapon of choice – and whether it works. "It's been used as part of a larger strategy of crime prevention through environmental design," said Jacqueline Helfgott, chair of the criminal-justice department at Seattle University. She noted that classical music is often accompanied by upgrades like better lighting, improved traffic flow or trimmed shrubbery in public areas. Studies on the specific effects of music on criminal behavior are lacking. But Helfgott believes classical music is historically associated with "a cultural aesthetic that is pro-social as opposed to antisocial," making it a preferred crime prevention tool. Put another way, rowdy teenagers don't find classical very cool. Nigel Rodgers, the head of Pipedown, a group that campaigns against background music in any form, believes the strategy presents a slippery slope. “Yes, young people commit crimes and it’s a problem," he said. "I do appreciate that. But we must seek out other pro-sociable ways of dealing with the problem rather than just squirt acoustic insecticide at young people. "People who really like music of any sort don’t want to have it piped at them when they’re trying to talk, eat or shop when they don’t want it." It's also worth keeping in mind that not all classical music works as a soothing agent. As anyone who has seen "A Clockwork Orange," knows, even Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has its dark associations. In Columbus, OH, where the YMCA piped in Vivaldi, the strategy is being hailed as a success. A local business improvement district executive told the AP: "There's something about baroque music that macho wannabe-gangster types hate. At the very least, it has a calming effect." .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "classical-music-and-crime-prevention", "survey_classical-music-and-crime-prevention");

In recent months, symphony orchestras have returned to the music of J.S. Bach with a vengeance. The New York Philharmonic is in the midst of a month-long Bach festival with the expressed goal of reclaiming the master's music for modern instruments. At the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos are on the calendar this spring. The orchestra also plans to re-record the Bach transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski – those sumptuous, technicolor arrangements that had been considered passé (if enjoyably so). "There's been a weird phenomenon for a long time that has made it pretty rare to see Bach on symphony orchestra programs," said New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert in a recent video explaining the orchestra's project. He goes on to question the "exclusivity" of suggesting "there was one only one right way to play Bach." All of this is a far cry from the period-instrument movement's expressed goals to rediscover how Baroque music might have sounded using original instruments and performance practices. For years, if not decades, period-instrument players had gained the upper hand by researching appropriate tempos, ornamentation and instruments. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks three guests about this phenomenon. "I think [orchestras] are panicking," said Monica Huggett, a leading baroque violinist and conductor. "In London, where I worked most of my career, the big orchestras stopped playing Bach because in the end, there was so much good historical performance that they really didn't need to do it any more and people really didn't want to hear it any more." James Oestreich, the consulting classical music editor at the New York Times, sees things differently. "I wouldn't agree that the large orchestras are panicking," he said. "I think they've lost their balance to some extent. I think they've lost confidence in the repertory to some extent. To hold up the music scene in a world capital like London or New York and say this should set standards for who performs what, I don't think is fair." Oestreich adds that the New York Philharmonic played lots of Bach in the 1990s, and the orchestra is "perhaps overselling" the novelty of its current festival. Lewin also asks a prominent New York pianist whether she's trying to reclaim Bach for the modern instrument. "I'm not doing anything unique by playing Bach on the piano," said the pianist Simone Dinnerstein. "I think that I just have more omnivorous tastes and think that Bach sounds very interesting and different when played in many different ways on many different instruments with modern orchestras, on authentic instruments." Weigh in: Do you enjoy the sound of Bach played on modern or on period instruments? Please leave your comments below. Guests: James Oestreich, the consulting classical music editor and a freelance writer for the New York Times. Monica Huggett, a leading baroque violinist and conductor who teaches at Juilliard. Simone Dinnerstein, a pianist who has made a number of Bach recordings. Her latest, called “Night,” with the singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, features a modern rendering of Bach. .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "bach-period-instruments", "survey_bach-period-instruments");

For the first time a soundtrack for a video game has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category usually reserved for movie scores. The composer Austin Wintory's score for the wildly popular PlayStation 3 game "Journey" has been given a nod for "Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media," pitting him against film-score giants like Ludovic Bource, Howard Shore, John Williams and Hans Zimmer. The awards take place this Sunday in Los Angeles. The nomination comes as video game scores play increasingly well with symphony orchestras. Concerts of music from "Final Fantasy," "Halo" and "Zelda" are staples of pops concert programming. In the past year, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Montreal chamber group La Pieta have released albums of game music, the former of which debuted at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 chart. One of the most popular violinists on YouTube is Lindsey Stirling, whose interpretations of video game scores have received hundreds of millions of views. All of this is possible because video games often feature full-length orchestral scores. Composers who once specialized in film music, including Danny Elfman and Howard Shore, are also applying their talents to the game medium. There are many potential benefits, said writer Dan Visconti. "One of the ways that orchestras can stay relevant," he said, "is engaging the same level of sensory stimulation that a lot of video game players are accustomed to already." The game scores also raise questions about the medium's artistic merits and its potential to build new audiences for classical music. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin puts these questions to three guests: Austin Wintory, composer of the Grammy-nominated score to the game "Journey" Tanner Smith, a program director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which will be presenting a concert of music from the game “Final Fantasy" for the second time in June. Dan Visconti, a composer and writer who has covered the game music phenomenon for Symphony magazine Weigh in: Do you listen to video game scores? Do you find them as valid as traditional concert music? Leave your thoughts below.

With influenza reaching epidemic proportions in the United States — and the common cold not far behind — opera singers are dropping out of productions at an alarming rate. Of course, cancellations happen for all kinds of reasons. The voice can be a delicate instrument and various personal and professional issues arise. There are also cancellations of a cloudier, more debatable variety. Regardless, with the relative ease of modern air travel comes a more mobile generation of artists, exposed to germ-filled plane cabins and, in the case of foreign-born artists, visa difficulties. On this edition of Conducting Business, host Naomi Lewin talks with three opera professionals about how presenters and opera companies manage cancellations — and the kinds of actions and deals that happen behind the scenes to secure replacement musicians. Perryn Leech, the managing director of the Houston Grand Opera Bill Palant, a vice president and artist manager at IMG Artists who oversees the careers of many singers. Stephen Gaertner, a baritone who has worked as an understudy at the Metropolitan Opera. He recently stepped in during the middle of a performance to replace an ailing Dwayne Croft in Les Troyens at the Met. Weigh in: have you ever discovered a new singer because of a last-minute substitution? Leave your comments below. A few highlights from the segment: Bill Palant: "I do think that with the ease of transport, not only is it easier to pop people in but it also serves the opposite in that singers are spending more time on airplanes and picking up bugs. Flying at 30,000 feat, you’re getting dried up and showing up a day or two before a performance, and you are risking being sick. I think the ease of travel plays both for and against opera companies and not only singers who are engaged to perform but singers who are engaged to cover." Perryn Leech: "If you or I aren’t feeling 100 percent, we can go into the office and do a 70 percent day and probably no one really notices. If a performer goes on and does a 70 percent day, they have an army of critics out there and an army of audience who say ‘oh I saw her, isn’t she getting worse, isn’t he getting worse?" Stephen Gaertner: "Last season I had four assignments [as an understudy] and all were very interesting and challenging roles. And in neither case was I called to replace my colleague. It was frustrating... But a lot of times when you do go on you might be surprised who you end up on stage with. For instance, I went on stage in Les Troyens, and there I was singing a big duet with Deborah Voigt."

Last week was basically a write-off for many of New York City's arts organizations. Superstorm Sandy shut down theaters, knocked out power to downtown clubs and submerged art galleries. For many individuals, it destroyed paintings, musical instruments and recording equipment. Kate Levin, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, said the impact was widespread. "There are organizations that have had pretty severe property damage," she noted. "But almost everyone has had some kind of revenue loss, had to suspend performances or stop services." Efforts are now underway to help art galleries restore and conserve damaged works of art, including an initiative led by the Smithsonian Institution to offer resources and tactical advice. In addition, the the Art Dealers Association of America has assembled an aid program to help flooded New York City galleries, worth about $250,000. Meanwhile, some arts groups are starting the process of raising funds, seeking out loans and Federal assistance. What was Sandy's larger impact on the arts? What can hard-hit cultural organizations do to recover? In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin talks with three guests: Kate Levin, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Pia Catton, an arts columnist at the Wall Street Journal John Strohbeen, president of the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, which is based in a warehouse on the Red Hook waterfront Weigh in: What role should the arts play as the region recovers from Superstorm Sandy? If you work in the arts, how where you impacted by the hurricane? Please leave your comments below.

The headlines from Europe this summer are as persistent as a bad sunburn: the Dutch government has slashed arts funding by 25 percent, Italy’s La Scala opera house has announced a $9 million shortfall, and Madrid and Barcelona's main opera houses have both implemented cuts in productions and staff. Portugal abolished its ministry of culture altogether. Yes, dire news about arts organizations isn’t just for Americans any more. Throughout much of Europe – most notably in Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain – generous public arts funding is being slashed as governments impose severe austerity measures. What will this mean for classical music? Will more arts organizations turn to private donors and corporations for support? Could there be an upside, as groups are forced to be more self-sufficient? In this podcast, three experts join host Naomi Lewin to debate the future: Johannes Grotzky, a journalist and director of the radio for the Bavarian Broadcasting System (Bayerischer Rundfunk) in Munich Norman Lebrecht, author, blogger at Artsjournal.com and a cultural commentator for the BBC Andreas Stadler, the director of the Austrian Cultural Forum here in New York and former president of the New York branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture.   Weigh in: Would American-style funding best preserve Europe's cultural heritage? Please leave a comment below.

VIDEOS: Steven Isserlis plays Tsintsadze and Kabalevsky Steven Isserlis, the English cellist and a guest in the WQXR Café, said that he’d like to write a book about what it’s like to be a professional musician. He's not the first with that idea but one expects he’d have a lot to say. Isserlis can wax lyrically about the joys of playing the Beethoven cello sonatas, the religiosity he finds in the cello music of Bach, and why a rarity like Kabalevsky's Second Cello Concerto is "a real winner of a piece." A prolific writer whose output includes two children's books, Isserlis blogs on such diverse topics as Hitler's musical tastes and Victorian literature. A fan of the Beatles, he is an acquaintance of Paul McCartney and styles his hair not unlike the Fab Four once did. In conversation Isserlis is as witty and opinionated as his writing, as spirited and assured as his musical performance. Isserlis is most animated when talking about Beethoven, a composer he resisted for the first half of his career. Five years ago, he dove in with a day-long Beethoven marathon at the Wigmore Hall. This week, he performs more Beethoven with fortepianist Robert Levin over four programs at the 92nd St. Y. Further Beethoven cycles are planned this year in San Francisco and Tokyo, as well as a recording with Levin. "I had this resistance to Beethoven and I don’t know why,” Isserlis told Naomi Lewin. “It’s the most wonderful, life-enhancing music. You resist it and then you give into it. It just takes you over. It’s a very important part of my life now.” Isserlis’s late-life conversion seems to mirror a similar decision to record the Bach cello suites in 2007 – some three decades into his career. The Bach album earned much critical acclaim. "It’s like some women never feel ready to have babies and then there comes a time,” he said. “I finally got up my courage to do it.” The decision came with some encouragement from his then-90-year-old father. "It was really what kicked me into the studio,” said Isserlis. “He came and sat in the studio when I recorded the Sixth Suite, which was his favorite.” Isserlis was born into a musical family in London (his parents and two sisters are musicians). At 14, he moved to Scotland where he studied with Jane Cowan, a revered cello teacher who had students read Goethe's Faust because she thought it would help them play Beethoven better. In the mid 1970s he studied at Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio. His big breakthrough came in 1989, when composer John Tavener wrote The Protecting Veil for him, which became one of the major cello works of the late 20th century. Now 53, does Isserlis ever tire of the touring treadmill, with orchestras asking for the same limited bunch of concertos? "Audiences do come for famous pieces,” he acknowledges. But he quickly insists that he has struck a healthy balance. “I can’t imagine ever getting tired of Elgar, Dvorak or Schumann, because they are masterpieces and I love them and they always say new things to me.” Video: Amy Pearl; Sound: Jason Isaac; Production & text: Brian Wise; Interview: Naomi Lewin