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      R. Peter Munves, Master Marketer of Classical Music, Dies at 97

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      As an executive at Columbia and RCA Records, he popularized the classics for mass audiences by applying the same techniques used to sell pop music.R. Peter Munves, a record company executive who revolutionized the marketing of classical music, died on Aug. 19 in Glen Cove, N.Y. He was 97.His death, in a nursing home, was confirmed by his son Ben.Mr. Munves carved out a moneymaking niche in what for much of its history has been a low-margin, struggling industry, selling classical music to mass audiences by applying the techniques of pop music marketing.In the 1960s, while at Columbia Records, he created a series called “Classical Greatest Hits” that packaged bits of Brahms, Mozart, Bach and other composers onto single LPs. In 1968 he signed the electronic musician Wendy Carlos to record “Switched-On Bach” — pieces by Bach on the Moog synthesizer.Both ideas were big hits, commercially if not with the critics. Time magazine reported in a 1971 profile of Mr. Munves that the “Greatest Hits” series “scored a solid bull’s-eye in the market and rang up $1,000,000” in revenues. The “Switched-On Bach” album, Time said, was Columbia’s “all-time best classical seller.”In 1968, Mr. Munves signed the electronic musician Wendy Carlos to record an album of Bach compositions on the Moog synthesizer. It was said to be Columbia’s best-selling classical album of all time.Columbia/CBSIn 1981 Mr. Munves produced an album that compiled 222 well-known themes from classical music. One critic called it a “marketing masterpiece.”Columbia/CBSMr. Munves went on to produce an album called “Themefinder” — a compilation of 222 well-known themes from classical music that the New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein called a “marketing masterpiece” upon its release in 1981, adding that Mr. Munves was “an inspired producer.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michael Tilson Thomas Leads Mahler at the New York Phil

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      The conductor led the New York Philharmonic in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, an inspiring opening night for a season starting off unsettled.Back in 1996, when he was just beginning his landmark tenure on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the New York Philharmonic in Mahler’s Fifth. In the mold of his mentor, Leonard Bernstein, he was already renowned as a specialist in that composer.“Some people can conduct Mahler and some cannot,” Alex Ross wrote of the performance in The New York Times. “Mr. Thomas certainly can.”As he proved again on Thursday, when he led the Philharmonic in the same symphony at David Geffen Hall. Thomas, at 79, still has both the patience and the passion to take us through Mahler’s sprawling, sometimes shaggy structures.That is even more impressive now. It has been more than three years since Thomas was first treated for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and he is still relishing his work. In April, he even took on a new teaching role at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.Concerned eyes are always on him, of course, especially after reports in May that he appeared confused during a performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony in London. But on Thursday, other than some slow paging through his score between the second and third movements, and some stiffness getting on and off the podium, Thomas seemed alert and ardent, even hopping a few inches into the air at one full-hearted moment.It was an inspiring opening night for a Philharmonic season that is starting off with some of the unsettled quality of a Mahler symphony.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Juilliard Receives $20 Million to Unite Disciplines and Support Jazz

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      The donations, from John and Jody Arnhold, will expand creative work across disciplines, help pay for an annual fall festival and support the jazz program.The Juilliard School is home to some of the best young musicians, dancers and actors in the world. But they rarely come together to create and perform across disciplines.Now the renowned conservatory hopes to change that: Juilliard announced on Wednesday that it had received a $15 million gift to help expand creative work across music, dance and drama. An additional $5 million gift will go to the school’s jazz program to support scholarships, performances and teaching.The gifts are from the investor John Arnhold and his wife, Jody, a dance educator; the $15 million will support the Creative Enterprise program, started in 2018 by Juilliard’s president, Damian Woetzel, to break down barriers between disciplines. That donation will also help pay for an annual fall festival, whose inaugural edition opens on Thursday.“We want to connect students tangibly with the changing professional world,” Woetzel said in an interview, “and to give them an innovative edge.”In the Creative Enterprise program, acclaimed artists, or creative associates, as they are known — including the musician Rhiannon Giddens, the actor Bill Irwin and the dancer Lil Buck — come to Juilliard for residencies. The school also produces interdisciplinary projects, like “Bolero Juilliard,” a video filmed during the pandemic that featured a variety of students and alumni performing to Ravel’s score.This year’s fall festival will feature an array of artists affiliated with the Creative Enterprise program. The composer Nico Muhly and the violist Nadia Sirota are helping shape an outdoor performance of an excerpt from Philip Glass’s opera “Satyagraha.” The flutist Claire Chase and the choreographer Pam Tanowitz are taking part in a performance exploring American experimentalism.“This is not a one-way street,” Woetzel said. “These artists get to work with each other. They get to try things that ordinarily they would not get to try.”John Arnhold said in an interview that he was inspired by Woetzel’s vision for strengthening interdisciplinary work.“When Damian has something in mind,” Arnhold said, “generally speaking it’s something that I want to get behind.”He added that he hoped the gifts would “bring further vibrancy to a school that has all of the tools to create the next generation of arts performers, arts educators, arts leaders.” More

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      They Said Her Music Was Too Exotic. Now She’s a Classical Star.

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      In a bustling public square in Mexico City on a summer day, as hummingbirds feasted on honeysuckle and candle sellers hawked remedies for broken hearts and anxious minds, the composer Gabriela Ortiz stood in the shadow of the San Juan Bautista church and closed her eyes.Around her in Plaza Hidalgo in the Coyoacán neighborhood, there was cacophony. In one corner, a man in a beret cranked out a fun-house tune on a barrel organ. In another, two young men performed a song in son huasteco style, their falsetto voices rising above the lunchtime chatter. Near a park bench, a woman with long flaxen hair and a karaoke machine sang “Yesterday Once More” by the Carpenters: Every sha-la-la-la.Ortiz, who grew up in Mexico City playing Haydn on the piano and Latin American folk music on the charango, a mandolinlike instrument, opened her eyes and smiled. Then, after offering a few pesos to the organist, she headed down a cobblestone street in search of a cappuccino.“There is no quiet place in Mexico City,” she said. “Everyone has something to say. And music is how we say it.”Ortiz, 59, who will be Carnegie Hall’s composer in residence this season, has spent her life channeling the sounds and sensibilities of Latin America into classical music. For most of the past 40 years, this has been a lonely pursuit. Teachers said her works were too exotic. Critics bristled at her sprawling sonorities. Top orchestras passed her over in doling out commissions.But now, after a series of big breaks, Ortiz is thriving.Ortiz, center, with the star conductor Gustavo Dudamel at Alice Tully Hall in New York after the world premiere of her piece “Clara” in 2022. Dudamel has premiered seven Ortiz works.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Facing Criticism After Striking Singer, a Maestro Forms New Ensembles

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      John Eliot Gardiner, who hit a singer during a tour in France last year, said he was starting a new choir and orchestra.The renowned conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who has faced widespread criticism since he struck a singer during a tour in France last year, announced on Monday that he had formed a new choir and orchestra as he attempts a comeback on the global stage.Gardiner said his new ensembles, the Constellation Choir and the Constellation Orchestra, would be made up of prominent musicians and singers from across Europe and would embark on a tour in December with stops in Germany, France, Austria and Luxembourg.“More than anything else,” Gardiner said in a statement, “I am so excited and grateful to be working with such exceptional musicians once again, not forgetting the important lessons I have learned and needed to learn from the past year.”Gardiner, 81, a major figure in classical music, is known for founding three acclaimed period ensembles over the past six decades: the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. He has released celebrated recordings, written a book about Bach and conducted at the coronation of King Charles III of Britain.But since the incident in France, he has largely been absent from the global stage. In July, the board of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, the nonprofit that oversees the three ensembles, said it had decided that Gardiner would not return to the organization. (Gardiner has sought to frame that decision as his own.)Gardiner struck the singer, William Thomas, a rising bass from England, on the face last year after a performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-St.-André. He was apparently upset that Thomas had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, people at the festival said at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Classical Music and Opera This Fall: Programs, Premieres and More

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      Osvaldo Golijov’s Lorca-inspired opera comes to New York, and the pianist Igor Levit plays with the Cleveland Orchestra, among other highlights.The Metropolitan Opera’s gamble on contemporary work continues. Celebrations of big anniversaries for two musical innovators, Charles Ives and Pierre Boulez, are worth seeking out. And Carnegie Hall will host world-class orchestras. But don’t expect Gustavo Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic’s next music director, to be a fixture yet; until 2026, he is dedicated to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which opens Carnegie’s season with a three-night residency. Here are highlights from this fall’s performance calendar. (Locations are in Manhattan unless otherwise specified; dates are subject to change.)SeptemberATLANTA OPERA Not quite 50 years old, this company is bucking the belt-tightening, season-shrinking trend in American opera. It is presenting “La Bohème” (updated to the Covid-19 pandemic) and “Rent,” the Broadway musical that transplanted Puccini’s classic to the AIDS era, both staged by Tomer Zvulun, its artistic director, and Vita Tzykun. (Sept. 18-Oct. 6; Pullman Yards, Atlanta)‘INDRA’S NET’ How about a hopeful perspective on our divided times? The invaluable Meredith Monk created and will perform in “Indra’s Net,” the conclusion to a trilogy of works about our relationship with the natural world and inspired by Buddhist and Hindu legends. (Sept. 23-Oct. 6; Park Avenue Armory)Meredith Monk’s “Indra’s Net,” performed here at the Holland Festival, is coming to the Park Avenue Armory in September.Ada Nieuwendijk‘THE LISTENERS’ Missy Mazzoli, who is working on an operatic adaptation of George Saunders’s “Lincoln in the Bardo,” first brings another work with literary inspiration to Opera Philadelphia: “The Listeners,” with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, based on Jordan Tannahill’s unsettling novel about the search for meaning and a cultish leader who claims to have answers. (Sept. 25-29; Academy of Music, Philadelphia)OctoberLOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC Gustavo Dudamel will be at the podium for three nights to start Carnegie Hall’s season: with Lang Lang in Rachmaninoff’s Second piano concerto; with Alisa Weilerstein in a new cello concerto by Gabriela Ortiz; and with the Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade. (Oct. 8-10; Carnegie Hall)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Barrier-Breaking Conductor Will Lead the Seattle Symphony

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      Xian Zhang will be the first woman and person of color to lead the Seattle Symphony, and one of only two women leading a top-tier American orchestra.Xian Zhang, a renowned conductor who has helped bring the New Jersey Symphony to new heights over the past eight years, will be the Seattle Symphony’s next music director, the orchestra announced on Thursday.When she takes the podium in 2025, Zhang, 51, will be the first woman and the first person of color to lead the Seattle Symphony in its 121-year history, and one of only two women leading a top-tier American orchestra. (The other is Nathalie Stutzmann, the Atlanta Symphony’s music director since 2022.)Zhang, who was born in Dandong, China, and moved to the United States in 1998, said she would work to attract new audiences in Seattle, including more young professionals, families and people of color.“My goal is to have the symphony become even more of a musical icon and a magnet for the city,” she said. “We need to be more obvious and attractive.”Zhang, whose full name is pronounced she-YEN JONG, emerged as a favorite because of her “impeccable technique” and her warm relationship with the orchestra’s musicians and audiences, said Krishna Thiagarajan, the orchestra’s president and chief executive. She made her debut with the Seattle Symphony in 2008 and has been a regular in recent years, earning praise from critics and audience members.“There’s an electricity between her and the orchestra, and an electricity between her and the audience,” Thiagarajan said. “You can feel it in the hall.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What if Orchestras Were More Like Netflix?

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      As subscriptions face an uncertain future, classical music could look to the membership models of streaming services and gyms for inspiration.Perhaps you spend your mornings at the gym, working out with the help of a playlist on Spotify. In the evening, you wind down with Netflix or a movie on Max. As you go to bed, you might even open a meditation app to help you fall asleep. Then you wake up, and do it all again.A routine like that is built on memberships that provide unlimited access to something for a monthly fee, and are tightly woven into our lives in part because they’re convenient. (Dangerously so: I’m far from alone in having realized too late how many free trials have turned into valves quietly hoovering up money from my bank account.) Why, then, have they not caught on in classical music performances?The model could go something like this: You pay a monthly membership fee to your local symphony orchestra that entitles you to attend however much you’d like. As with a gym or a streaming service, some people may go often; some, not at all. Regardless, the orchestra receives steady revenue, and you have full control of your calendar, with the ability to make plans even the day of a performance.While a handful of orchestras have experimented with this model, it hasn’t become standard because most institutions already have a long-established ticketing program they prefer: subscriptions. In that system, people are sold packages for a season, which involves planning evenings out up to a year or more in advance. This works for those who like to go on the same night of the week, or sit in the same seat. Orchestras, in turn, are provided with financial security.According to the League of American Orchestras, subscriptions have bounced back from a pandemic slump strongly enough that they grew by 7 percent from 2019 to 2024. Administrators, however, have long been anxious about the future of the subscription model. Less than a decade ago, the League itself commissioned a study that revealed subscriptions were not only in decline, but also out of touch with how people plan and purchase entertainment today.The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, shown performing in April, was an early adapter of the member model. “There just aren’t that many people in April who want to commit to concerts from September to June,” the ensemble’s leader said.Claire Loes for the St. Paul Chamber OrchestraWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More