Journal articles on the topic 'City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra'

FOULDS: Three Mantras op. 61b3; Lyra Celtica, Concerto for voice and orchestra op. 501; Apotheosis (Elegy) for violin and orchestra op. 182; Mirage op. 20. 1Susan Bickley (mezzo), 2Daniel Hope (vln), 3City of Birmingham Youth Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra c. Sakari Oramo. Warner Classics 2564 61525-2.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's conductor, Sakari Oramo, took up the cause of the long-neglected and little-regarded British composer John Foulds (1880–1939) in the late 1990s, as soon as he was appointed to his present post. This February saw his most high-profile push on Foulds's behalf so far, with performances of three Foulds works – one of them a UK and concert première, another a world première – in three Symphony Hall concerts, two of them broadcast on BBC Radio 3. This was followed by a CD recording for Warner Classics of these three pieces plus a fourth, Foulds's early elegy for violin and orchestra, Apotheosis. Intervening in one of the pre-concert talks, Oramo stated his conviction that after decades of misunderstanding during his lifetime, and half a century of neglect thereafter, ‘we owe it to this remarkable composer to play his music – and play it often’. It is difficult to think that any London orchestra would dare to programme anything so distant from their narrow core repertoire and so utterly contrary to contemporary fashions. Yet three near-capacity audiences were plainly both surprised and enthralled by the music, and many members of the public expressed a desire to hear more.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra celebrated the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, 200 years to the day, with a world première by Per Norgård. His 50-minute ‘fairytale cantata’, entitled Will- O'-the-Wisps Go to Town, was inspired by one of the great Danish author's last stories.

Judith Weir (b.1954) is one of Britain's leading composers. Her three full-length operas (A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert) have been widely performed in Britain and abroad. Since the 1990s she has had a fruitful association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and its sister group, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG). Weir's theatre work includes collaborations with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her interest in community music projects included an innovative spell of six years as the Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival in London. Recent works include the orchestral piece The Welcome Arrival of Rain for the Minnesota Orchestra, heard at the Proms in 2002, and the ensemble work The Tiger Under the Table for the London Sinfonietta.

On 21 August the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons, gave the first UK Performance of Emily Howard's Calculus of the Nervous System. The work is the concluding panel of a triptych (the earlier ones are called Ada sketches and Mesmerism), which is a tribute to Ada Lovelace (1815–52), the daughter of Lord Byron who, as a collaborator with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine, is sometimes considered the world's first computer programmer. The title is that of the mathematical model that Lovelace hoped to develop to demonstrate how, as Howard writes, ‘the brain gives way to thought, and nerves to feeling’. Howard conceived Calculus of the Nervous System as a series of ‘memories’, whose structure is ‘a neural network with its roots in strictly engineered time … using values from one source (an exponential equation and its derivative), subsequently muddled and reordered by chance processes’. The memories are linked in some way that is not clear and not explained by the quotations from Sir Geoffrey Hills's Clavics which appear in the score (but which are not in any way audible or able to be apprehended by anyone without a score).

CORIGLIANO: Symphony No. 2; The Mannheim Rocket. Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra c. John Storgårds. Ondine ODE10392ROUSE: Violin Concerto1; Rapture; Der gerettete Alberich2. 1Cho-Liang Lin (vln), 2Evelyn Glennie (perc), Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra c. Leif Segerstam. Ondine ODE10162HIGDON: Concerto for Orchestra; City Scape. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra c. Robert Spano. Telarc. CD80620 (Super Audio version SACD60620)

LEES: Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 51; Etudes for piano and orchestra2. 1Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz c. Stephen Gunzenhauser, 2James Dick (pno), Texas Festival Orchestra c. Robert Spano. Albany TROY 564/565 (2-CDset).LEES: Passacaglia. PERSICHETTI: Symphony No 4. DAUGHERTY: Philadelphia Stories; Hell's Angels. Oregon Symphony c. James De Preist. Delos DE 3291.FLAGELLO: Symphony No. 1; Theme, Variations and Fugue; Sea Cliffs; Intermezzo. Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra c. David Amos. Naxos 8.559148.HOVHANESS: Symphony No 22, City of Light1; Cello Concerto2. 2Janos Starker (vlc), Seattle Symphony c. 1Alan Hovhaness, 2Dennis Russell Davies. Naxos 8.559158.HOVHANESS: Symphonies: No 2, Mysterious Mountain; No 50, Mount St Helens; No 66, Hymn to Glacier Peak; Storm on Mt Wildcat, op.2 no.2. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra c. Gerard Schwarz. Telarc CD-80604.

The Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) is India's only professional symphony orchestra. In this paper, I explore the roles and meanings of the SOI. First, I situate it locally within its home city of Mumbai, positioning it within discourses of social class, status, and globally-minded aspiration. I argue that local values and ideologies surrounding professional musicianship compromise attempts to embed orchestral musicking in the city. I then move on to place the SOI within discourses of nation building, questioning the role of the orchestra as a marker of national development. I suggest that Mumbai's transnational middle class and elite communities, as well as the SOI's multinational corporate donors, consider investment in an orchestra a part of India's wider political and economic development. I point to tensions that are created as India's local and national government resist the notion of the orchestra as a marker of modernity and instead champion Indian arts and cultures as foundational to India's nationhood. Finally, I explore the SOI's transnational networks, looking at its role within cultural diplomacy and soft power. I show that, whilst the SOI has made significant steps in 'reaching out' and finding a place within transnational cultural networks, its efforts are hampered by its failure to 'stand out'; to forge its own national identity as an Indian symphony orchestra.

The world première of Dominic Muldowney's Second Piano Concerto on 7 November came as part of a concert marking the 80th birthday of the BBC. The work was fashioned for Angela Hewitt, who was accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. Hewitt's core repertoire of Bach, Ravel and Messiaen was reflected in the style of Muldowney's new piece, which married Classical with neo-Classical idioms yet at the same time sounded thoroughly post-modern in its cheerful eclecticism, witty sidesteps and theatrical leaps of imagination.

Born in Indiana and trained as a singer, violinist, and conductor in Chicago and New York, Beatrice van Loon travelled to Edmonton, Alberta, in the fall of 1920 as the leader of an all-female ensemble. She married a local dentist and as Mrs. J.B. Carmichael played in the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and conducted an orchestra at the University of Alberta until 1934. She founded the Edmonton Civic Opera Society in 1935 and worked as its artistic director until her death in 1964. For more than four decades she gave unstintingly of herself to audiences and music students in her adopted city.

The article sheds light on the work of the Mixed Choir and Symphony Orchestra of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, two representative ensembles that have made, over a number of decades, an invaluable contribution to the Faculty's standing in the city, nationally, as well as abroad, always taking an active part on the music scene. The aim is to show that their activities have combined pedagogical and artistic work and that they are, in an essential way, an indicator of the institution's achievements.

The division of American musical culture into a cultivated and vernacular tradition may be traced in large measure to developments in antebellum Boston. It was there that American writers first argued fervently for the association of Platonic idealism with secular instrumental music, and some of these same individuals established the symphony orchestra as the musical medium most capable of realizing their ideals. Musical developments in antebellum Boston were affected by the class structure, which was closely related to religious preference. The upper class, mostly Unitarian, did not participate significantly in music until the late 1830s. The middle class, mostly congregational, favored religious, amateur performing ensembles. The socioeconomic elite began to support music in the 1830s. Led by Samuel A. Eliot, three-time Mayor of Boston, they wrested control of the Boston Academy of Music from the Congregational evangelicals and made it the premier secular musical institution of the city. The Academy featured the first successful symphony orchestra in Boston and one of the first in the country. Ironically, however, Eliot's motivations, which were articulated in several important articles, harked back to early federal Republican concepts of creating a homogeneous society through a commonly shared culture. They contrasted sharply with the more insular goals of the nineteenth-century socioeconomic elite, who wished to use music as a means of distancing themselves from other segments of society. Eliot's vision ultimately was not realized, but his efforts did much to establish the symphony orchestra in American society as well as the notion of high musical culture itself. As such Eliot is an major, although hitherto ignored, figure in American musical history.

In January 2009 the third part of a triptych of orchestral compositions by Vic Hoyland was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Each of its constituent compositions relates to a particular city: Vixen to Palermo, Qibti to Alexandria, and Phoenix to Venice. This article seeks a positive heuristics and proposes a reading of Phoenix that contemplates some of the ways in which freeing Hoyland's recent music from old arguments and discourses reveals music that is responsive to contemporary thought, fascinating, virtuosically idiosyncratic, and which presents new challenges to musical design.

In April 2010, the Guildhall School of Music recognized German composer Helmut Lachenmann's expertise in extended instrumental techniques, inviting him to give the keynote speech at a research day dedicated to contemporary performance practice; in May, he had a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music conferred upon him for his achievements as a composer; in June, the London Symphony Orchestra performed Lachenmann's Double (Grido II) for string orchestra, in doing so becoming the first non-BBC British orchestra to have performed his music; and in October, the Southbank Centre presented two days of Lachenmann's music including performances by the Arditti String Quartet and a much expanded London Sinfonietta, the latter broadcast on Radio 3. Outside London, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group gave a performance of his most recent work, Got Lost for soprano and piano, and the University of Manchester presented a mini-festival dedicated to his music. This roll call of events might be seen then as the celebration to be expected as a noted composer passes a milestone, but Lachenmann is a composer who – despite his age – could until recently have escaped such attention in Britain. In 1995, Elke Hockings wrote in these pages that, while enjoying ‘an exalted reputation among a small circle of English contemporary music enthusiasts, […] to the wider English music public he [Lachenmann] is little known’ and critical reception has been mixed, often extremely negative. Introducing Lachenmann to an audience at the Southbank Centre in October, Ivan Hewett described him as ‘a composer we don't know well in this country, an omission we are gradually repairing’.

Ilan Volkov's Tectonics series continues to break new ground in contemporary music programming and curating. Tectonics has now seen its third edition in Glasgow, where Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and has also sprung up in other locations to which he has connections – beginning in his home city of Tel Aviv, the series has spread also to Reykjavik, Adelaide and New York. The common theme is a blend of new commissions (usually orchestral works), important recent works, and performances from figures from other areas of avant-garde music making – free improvisation, electronic music and the outer fringes of noise and metal.

Target setting. In the modern musical culture of the Republic of Moldova M. V. Sechkin stands out as one of the key figures. He proved to be a multi skilled musician: piano player, conductor, and pedagogue. The scientific challenge disclosed in the article touches on creation of a coherent reflection of the work conducted by M. Sechkin in musical and artistic institutions of the Republic of Moldova during 1988–2015. Thus, notably contributing to the theoretical perception of the process of musical art development in the Republic of Moldova at the turn of the 21st century while filling up the gap in studying the history of Moldovan musical culture. Review of literature. The activity conducted by M. Sechkin was not reflected in the scientific literature. The present paper is the first attempt to present the creative portrait of the musician by summarizing press articles and a range of interviews. The purpose of this paper is confined to disclosing the contribution made by the famous piano player, conductor, and pedagogue M. Sechkin in the process of musical art development in Moldova at the turn of the 21st century. Research methodology. In the research of creative activity of M. Sechkin, use has been made of a complex of methods applicable in modern study of art: the empirical level of scientific research was established through informal personal conversations with M. Sechkin and other musicians, directly linked with his activity. Applied at the theoretical level were general scientific methods, such as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison, etc. Statement of basic material. Over the years, M. V. Sechkin, born on March 31, 1943 in the Ukrainian City of Kharkov, has contributed decisively to the development of musical culture in the Republic of Moldova as a pianist, opera and symphony orchestra conductor, professor and public figure. He took his first lessons in music from his mother Maria Sechkin Zakharchenko, the follower of K. N. Igumnov. He attended the profile secondary musical school, class of Regina Gorovitz – the sister to the famous pianist Vladimir Gorovitz. In 1966, M. Sechkin graduated from Kharkov Conservatoire as a pianist on the class of Professor Mikhail Khazanovsky and then selected to remain with the Chair as an assistant. However, his dream of making a carrier of symphony and opera conductor has taken the young musician to a different path. The interest for conducting appeared under the influence of the art of conducting revealed by Leonid Khudoley, disciple of Nikolay Golovanov. Therefore, two years later, after graduation, M. Sechkin has entered the faculty of conductors at Kharkov Institute of Arts. One year later, he moves to Kyiv Conservatoire named after P. I. Tchaikovsky, where he attended the class of Professor Mikhail Kanershtein, disciple of one of the founders of the Soviet school of conducting Nicolay Malko. Next followed probation assistantship, where M. Sechkin attended a training course headed by the outstanding Ukrainian conductor Stephan Turchak. Having accomplished his probation assistantship, M. Sechkin has joined the Symphonic orchestra of Zaporozhye Philharmonics and later on invited to Donetsk Opera Theatre, where he mastered a rather comprehensive theatrical repertoire. The Chisinau (Moldova) period of maestro’s creative biography started beck in 1988, when he accepted the invitation to join the Moldovan State Conservatoire as Professor of the Chair of Special Piano and the Chair of Operatic Training. By then he headed the Students Symphony Orchestra, being one of the first conductors of Opera Studio. The Studio repertoire included the best images of West European and Russian opera classics. Prepared from the scratch were such operas as Carmen by G. Bizet and the Noblewoman Vera Sheloga by N. А. Rimsky Korsakov. The students – alumni of this conservatoire then worked successfully at the National Opera Theatre, performed in prestigious opera scenes around the world; among these one could mention Petru Racovita, Natalia Margarit, Lilya Sholomey, Yuri Gasca, Robert Khvalov, Stephan Curudimov, Mefodie Bujor, and Liliana Lavric. The Opera Studio Orchestra was touring in Italy and Spain. For a number of decades, M. Sechkin acted as one of the key conductors at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre, while from 1990 to 1992 acted as the Principal Conductor and the Art Director. Here he worked on staging the ballets Romeo & Juliette by S. Prokofiev, Spartacus by А. Khachaturian, and operas the Marriage of Figaro by W. Mozart, Don Carlos by G. Verdi, and Iolanta by P. I. Tchaikovsky. In parallel to the theatre plays, M. Sechkin has brightly proven his qualities as a conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonics named after S. Lunchevici. Under his leadership (2008–2013), the orchestra performed more than twenty show programs, including premiere hits by P. Tchaikovsky (Symphony No. 5, symphony Manfred), A. Scriabin (Symphony No. 2 and No. 3), and S. Rachmaninoff (Symphony No. 3). Many of the musicians are marking high conducting mastery of M. Sechkin in performing orchestral accompaniment and special work with the soloists prior to orchestra performance. Likewise appreciated was the work of maestro with young musicians. The conductor devotes a lot of his time to promoting the oeuvre of Moldovan composers. Since 2000 and until nowadays, within the frameworks of the Days of New Music Festival, jointly with the National Philharmonics Orchestra, the maestro prepared a number of programs compiled from the works of V. Polyakov, V. Zagorsky, V. Rotaru, A. Luxemburg, O. Negruza, B. Dubossarsky, and Z. Tcaci. In 30 years of his activity in Chisinau, M. Sechkin cooperated with all of the known orchestra ensembles. Back in 90th, maestro was successfully touring with the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Rumania and Chile. In Rumania, M. Sechkin was working full time as a conductor and then as the principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Botosani (1998–2013), where he managed to stage about 70 show programs. The multifaceted and fruitful activity of the musician was repeatedly marked with Certificates of Honor and Diplomas. In 1996, he was decorated with the award Maestru în Artă (Master of Arts) and in 2018 with the noble award of the People’s Artist of the Republic of Moldova. Conclusions and prospects. While appreciating the contribution made by this outstanding musician into the development of the musical culture in the Republic of Moldova, one could clearly see the determinant trajectory of his life and artistic journey – the stalwart devotion to music, musical education, nurturing young performers and listeners of different age group generations.

Venezuela’s youth symphony program, the Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar, commonly referred to as “El Sistema,” combines musical achievement with learning important life skills through orchestral practice and performance. Although the history most commonly reported outside Venezuela is of the program’s director, José Antonio Abreu, hosting a rehearsal of music students in a Caracan parking lot in 1975, El Sistema’s origins are equally owed to another orchestra. That same year, arts advocate Juan Martínez founded Venezuela’s first children’s orchestra in the Venezuelan city of Carora alongside three Chileans who previously taught for a similar program in Chile. I show that the two orchestras were frequent collaborators in the 1975–1977 period, a relationship that was essential in securing government and public support for the nascent Venezuelan program. I combine oral history and historiography to detail how the project in Carora began, define its relationship with Abreu’s orchestra in Caracas, and describe its pedagogy, philosophy, and funding. Beyond illuminating a historical narrative that highlights the importance of both national and international cooperation in the development of youth orchestras in Venezuela, this research has broad implications for advocacy and development of musical programs, within and outside schools.

The article is a cultural-historical study and a part of the project Uniting History, which aims to discover the multicultural aspect of performing art in pre-war Liepaja and summarize key facts about the history of the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra. The study also seeks to identify the performing artists whose life was associated with Liepāja and who were repressed between 1941 and 1945, because of aggression by both the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany. Until now, the cultural life of this period in Liepāja has been studied in a fragmentary way, and materials are scattered in various archives. There are inaccurate and even contradictory testimonies of events of that time. The study marks both the cultural and historical situation of the 1920s and the 1930s in Liepāja and tracks the fates of several artists in the period between 1939 and 1945. On the eve of World War II, Liepāja has an active cultural life, especially in theatre and music. Liepāja City Drama and Opera is in operation staging both dramatic performances, operas, and ballet, employing an orchestra. The symphony orchestra also operated at the Liepāja Philharmonic, where musicians were recruited every season according to the principles of contemporary festival orchestras. Liepāja Folk Conservatory (music school) had also formed an orchestra of students and teachers. Guest concerts were held regularly. A characteristic feature of performing arts in Liepaja was its multicultural character – musicians of different nationalities with experience from different schools of the world were encountered there. World War II not only disrupted the balance in society, but it also had a very concrete and tragic impact on the fates of the people, including the performing artists. Many were killed, many repressed and placed in prisons and camps, and many went to exile to the West. Others were forced to either co-operate with the occupation forces or give up their identity and, consequently, their career as an artist. Nevertheless, some artists risked their lives to save others.

JOHN McCABE: Concerto for Piano and Wind Quintet; Musica Notturna; Fauvel's Rondeaux; Postcards for wind quintet. The Fibonacci Sequence. Dutton CDLX 7125.‘Old City New Image’. McCABE: String Trio; String Quartet No. 2. DAVID ELLIS: Trio for violin, viola and cello; String Quartet No. 1. Camerata Ensemble. Campion Cameo 2027.McCABE: Piano Concerto No. 2; Concertante Variations on a theme of Nicholas Maw; Six-Minute Symphony; Sonata on a Motet. Tamami Honma (pno), St Christopher Chamber Orchestra c. Donatas Katkus. Dutton CDLX 7133.‘Tenebrae’. McCABE: Variations; Intermezzi; Sostenuto (Study No. 2); Capriccio (Study No. 1); Aubade (Study No. 4); Tenebrae; Scrunch (Study No. 8); Evening Harmonies (Study No. 7). Tamami Honma (pno). Metier MSV CD92071.

Background. Topicality, objectives, methodology and novelty of the research. The creative achievements of the Honored Art Worker of Ukraine, Professor Shaliko Harehinovych Paltadzhian (1941–2020) are a significant contribution to the history of the development of Ukrainian musical culture and, of course, deserve special attention and thorough in-depth research. However, there is not still any fundamental work about this talented musician, brilliant French horn player and wonderful conductor. The author of this article was lucky to study together with Sh. Paltadzhyan at the Kharkov Conservatory and to work with him until the end of life of this outstanding artist. This essay aims to capture some of the features of the creative portrait of Shaliko Paltadzhian, relying on the few existing reference sources and self-own memories about the artist, and also to emphasize his, in a sense, a unique role in the educational process at the Kharkiv National University of Arts and at Ukraine in general. Accordingly, touching upon the educational, methodological and sociological spheres, the study as a whole adheres to the chronological method of presenting events inherent in the genres of historical and biographical essays and portraits. The main results of the research. We traced the creative path of Shaliko Paltadzhian from his very appearance in Kharkiv in 1959 as an entrant at the Kharkiv Conservatory, where, despite the almost complete impossibility of communication due to the language barrier (the musician was born in Armenian city Gyumri, which was known as Kumayri from the period of the Kingdom of Urartu), he, nevertheless, charmed the examiners with the extra-ordinal expressive sound of his French horn, and until the last decade of fruitful work of this wonderful musician at Kharkiv National University of Arts and the “Slobozhansky” Youth Academic Symphony Orchestra . We consider Sh. Paltadzhian’s working with this orchestra as a new special stage in his conducting activities. Being, at the same time, the leader of the Student orchestra of the Kharkiv National University of Arts and the professional team of the “Slobozhansky” Orchestra, Sh. Paltadzhian, thus, makes the first in Ukrainian musical education sphere practical step in the implementation of a modern project on the introduction of so named “dual form” of vocational training, which joints the instructive process in an educational institution with the practice at the workplace. In addition, he does it long before the official directives (“Slobozhansky” Orchestra already exists 28 years). The example of the “Slobozhansky” Orchestra testifies that the organization of the educational process in a dual form gives a positive result and fully corresponds to modern educational methods: after graduating from the University, the musicians come to new teams as the very well prepared professionals, because they were passing through a “double” school as orchestra students. Shaliko Paltadzhian as a conductor proved this in practice. Conclusions. In perspective, the method of dual form of education can be adapted to any specialization. In our case, the practical bases for this are orchestras (symphony, wind), children’s music schools, music colleges, art faculties at other universities, and so on. “Slobozhansky” Orchestra partially solves the problem of mass moving abroad of the best domestic youth. The orchestra has an interesting creative atmosphere. World-famous conductors, soloists work with him; the collective tours in Denmark, Spain and Italy. Some graduates have already turned down foreign offers and stayed at home in Ukraine. Thus, Shaliko Paltadzhian played a key role in a landmark scientificeducation experiment conducted at the Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky. The weird and wonderful, versatile talent of this bright, charismatic musician is striking. As a Professor at the University, Sh. Paltadzhian taught various educational disciplines in the last decade of his life: opera and symphony conducting, musical instruments studies, arrangements, reading scores. He is also the author of scientific papers and manuals. His brilliant talent and clear human soul will forever remain in our memory.

Pamela Ryan is an associate professor of viola at Florida State University in Tallahassee and in May becomes president of ASTA's Florida state unit. Previously, she taught at Bowling Green State University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Brooklyn College, and Aspen Music School. A graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, she received her B.M. from the University of Maryland, an M.A. in performance from the Conservatory of Music of Brooklyn College, and a D.M.A. from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory. She was a winning soloist of the Aspen Concerto Competition and has performed with the Bowling Green String Quartet at Carnegie Hall and in Mexico City. Recently, she has performed on chamber music radio broadcasts in New Orleans and with the Louisiana Philharmonic. She now serves as principal violist of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra.

Hip hop is a ubiquitous part of American society in 2015—from Kanye West announcing his future presidential bid to discussions of feminism surrounding Nikki Minaj’s anatomy, to Kendrick Lamar’s concert with the National Symphony Orchestra, to Questlove leading the Tonight Show Band, hip hop has exerted its influence on American culture in every way and form.Hip hop’s origin in the early 1970s in the South Bronx of New York City is most often attributed to DJ Kool Herc and his desire to entertain at a party. In the 1980s, hip hop continued to gain popularity and speak about social issues faced by young African Americans. This started to change in the 1990s with the mainstream success of gangsta rap, where drugs, violence, and misogyny became more prominent, although artists who focused on social issues continued to create. The 2000s saw rap and hip hop cross genre boundaries, and innovative and alternative hip hop grew in popularity.

In this article we study forms and methods used to popularize western classical music in a South Korean TV series. The main subject of analysis is the TV series Beethoven Virus (2008) devoted to a symphony orchestra in a fictional South Korean city. The main purpose of this TV series is the promotion of classical music, and the author of the article comes to the conclusion that its popularity among Korean audience is explained by its engaging, convincing artistic methods with respect to national cultural specificities, which were used to show the working environment of professional musicians. The series reveals real problems of modern Korean musical culture: “crisis of overproduction” of academic musicians; discrimination of graduates of South Korean musical educational institutions; prejudice that classical music is only for the rich. The author emphasizes that immersion into the atmosphere of professional musical life allows the viewers to apprehend the educational value of the TV series more clearly. Beethoven Virus demonstrates traditional Korean attitude towards European classical music determined by the Confucian roots; and at the same time, it depicts changes in the modern culture conditioned by gradual departure from traditional values. The two main characters — the young and the old conductors — symbolize the old and the new in the Korean musical culture. They interact in a traditional eastern way: the new spirit does not openly conflict with the established convention, but sprouts from it. The author suggests that the music is explained in the film through emotional associations which let the viewers fully perceive the musical idea. The author believes that this method, compared to other ways widespread in the West, corresponds to the nature of the specific sensation of European classical music associated with Confucian cultural roots. An opinion is expressed that methods of music education used in Beethoven Virus were chosen in accordance to the South Korean serial genre traditions: leitmotivs in the soundtrack and gesture clichés are of particular significance here. The author suggests that the South Korean experience of promoting musical classics by means of serial films can be used abroad — given that the differences in mentality and realities of musical life are taken into account.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Ukrainian choral music of the modern generation of composers. Hanna Havrylets’ choral works are topical for performers and scholars. The musical and stage performance “We will sow the Golden Stone” is an example of embodiment the idea of united Ukraine, which was preserving its actuality during the all history of the country. Hanna Havrylets is an artistic figure, whose creative work unites Western and Eastern Ukraine. She was born in Galicia, studied and worked in the capital city. Her music reached Eastern Ukraine, where the artist’s choral works are performed by almost every choir group and where they have become the favorite among performers and listeners. Concerning choirs of Kharkiv region, we should mention the Chamber Choir named after Viacheslav Palkin of Kharkiv Regional Philharmonic Society, the Opera Studio Choir and the Student Choir of Kharkiv National University of Arts named after Ivan Petrovych Kotliarevsky, the Student Choir of Kharkiv State Academy of Culture. Research aims and methods. We tried to identify Hanna Havrylets’ choral works’ characteristic features, which are a symbol of the nation’s unity in the contemporary Ukrainian musical space, as well as some religious, philosophical and traditional folk features of the national identity, which perform the unifying function in the Ukrainian musical art. Research results. The features of H. Havrylets’ works that connect the cultural poles became a religious orientation (appeal to the Orthodox tradition), reliance on folklore and national historical and cultural traditions, which, combined with professional skills and composer talent, allowed her to create unique creative projects. One of such projects is the musical stage performance “We will sow the Golden Stone” (1997). The work was created for the People’s Artist of Ukraine Nina Matviyenko (soloist), a choir of boys and a symphony orchestra, the author of the poems is Sofiya Maidanska. Its uniqueness is in the fact that it combines almost all the genres of Ukrainian folk music in one piece united by the only idea of covering all the milestones of Ukrainian history starting from the World Creation and up to the present days. The artistic method of synthesizing musical and stage performance has a multi-level manifestation. Synthesis of art types (music, fine arts, choreography and theater) is supplemented with synthesis of styles, genres, and contents. H. Havrylets skillfully combines peculiarities of artistic thinking, characteristic of Ukrainian folklore, with contemporary composer vision; also the folkloric manner of singing – with the academic. Having considered the musical and stage performance “We will sow the Golden Stone” by H. Havrylets, we found common for Ukrainian culture and art features, which support the idea of unity and collegiality of Ukraine. These common religious, folkloric, philosophical features constitute a single spiritual system of the national culture. Due to her composer talent, H. Havrylets created a complete picture of author’s vision of united Ukraine, embodied in her work all major milestones of the country’s history (from the ancient times and up to the present days), traditions and beliefs of the Ukrainian people (religious and everyday ones), their identity by including regional features into a single system of the Ukrainian nation’s values in the past and the present. An analysis of the work by H. Havrylets gives reason to believe that the composition of the work is carried out on the principle of “unity and diversity”, the use of which contributes to a more vivid expression of its main idea. The unique, original features of the different eras of the history of Ukraine, its geographical regions, the art of its outstanding creators (composers, poets and performers) are combined into a single “portrait” of the Ukrainian nation, in a common image of its mentality and culture. Summary. Thus, in the process of analyzing the musical stage performance “We will sow the Golden Stone” the religious, folklore, and worldview signs of national identity were revealed, bearing the idea of the collegiality of the Ukrainian people. Religious signs include reproduction by the composer of Pagan tradition, coverage of the Pagan era, for which ritual folklore of the ancient Slavs was used; subsequently – and Orthodox symbolism, in praising the original Christianity and the Cossacks as the defender of their native land, thanks to the appeal to the genres “koliadka”, “szhedrivka” (traditional songs usually sung on Christmas holidays), historical songs, works of authors known throughout Ukraine. The folklore signs of the national identity of the work embodying the idea of the collegiality of Ukraine include the use of folklore primary sources collected in different parts of Ukraine by Nina Matviyenko, as well as the coverage of all genres of Ukrainian folklore reflected the foundations of the worldview and everyday life of the people of all regions of the country. An expression of the ideological foundations of national identity and unity became the composer’ coverage of milestones in the history of Ukraine, historical events that happened with Ukraine as a whole – the Golden Horde’ invasion, the exploits of the Zaporozhian Sich, events of the twentieth century, which were tragic for both, Western and Eastern Ukraine. It was in these events that the eternal desire of the Ukrainian people for freedom was clearly manifested, they became symbols of his struggle for territorial integrity and his own religion and self-expression (national consciousness, culture, art), for an ideal future. Since the historical process of unity of the Ukrainian nation has not yet been completed, the problems of this study within the framework of Ukrainian musical art have prospects for further development.

After its 2010–11 contentious strike, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) reinvented itself as “the most accessible orchestra on the planet.” This post-strike vision and its subsequent strategies reflected corporate entrepreneurship’s two phenomena: corporate venturing and strategic renewal. The DSO’s entrepreneurial turn enabled the orchestra to be more flexible strategically and structurally, broadened its role to become both nonprofit cultural organization and social-service institution, and helped the DSO contribute to revitalizing Detroit. Still, as most activities took place in Downtown/Midtown and Metro Detroit neighborhoods, the DSO was still far from being a true advocate for citizens of its very own city.