Boston Early Music Festival Opens with Rarely Performed Opera
The Boston Early Music Festival opened this Sunday with what is being billed as the North American premiere (although that's the subject of some debate) of Agostino Steffaniâs opera, Niobe, regina di Tebe, first performed in 1688. One of the worldâs leading early music events, the festival goes on continues until June 19. More information at http://bemf.org.
Nico Muhly: New Album, New Opera
Prolific young composer Nico Muhly's has a new album, "Seeing is Believing," out June 21st and NPR Music has the complete album available to listen online as part of their First Listen series. Muhly also has a new opera (we said he's prolific) Two Boys opening June 24th, here's the recently released trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDycZH0CA4I
Contract Agreement for Pittsburgh Symphony
The Pittsburgh Symphony has reached an agreement with musicians on a new three-year contract. The contract would include a cut in musicians base salary in the first year, but not in the second year, with the opportunity to raise wages in the third.
Seattle Symphony to Play! Premiers of Video Game Suites
And finally, following up on our earlier post about video game music, the Seattle Symphony has now announced that it will have two performances of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony on June 21 and 22. The program includes world premiers of new arrangements of music from massive multi-player video games -- including HALO: Reach, Dragon Age 2, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, and Metroid, among other -- by composer and orchestrator Chad Seiter.