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Article Roundup: Get A Michael Jackson Trial Recap, Previewing New Arcade Fire

October 3, 2013 - 9:43am

The Los Angeles Times gives a concise explanation of the outcome in the Michael Jackson trial. After less than a week of deliberation, the jury decided on Wednesday that concert promoter AEG Live wasn't responsible for Jackson's 2009 death. Jackson's family, particularly his mother Katherine and his three children, had...

Dear Baroness

October 2, 2013 - 11:30am

The world’s greatest composer was feeling giddy when he wrote Baroness von Waldstadten with a special request on October 2, 1782: I can say truthfully that I am a happy and an unhappy man–unhappy since the night when I saw your ladyship at the ball with your hair so beautifully...

Spite and Neglect

October 1, 2013 - 11:26am

In memoirs he began in 1910 and never finished, composer Karl Goldmark looked back six decades to his early experiences as a struggling violinist. After a brief inglorious career as a draftee in a war between Austria and Hungary, the eighteen-year-old musician settled in the town of Ödenburg. His playing...

Second Expedition

September 29, 2013 - 11:30am

During his first sojourn in America, composer Karel Szymanowski had accomplished little more than strengthening his identity as a Polish composer. Nonetheless, in 1921 a friend convinced him that a second visit would be more productive since new contacts there might lead to important performances of Szymanowski’s music. Still jaded...

The Joker and the Queen

September 28, 2013 - 11:30am

If a story from the 1690s is true, composer Henry Purcell was so self-assured that he dared to play a joke on Queen Mary. Purcell had been commissioned to compose music for the queen’s birthday, the assigned verses being praise of King William’s bravery and the queen’s virtues. Apparently thinking...

A Minor Detail

September 27, 2013 - 11:30am

Franz Lehár was enthusiastic again. Having made his fortune at the age of thirty-five with his 1905 operetta The Merry Widow , the Hungarian composer had gone through a fallow stretch during World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, in 1925, he had found a tenor,...

The Split

September 25, 2013 - 11:30am

In the fall of 1931 a Berlin producer thought that a theater version of the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny could bring in good money during hard times. Composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertold Brecht made the going rough. During rehearsals, as they made cuts...

Volcano Choir Talks 'Repave'

September 25, 2013 - 4:45pm

Wisconsin band Volcano Choir talks about their new album, "Repave," and their current tour.

American Reverses

September 24, 2013 - 11:30am

On September 24, 1902, Pietro Mascagni sailed for New York with an opera company that he had assembled hastily for an American tour. He would discover some old truths in the New World. When Mascagni and his wife arrived in New York they received a warm welcome from thousands of...

Musician Peter Mulvey Talks About Being Home In Wisconsin

September 24, 2013 - 9:28am

Folk singer Peter Mulvey loves Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-born singer still calls the city home even as he makes his living performing on stages around the world. Today, Mulvey shares what Wisconsin and regional identity means to him.