VAN Magazine

20/12/2024

The final VAN of 2025 ✉️

Olivier Latry on playing for the Notre Dame reopening • A Norma Beecroft Playlist • AI and postmodernism, a natural fit for composers? • Furthering conversations on disability in classical music

In Notes from All Over

VAN's 2024 Wrapped • ACE latest • Thomas Adès x Paris Hilton

https://van-magazine.com/

01/12/2024

“We’ve just finished playing a concert. I’m in my dressing room; I still haven’t even changed yet. Suddenly the doors open and the first concertmaster makes a speech. He says, ‘You bring [out] the best of us and we would like you to be our next music director and chief conductor. And we want you to be our Daddy.’”

In VAN EN, Semyon Bychkov reflects on his relationship with the Czech Philharmonic

25/11/2024

“Anything is possible as long as you also bring a spork.”

In the gap between work and concerts, what are professional concertgoers doing about food? In VAN EN, we asked a selection of composers, performers, industry professionals and critics exactly that.

11/11/2024

Accordionist Marcell Csuka and violinist Qingzhu Weng are the winners of the 4th Berlin Prize for Young Artists

The final took place at the Villa Elisabeth on Friday, organised by VAN Magazine and Julius Baer.

Congratulations to all our fantastic finalists: Orlando Bass (piano), Aina Font (saxophones), Juliette Journaux (piano) and Rebecca Minten (clarinets)

Thanks as well to our jury: William Coleman, Tamara Stefanovich, Eric Lamb, Hanni Liang, Barbara Lebitsch, and Hugh Morris

All 📸 by Verena Bruening

05/11/2024

This election night, we've got you covered.

(That is, if what you're looking for is John Cage, metronome minutiae, and an irresistible comparison between Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 and the CNN "Magic Wall")

It’s that time again: When a handful of voters in a handful of counties in a handful of states in the United States decide the fate of planet Earth. The (once again) absurdly high stakes of the U.S. presidential election inspired me to make a playlist that doesn’t try to compete with substance u...

05/11/2024

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

A U.S. Election Night Playlist: Music and videos by Bruckner, Grisey, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and tempo-addict Wim Wenders, to fill the excruciating void between voting and results

It’s that time again: When a handful of voters in a handful of counties in a handful of states in the United States decide the fate of planet Earth. The (once again) absurdly high stakes of the U.S. presidential election inspired me to make a playlist that doesn’t try to compete with substance u...

24/10/2024

VAN #376

Yvonne Loriod • Magnus Lindberg • The Worst Musical Clichés, Ranked • Will Kazuki Yamada leave Birmingham? • Opera North and Northern Ballet Sinfonia latest • AI+SEO+composers=traffic? • Shorworld in the news

A world of independent classical music journalism at your fingertips. Over 500 articles, with new ones every week.

20/10/2024

On the 150th anniversary of the composer Charles Ives’s birth, enjoy Jacob Greenberg's reflections on a composer of "harmonic sensitivity, rhythmic interest, compositional rigor, emotional richness, and economy."

As Charles Ives celebrates his 150th anniversary, pianist Jacob Greenberg reflects on the composer's songs.

18/10/2024

In VAN this week:

⚡ Is Cleveland Institute of Music still a good environment for students? Hannah Edgar has the latest on firings, a drastic new governance structure, a new faculty union, and the looming enrollment deficit
⚡ William White discovered that his compositions were being plagiarized by a student from halfway across the world. Then, things got even stranger...
⚡ An interview with Dr. Maiko Kawabata on classical music’s anti-Asian racism

As administrators have tried to consolidate their control of the school, faculty have responded by unionizing amid a looming enrollment deficit.

13/10/2024

New in VAN:

As he releases a new album of his songs and solos, the pianist Jacob Greenberg reflects on Charles Ives at 150

As Charles Ives celebrates his 150th anniversary, pianist Jacob Greenberg reflects on the composer's songs.

11/10/2024

"Framing an Ives song from the piano is like being a cinematographer: You provide a suitable outside edge to the picture, soft or hard focus, and color, as well as slow dissolves and hard edits."

The pianist Jacob Greenberg reflects on the musical personality of Charles Ives

As Charles Ives celebrates his 150th anniversary, pianist Jacob Greenberg reflects on the composer's songs.

11/10/2024

"It’s not just that 'Grounded' has nothing to say, but that it tacitly props up the very material structures and ideological specters responsible for the horrific violence it gestures at but stops short of honestly depicting."

"Grounded" at the Metropolitan Opera, reviewed by Thomas Hobohm and Nicholas Z. Liu

A review of "Grounded" by Jeanine Tesori at the Metropolitan Opera

08/10/2024

Must Alma Mahler always be on trial?

Alma Mahler's biographers have regularly found ways to castigate her. Catherine Varvaro asks if the time is up for such trials.

07/10/2024

"Decades earlier, for a themed exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery, Cage had concocted a rather Klee-like painting, 'Chess Pieces,' where instead of fools and kings, musical passages occupy the squares."

Music, chess, Cage and more

Julian George compiles a playlist of music and performances by musicians who have found rigor, chance and beauty in the game of chess.

04/10/2024

"Like many a Russian of the old school, Shostakovich acquitted himself well on the board. In adolescence, he unwittingly lost to future world champion Alexander Alekhine. 'An honourable loss,' Alekhine said. (He was not a man noted for acts of charity.)"

Julian George compiles a playlist of music and performances by musicians who have found rigor, chance and beauty in the game of chess.

04/10/2024

"While Liszt’s sexuality is a measure of accomplishment and Schoenberg’s is a means to creativity, Alma’s is cause for derision."

The trials of Alma Mahler

Alma Mahler's biographers have regularly found ways to castigate her. Catherine Varvaro asks if the time is up for such trials.