The Sacramento-based McClatchy chain has fired two classical music critics in recent weeks, apparently specifically targeted in the chain’s cutbacks. Paul Horsley of the Kansas City Star and Lawrence Johnson of the Miami Herald were both in cities with burgeoning…

For full reviews of The Rape of Lucretia (seen at Central City Opera, 6/12) and Nixon in China (seen at Opera Colorado, 6/13) keep an eye on MusicalAmerica.com.

Lucretia is a problematic opera (although it contains some incredibly beautiful music), but it would…

There were 325 people waiting to go to Central City for an evening of opera on Thursday — 3 dozen music critics and a large contingent from Opera America, the international service organization — and just one bus.

Five more…

Just in: a report that St. Louis Symphony Orchestra assistant principal horn Larry Strieby is giving up that post.

He’s not leaving the orchestra, but he will give up the responsibilities of assistant principal for the job of utility horn.…

DENVER - It’s like Old Home Week in Colorado this week, as a reported 3,500 arts administrators and others from assorted arts groups - the League of American Orchestras, Opera America, Chorus America, theater and dance groups and (oh, yes)…

When I was a girl in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, Kansas, we studied state history while tiptoeing lightly around two of the most interesting characters: Carrie Nation and John Brown.

Nation, who took her tomahawk into saloons…

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has a new resident conductor and Youth Symphony music director.

He’s Ward Stare, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s League of American Orchestra’s Conducting Fellow. The former principal trombone of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Stare, a Juilliard…

It’s potentially great news for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: they’ve got a new music director, and he’s one of the best.

Riccardo Muti will be the CSO’s 10th music director, with a five-year contract to begin in the 2010-2011 season.…

No, tenor Juan Diego Florez didn’t do an encore to “Ah, mes amis,” despite a long and lusty accolade from the beyond-appreciative crowd. But he did just about everything else in a manner calculated to please the far-flung audiences of…

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a page-one feature on an endangered species: the prompter. Prompters help to save singers’ musical lives, by being on the spot with musical cues and words where needed. But opera houses are using fewer of…