As medici.tv’s Chief Content Officer I spend a lot of time thinking about classical music—and a lot of time on the internet. Here’s my selection of the top five news items you need to see this week if you want to stay in the know.
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Max Richter on his Oscar-nominated score for Hamnet
The 2026 Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday and composer Max Richter’s work on Hamnet is unsurprisingly in the running for Best Original Score. Richter’s score has gotten a lot of buzz in recent weeks, both in the press and on social media. On The Film Scorer podcast, the composer discussed what it’s like seeing the world react to his work, in Vanity Fair he talked about using “raw material from Elizabethan-period instruments” to build electronic instruments, and in The Ankler about his unusual creative process and the importance of being on set himself. And just about the entire internet is talking about the surprise use of his iconic “On the Nature of Daylight” in a key scene.
How can we bring audiences to classical music? “Stop mutilating it” (NYT)
The New York Times published a polemic opinion piece this week from pianist, harpsichordist, and podcaster Evan Skinner. Skinner argues that many of the strategies employed by arts institutions in recent decades (like abridged versions of operas, or crossover projects with pop music) do little to bring new audiences to classical music—at best, they bring new audiences to the symphony once. “For classical music to endure, we need to demonstrate to a new audience that the form is not similar to modern music but actually very different in important and — once you acquire a taste for it — enjoyable ways.”
Money trouble continues at The Met
This week The Metropolitan Opera announced the latest in a series of measures meant to address ongoing financial issues: layoffs of 22 members of the administrative staff, salary cuts for top executives, and a pared-down season. America’s largest arts institution is also considering selling the pair of Marc Chagall murals that hang in the building’s Grand Tier (valued by Sotheby’s around $55 million USD), as well as selling naming rights to the theater. The financial strain is also being felt on a more operational level: Opera Wire reported that the Carmen currently running was restaged from the initial and “incredibly expensive to run” 2023 production, leading set designer Michael Levine and other members of the creative team to ask to have their names removed from the program.
“How does the Cleveland Orchestra stay the Cleveland Orchestra?” (NYT)
The New York Times tracked “America’s finest” orchestra as they prepared for a concert, from the first rehearsals through to the final performance (of Mozart and Shostakovich). It’s a fascinating look at the respect, work, and attention to detail it takes to consistently perform at such a high level: “Practice can only do so much. ‘Even if you had 35 rehearsals, there’s still this element of surprise,’ Welser-Möst said, ‘because there are hundreds and hundreds of people in the same room which haven’t been there before.’ That’s one reason the work is never done. ‘Perfection does not exist, and still we drive toward perfection.’”
Roberto Alagna reflects on the opera industry (The Times)
After Jonas Kaufmann’s interview last month, Roberto Alagna is the latest top-tier singer to speak candidly with the Times. Alagna covers a lot of ground in the interview: what it was like to come up as a young singer surfing the wave of post-Three Tenors popularity, how he feels about critics, and his regret that young singers aren’t as well-cared for by the major houses today.
