Sweden Uses Science to Create a Future Generation of Opera Singers

STOCKHOLM—In a groundbreaking development that has taken the scientific and musical communities here by storm, a team of researchers at the Kung Gustavus III Institute for Medical and Musical Studies announced they have been using genetic material to make clones of important opera singers, including the legendary soprano Birgit Nilsson and tenor Jussi Björling. Other singers whose DNA was used in the experiment include soprano Elisabeth Söderström and Wagnerian tenor Set Svanholm.  more

Disadvantaged Children in Harmony Program to Study with New York Philharmonic

El Sistema, the world-famous Venezuelan music education project, is marking its 40th anniversary this year amid worries that increasing social unrest and worsening relations with the U.S. could hurt its mission to keep 400,000 at-risk children on the straight-and-narrow.

But El Sistema-inspired initiatives in the United States have proliferated. El Sistema USA, an umbrella organization, lists 113 different programs in 33 states, up from 50 programs in 2011. Among the most high-profile is the Harmony Program, an after-school program which trains more than 200 disadvantaged kids in neighborhoods in Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Long Island.  more

New CD Box Set: The RISM Complete Incipits Edition!! (Happy April Fool's Day!)

Many people know that one of the things that makes RISM unique is that we include music incipits in our records.

How many times have you thought to yourself, "If only I could listen to these music incipits all day!"

Now you can! Announcing a new CD box set, the RISM Complete Incipits Edition (image, left). Available on 2,286 CDs, this limited edition box set includes 1,690,822 incipits performed on historically accurate instruments.

Who can forget the classic opening to Anton Diabelli's Tantum Ego?

- See more at: http://www.rism.info/en/home/newsdetails/article/64/new-cd-box-set-the-rism-complete-incipits-edition.html#sthash.z0IfUUS6.NAewqEuT.dpuf