Exclusive: BBC Radio 3 has ended its relationship with Norman Lebrecht following an email to Yuja Wang the pianist described on Instagram as "derogatory misogynistic bullying."

here's a piece i wrote back in 2017, about Radigue's Biogenesis bsky.app/profile/vanm...

van-magazine.com

RIP Éliane Radigue (1932-2026) van-magazine.com/mag/eliane-r...

It's the listicle you've all been waiting for: @carolinefrmus.bsky.social ranks (almost) every piece by Darius Milhaud: van-magazine.com/mag/every-pi...

University student opera in the UK is cheap, messy and a blast. Maddie Lay explores a form that professional opera could learn a lot from: van-magazine.com/mag/student-...

Is it just us?

University student opera in the UK is cheap, messy and a blast. Maddie Lay explores a form that professional opera could learn a lot from: van-magazine.com/mag/student-...

Hilary Hahn and Seth Parker Woods have withdrawn from the world premiere performance of Carlos Simon's Double Concerto Suite at the Kennedy Center in March. They will be replaced by National Symphony Orchestra Associate Concertmaster Ying Fu and NSO Assistant Principal Cello Raymond Tsai.

It's the listicle you've all been waiting for: @carolinefrmus.bsky.social ranks (almost) every piece by Darius Milhaud: van-magazine.com/mag/every-pi...

In 2013, conductor Frédéric Chaslin tried to organize a meeting between Jeffrey Epstein and a young philosophy student in Paris. Chaslin says he didn't know the disgraced financier's criminal record. Their Facebook messages tell a different story: van-magazine.com/mag/frederic...

In @vanmusicmag.bsky.social on 12 Feb: my ranking/round-up of 345 Darius #Milhaud pieces! Over four months, I listened to or read as many of his 443 opus numbers as I could find. Today and tomorrow I’ll post highlights: as this is Milhaud, it’s going to be a LONG thread 1/

Among those laid off by the Washington Post today was Michael Andor Brodeur, the paper's classical music critic: another blow to an invaluable yet increasingly precarious discipline.

also of note, though I was frankly surprised Gergiev showed up as little as he did in the search. bsky.app/profile/outo...

New: Did this conductor organize meetings with young women for Jeffrey Epstein? Emails released on Friday appear to show Frédéric Chaslin currying favor with the financier and sex offender. Full story: van-magazine.com/mag/frederic...

Huw and I––the @badgayspod.bsky.social gays––went to Tristan und Isolde at the Liceu, starring Lise Davidsen. Here's our video review for @vanmusicmag.bsky.social benwritesthings.com/bartalk-lise...

In Jack Sheen's music, "the audience should feel like they’ve gone deaf or something" van-magazine.com/mag/jack-she...

Jordi Savall is the winner of the 2026 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. Revisit our 2022 interview with him here: van-magazine.com/mag/jordi-sa...

The Orchestre Symphonique des Enfants de Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo is not a polished youth orchestra of the El Sistema variety. What it has to offer, J.R. Patterson writes, is something much more valuable. van-magazine.com/mag/orchestr...

Over on Instagram, Tim has a new video essay on Feldman, bodies, and monuments. Check it out :) www.instagram.com/reel/DTajYCl...

Morty's 100th birthday is Monday. Tim Rutherford-Johnson has a beautiful essay in this week's VAN with reflections on the composer's aesthetic of absence. van-magazine.com/mag/morton-f...

Happy New Year! Are we still saying that? Who knows! Happy something anyway. Over on Instagram, we asked contributors and friends of the magazine for their ins and outs for 2026. Thoughts? www.instagram.com/p/DTIOkcziAF...

For @vanmusicmag.bsky.social I wrote about Bayreuth’s AI Ring Cycle, and what the use of AI means for labour rights, intellectual property, racial bias, and the creative process:

I also covered Giorgia Meloni’s use of “meritocracy” to push a right-wing view of Italian culture, and discussed what authoritarianism means for art:

For the dark days when it seems you can only listen to Swan Lake or the Radetzky March, we have some quality music writing for you. Up first: Joseph Kreider on how alcoholism changed his relationship to music: van-magazine.com/mag/classica...

Paavo Järvi on more than just hamburgers (namely Mahler, Strauss and why he won't go back to Russia until Putin is dead): van-magazine.com/mag/paavo-ja...

🤔

New in VAN: Ahmed Abu Amsha on what it's like teaching music to Gaza's children van-magazine.com/mag/ahmed-ab...

Fun times at my first-ever @hcmfuk.bsky.social 2025. My piece for @vanmusicmag.bsky.social is out now, with pretty mind-boggling insights from Graham McKenzie and a few unvarnished concert takes. This one's for lovers of numbers and sceptics of the UK’s arts funding. van-magazine.com/mag/huddersf...

James C. Taylor reports on two productions of Così fan tutte from Detroit Opera and Minneapolis opera, comparing the innovations and their limitations on keeping this production relevant, one taking the route of AI and robots, and the other of millennial realism: van-magazine.com/mag/cosi-fan...

Kevin Ng covers the controversial appointment of fascist nepo baby & shampoo commercial actress, Beatrice Venezi, to Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. Was she appointed because she’s good at conducting, or because she has allied herself with Meloni’s right-wing government? van-magazine.com/mag/beatrice...

Joseph Kreider brings us a roundup of eight unintentionally funny moments in classical music, including a smarmy Kyrie, flatulence in Beethoven’s Ninth, the impossible task of remaining serious in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1, and other giggle-worthy moments. van-magazine.com/mag/intentio...

We pick up where we left off last week with part two of Ty Bouque's essay "Gap Trap Laugh" and complete the Mother Matrix ™ with Kundry laughing at Christ, and Medusa’s severed head. Who would have thought two chords would lead us here? van-magazine.com/mag/liza-lim...

J.R. Patterson interviews Eva Gevorgyan who became the youngest ever female finalist in the 2021 international Chopin Piano Competition. They discuss performing for the audience vs. performing for one’s self, cultivating sincerity, rehearsed emotionality, and more: van-magazine.com/mag/eva-gevo...

Butros Nicola writes about the capacity of song to bridge time and space among displaced South Sudanese refugees, and the ability to preserve the emotional and spiritual architecture that would otherwise be erased. This story was published in collaboration with Egab. van-magazine.com/mag/south-su...

Jeff Brown kicks things off this week with an interview with Ilan Volkov, discussing his recent arrest at an anti-war protest near the Gazan border, his hopes to capture the momentum from his recent viral post-proms speech, and him refusing to work to work in Israel. van-magazine.com/mag/ilan-vol...

@vanmusicmag.bsky.social has given me permission to be frothingly horny on main about two dead tenors van-magazine.com/mag/best-int...

This week in VAN 💌 Hartmut Welscher writes about the broader German classical music scene’s selective outrage and selective empathy in the wake of Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic being disinvited from a performance at the Flanders Festival: van-magazine.com/mag/lavah-sh...

New in VAN this week: Maddie Lay and Andrew Raynes review Vache Baroque’s production of André Campra’s 1699 opera-ballet "Le Carnaval de Venise", and determine just how baroque this vache really is. Baroque opera? In MY circus tent? It’s more likely than you think. van-magazine.com/mag/vache-ba...

Are you hungry for some investigative reporting? Well we're here to sate your desire with two new reports this week:

Hi Dolls! VAN is back with two new posts for all you Wagner Heads out there: Kate Wagner (@katewagner.wehwalt.net) reviews a production of Melly Still’s “Die Walküre” at Santa Fe Opera, which was worth overcoming cynicism and risking acute desert hypoxia to see: van-magazine.com/mag/die-walk...

saw die Walküre in the desert and wrote a review of it for @vanmusicmag.bsky.social van-magazine.com/mag/die-walk...

My thoughts on Bayreuth’s upcomingAI Ring Cycle, for @vanmusicmag.bsky.social van-magazine.com/mag/bayreuth...

My Darmstadt 25 review is in @vanmusicmag.bsky.social. 'Situations' are audience agency, censorship, David Tudor, distracted listening, Hannes Seidl, healing sounds, hybrid formats, immediacy, instagrammable art, Maryanne Amacher, neoliberalism, spatial arrangements van-magazine.com/mag/darmstad...

VAN is back with 2 new essays: Marat Ingeldeev covers Darmstadt 2025, including rumblings over censorship of a piece with pro-Palestine slogans, navigating issues on trendy marketing, and the potential successes and pitfalls of multi-sensory performance situations. van-magazine.com/mag/darmstad...

Today's issue is the final one before our summer vacation, and we have two essays on music and place. First, here's Samantha Rosenthal on Copland's "Appalachian Spring" van-magazine.com/mag/copland-...

In VAN, on the embarrassing actions of Oliver Mears, and the hypocrisy of the RBO van-magazine.com/mag/oliver-m...

New in VAN 💌 “His tragedy lies not in a single fall, but in the prolonged effort to persist.” A new opera on the life of Walter Benjamin opens in Barcelona van-magazine.com/mag/benjamin...

In VAN today 💌 The Architecture of Bodies: An interview with Ted Huffman van-magazine.com/mag/ted-huff...

In VAN today 💌 Solidarity When It Suits: Oliver Mears, Director of The Royal Opera, tried and failed to take down a Palestine flag on stage. Then came the distraction tactics, and the hypocrisy. van-magazine.com/mag/oliver-m...