Miami Music Project’s Teaching Artists Training Institute (TATI) has received a $1.3 million grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.
TATI is in its fourth year providing virtual training, in-person workshops, and intensive learning retreats to further education opportunities for its teaching artists. To date, 350 music educators have been engaged by TATI.
Broadway grosses are down 2.5 percent, to $1.54 billion, for the 2023-24 season. The slowed recovery is due in part to a slow return of suburbanites to Broadway. Patrons from the suburbs represented a record low of fourteen percent of admissions.
Maria Todaro has been named general director of Florida Grand Opera. She has been serving as interim director since the departure of Susan Danis in October. Todaro is the daughter of opera singers and is planning collaborative programs with other local arts organizations as she plans to rebrand FGO. She is also expanding the Opera’s educational programming.
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Sony, Universal, and Warner are suing two AI startup companies for copyright infringement. Startups Suno and Udio have been accused of exploiting the works of artists such as Chuck Berry and Mariah Carey, stealing their music and creating similar works through the use of artificial intelligence.
Universal has announced a partnership with AI startup SoundLabs. Universal artists will have access to MicDrop, which allows artists to make their own voice models with data they provide. Artists will retain ownership and control and the data and models will not be accessible to the public. Using artificial intelligence, MicDrop users will be able to use voice-to-instrument functions as well as language transposition.
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San Diego Symphony musicians have ratified a three-year agreement. Wages will rise nine percent in the first year, 5.7 percent in the second, and 6.5 percent in the third. Screens will be used for all rounds of auditions and audition repertoire will include at least one work by an underrepresented composer. There will also be a new Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee.
Musicians of the Detroit Symphony have ratified a new three-year agreement. Wages will rise 2.4 percent in the first year, 3.8 percent in the second year, and 4.3 percent in the final year. Musicians will also have a new Family Leave policy that will grant them an additional six weeks of parental leave, and substitute musicians on tour will now receive pay equity with contracted musicians.