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Under music director Alan Gilbert, the orchestra is taking a page from the visual arts world by launching an 11-day festival featuring both established and emerging composers.

A star mezzo shares forthright and inspiring thoughts about making a life as an artist. "You will never make it," she says. "'It' doesn't exist for an artist."

"If they hold an instrument, they will not take a drug. They will not hold a gun," says Santa Cecilia Orchestra conductor Sonia Marie De Leon De Vega. "It's that powerful."

Conch shells, a 19th-century relative of the tuba, and wooden nose flutes are just a few of the odd instruments you'll find in the apartment of Paul Simon's music director.

Hear evocative music about fallen heroes � from a symphony by the son of a Civil War bandsman to a song honoring a young Marine from Alabama.

Over the weekend, five London-based critics reviewed a new opera production � and each attacked the weight of one of the female soloists. Do they treat male vocalists the same way?

Soprano Sharleen Joynt made a huge splash on The Bachelor. The new edition of The Bachelorette, which starts Monday night, stars an aspiring tenor. But is reality TV too popular for opera?

A new production of Leos Janácek's opera takes on a longstanding challenge: how to turn human singers into animals without making them look ridiculous. The answer? Animate them.

How much of what we think of as the beautiful sound of a Stradivarius is the instrument itself � and how much is the brand?

Because why shouldn't Julia Wolfe and David Lang be bringing the Bang on a Can All-Stars to Arthur? Watch this short and totally charming clip.