Vienna

Elina Garanca Defends Opera Amid Digital Age Challenges

In her decades-long career, star Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has seen the ups and downs of the music industry first hand. But the business has changed drastically with the rise of social media, even impacting the way many people inside and outside the industry approach classical music — namely "without patience or time", she told ...

Vienna State Opera Celebrates Season with Free Gala Concert

No dress code, no stiff atmosphere, and no entry fees: Thousands flocked to a Viennese park Sunday as the Vienna State Opera opened its 2025-26 season with a star-studded open-air gala concert for the first time. The free, open-air concert was the state opera's latest effort to «open the house to all – especially new listeners», it said in a ...

Vienna Artists Cool Heatwaves With Asphalt Painted Colors

Equipped with an infrared thermometer, Austrian artist Jonas Griessler measures the sweltering heat in an inner courtyard in the center of Vienna. Thanks to his collective's artwork covering the black asphalt with a multitude of bright colors, the ground temperature has dropped from 31°C to 20°C. Initiated by the museum showing the private ...

Painting the Heat Away: Vienna Museum Uses Art to Cool Urban Spaces

Equipped with an infrared thermometer, Austrian artist Jonas Griessler measures the sweltering heat in an inner courtyard in the center of Vienna. Thanks to his collective's art work covering the black asphalt with a multitude of bright colors, the ground temperature has dropped from 31C to 20C. Initiated by the museum showing the private ...

Strauss’s ‘Blue Danube’ Waltz to Beamed Beyond Stars

Austrian composer Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube has, for many people, been synonymous with space travel since it was used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the world-famous waltz will truly travel among the stars on Saturday, when the European Space Agency's (ESA) antenna will broadcast a live ...

Strauss II: 200 Years Later, His Music Still Waltzes the World

Even two centuries after the birth of Johann Strauss II, Austria's renowned "waltz king," his music continues to captivate audiences around the world. Strauss, widely celebrated during his lifetime as a cultural icon akin to a modern pop star, is best remembered for his iconic waltz The Blue Danube, which has become synonymous with Austria and is ...

When Fire Devours History, Schoenberg Rises From the Ashes

January 2025. The scene seemed unreal. A devastating fire ravaged the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, sweeping away everything in its path, including a major pillar of musical history. In the Schoenberg family home, Belmont Music Publishing preserved one of the greatest treasures of modern Western art music: the scores of Arnold ...