Larry Johnson, Host of WFMT’s ‘Arias and Songs’ Has Died at Age 72

Larry Johnson, the host of WFMT’s Arias and Songs, died over the weekend in his home on Chicago’s North Side. He was 72 years old. He leaves behind a brother, Alan Johnson, and a cousin, Lynn Newhart. Larry had a business career in the textile industry but was always an avid music lover and record collector. He joined WFMT as ...

9 Works by Women Writers We Want to See Adapted into Operas

We’re glad to see that in recent decades, more and more works by women writers have been given their due in the opera house. Here’s a look back at some of them, and a short list of works by women that we’re waiting to see operatically staged.

‘What was your secret, Montserrat?’: Larry Johnson Remembers Caballé’s Lyric Debut

In 1970, Montserrat Caballé was in only the fifth year of her international career and was, without doubt, one of the greatest voices to be heard in opera.

Michigan professor unearths inmates’ music from Auschwitz

DETROIT (AP) — Patricia Hall went to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in 2016 hoping to learn more about the music performed by prisoners in World War II death camps. The University of Michigan music theory professor heard there were manuscripts, but she was “completely thrown” by what she found in the card catalogs: Unexpectedly upbeat and popular songs titles that translated ...

After rescue, Gaza’s only grand piano makes public comeback

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – The only grand piano in the Gaza Strip has been played in public for the first time in a decade, following a complicated international restoration effort to fix the instrument after it was nearly destroyed in an Israeli airstrike. Some 300 fans attended the performance on Sunday, staring in awed silence as Japanese and ...