Ravi Shankar, the sitar player and composer who became India's most influential musician, died Tuesday evening in San Diego, CA. He was 92.

Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who conquered audiences all over the world with her rich soprano, has died. Vishenvskaya, widow of famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, was 86.

While the Nets said goodbye to New Jersey for a new arena in Brooklyn this fall, a Brooklyn orchestra manager is planning to add a Garden State orchestra to his resume.

Half of New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home, according to recent data. This has an effect on the Christmas music played in churches, stores, cars on MP3 players.

Charles Rosen – the polymath pianist, lecturer and author of numerous books on classical music and the humanities – died in Manhattan Sunday. Listen to an archival broadcast.

The locked-out musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra were nominated for a Grammy Award on Thursday, just hours before the orchestra posted an operating deficit of $6 million for fiscal 2012.

"This Art Deco theater is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places in Paris to attend a performance," writes Fred Plotkin. And it is a good thing that it was not destroyed during a famous 1913 riot.

When Venezuela's flagship orchestra comes to Carnegie Hall, many of its 200 musicians will have traveled from lives of desperate poverty, crime and violence.

In anticipation of a new film version of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables starring Hugh Jackman, we explore three operatic settings of the French writer's novels.

Dave Brubeck, who died Wednesday at age 91, wrote large-scale symphonic and choral works that expanded music's possibilities.

Most of the works of the great bel canto composers — Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti — are seldom performed because few singers are ever up to the task, writes Fred Plotkin. But one such rarity arrives in New York Wednesday night.

Le Poisson Rouge has named Tito Muñoz, a Queens-born conductor, as the music director of Ensemble LPR, a flexible new in-house orchestra.

Whether you’re naughty or nice, choosing presents for yourself or for others, our holiday picks will please even the most discerning opera lovers. Be sure to check out WQXR's Gift Guide too.

As the holidays approach, let us help you find that perfect present for the classical music fans on your list.

Christmas album art has its own unique tradition. There are the decorated trees, the fuzzy sweaters and the evocative winter scenes. And then there are the rest.

"When, about ten months ago, I began my Montsalvatge immersion, my approach was to listen to any music I could find," notes Fred Plotkin. "Then, recently, it came to my attention that an exemplary biography has just been published."

The Philadelphia Orchestra said Thursday that it is pulling its scheduled premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Violin Concerto in January after the composer announced that it would not be ready in time.

Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic said Thursday they plan to radically overhaul the 50-year-old concert hall.

Most opera lovers are familiar with Tatyana in Eugene Onegin and Lisa in The Queen of Spades, but Tchaikovsky also wrote some fabulous music for several other heroines.

David Lang, the composer and co-founder of the organization Bang on a Can, has been named the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2013-2014 season.