(San Francisco, CA) - Esa-Pekka Salonen’s announced 2025 departure from San Francisco Symphony still stuns, even several months on. With this piece, OI aims to:

• Explore the known why behind the financial crisis

• Explain why we oppose the company’s devastating, short-sighted cuts

• Provide guidance on how this legacy brand could begin repairing its self-inflicted wounds

Given his stature as the Bay Area’s classical music journalist, we first relied on San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman and his reporting. Kosman’s first piece laid out the situation, Salonen’s terse statement, SFS musicians’ vocal support of their Maestro, as well as their demand for audited financials from CEO Mark Spivey and Board Chair Priscilla Geeslin...

(Santa Fe, NM) - Opera Innovation profiled David Lomeli just before he began his tenure as Santa Fe Opera’s Chief Artistic Officer. In the years and seasons since, David continues to drive artistic endeavors for Santa Fe Opera, The Dallas Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Operalia, but for his own startup businesses, too: Bolero Tech and the Vincerò Competition, respectively. In late April, we met David at Santa Fe’s famed Inn at the Loretto, for a wide-ranging discussion on the problems Bolero’s technology solves, new partnerships in the Americas, the future of opera and a game-changing algorithm…

Surprise! Welcome to the Opera Innovation | No. 1 playlist + liner notes. Since we’re still about opera and the classically trained voice, we thought we’d highlight artists who’ve been on the blog or our social media channels since we launched in late Spring 2020. Some people here are friends I’ve known for a while, others I’ve only met online, and some who are sadly no longer with us but live on through their one-of-a-kind work…