I knew the volcano that erupted caused tons of flights to be canceled, and I saw the news that told of stranded travelers, but I was totally forgetting about the musical world.
Travel disruptions from Europe’s volcanic ash problem have brought a heavy measure of turmoil to the classical music world. More than in many other fields, its practitioners — conductors, singers, pianists and other instrumentalists — depend on plane flights. Opera casts are increasingly international. Concert promoters, especially in this country, place a heavy premium on foreign talent. After all, where does “jet set” fit better than adjacent to “conductor”?
