A daring violin heist has left London Philharmonia’s David López Ibáñez devastated after their 300-year-old Lorenzo Carcassi violin was stolen from a Canonbury pub, reports Standard.co.uk. The thief snatched the priceless instrument—on loan to the musician—along with three bows, including one with a mother-of-pearl tip, while Ibáñez dined with a friend. With its distinctive heart-shaped scroll marking, the violin is not only irreplaceable in sound but deeply personal, making the loss feel, as the violinist put it, “like a part of me has been ripped off.”

Babatunde Akinboboye, an opera singer, has over 1M followers on TikTok

Classical music is reaching new heights of popularity, with social media fueling a surge of young listeners and innovative fusions, according to nssmag.com. From TikTok trends like #classictok to artists like Esther Abrami and Babatunde Akinboboye blending classical with pop, hip-hop, and rock, the genre is finding fresh audiences in unexpected spaces. While some purists worry about authenticity, musicians like Harriet Stubbs, who merges Rachmaninoff with David Bowie, prove that classical music is not just surviving—it’s evolving.

NewYorker.com reports that Jake Heggie’s opera Moby-Dick is set to make its long-awaited Metropolitan Opera debut on March 3, bringing a grander scale to its original 2010 production. With towering masts, immersive nautical projections, and an expanded stage extending over the orchestra pit, the Met’s version fully embraces the opera’s oceanic setting. Featuring an all-star cast, including Stephen Costello, Brandon Jovanovich, and Ryan Speedo Green, this production promises to be the most ambitious staging yet—perhaps even revealing more of the elusive white whale.

The eponymous whale.