ChicagoSunTimes.com chronicles the Chicago Philharmonic’s rain-defying Side-by-Side concert, where 250 musicians—ages 8 to 85—lugged everything from piccolos to sousaphones into Ping Tom Park for a free, one-rehearsal performance. Conductor Scott Speck steered the supersized ensemble through Bizet’s “Habanera,” Camila Cabello’s “Havana,” and a roaring “Imperial March,” previewing two more pop-up park shows later this month. Community music, say organizers, sounds best when the whole city plays along.

Classical Soprano, Lucy Cox

BBC News features rising English soprano Lucy Cox, who urges classical institutions to root out entrenched sexism after witnessing “routine barriers” facing women onstage and off. Cox says transparent audition panels, equal-pay contracts, and proactive programming of female composers are overdue steps toward fairness. Her upcoming turns in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and the Southern Cathedrals Festival, she adds, prove audiences embrace talent—regardless of gender.

NTDaily.com reports that the University of North Texas will pay music-theory scholar Timothy Jackson $725,000 to settle his First-Amendment lawsuit. Jackson alleged retaliation after a 2020 journal issue he edited defended Heinrich Schenker and critiqued scholarship on race. The deal restores his editorship and ends campus sanctions, sending a costly signal that viewpoint discrimination can come with a hefty price tag—even in the ivory tower.

Music theory research professor Timothy Jackson