Press reports from Rio say that 41 to 44 players in the Brazil Symphony Orchestra are to be dismissed for ‘insubordination’ – their refusal to attend re-auditions for their own jobs.

The news, carried also in the authoritative O Globo, contradicts the official version that this process is not about sacking musicians.
A youth orchestra is appearing at present in place of the OSB and foreign soloists are being approached not to appear with it, or with its chief conductor, Roberto Minczuk.  

The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London should, by all reasonable criteria, have been dropped from the Arts Council’s list of benefit claimants.

The ICA all but went bust last year after a lot period of decline. Its chairman, the BBC arts fixer Alan Yentob, and its executive director Ekow Eshun both resigned.The ACE pumped in emergency funding of £1.2 million and a new team took over.

But the venue is off the map of contemporary art activity in London, the audience has fled and despite many brave words of renaissance the ICA is just delivering same-old, same-old.
During the ACE’s discussions on funding cuts, several around the table were of the opinion that the ICA should be left to sink since it cannot swim unaided and serves no apparent purpose.
However, at the selfsame table sat Ekow Eshun,

Ekow Eshunwho was responsible for its decline. It would have been impolite to Ekow to slaughter his former cash cow. So the ACE collectively agreed to throw it a lifeline. Another one. Good money after bad.

And they say the process is unbiased. That makes two members of the ACE who have a direct interest in its grants. No doubt they both left the room at the appropriate time, but still…

At a time of national cuts, when centres of excellence are having 15 percent sliced off their funding over the next four years, Arts Council England has awarded a massive 108 percent grant increase to London’s Barbican Centre.

Why is that?
Because of its East-of-City role in the 2012 Olympics, apparently.
The Barbican is funded by the Corporation of the City of London. It was never intended to be a recipient of central government funds.
However, its director Sir Nicholas Kenyon is a very persuasive man. He has talked himself onto the board of Arts Council England. He is party to its decision.
Sir Nicholas Kenyon

He leaves the room, of course, recuses himself in ACE jargon, whenever the Barbican is discussed. That’s only right and proper. But Nick is a nice man and everyone wants to be nice to him back. So they vote him a 108 percent increase while he’s out of the room and are rewarded by that great big beaming smile on his return.
No harm in that. Is there?

The Arts Council announced today that it was applying the cuts strategically – ‘no equal cuts for all’.

And then it promptly did the opposite with the nation’s orchestras.

ACE has refused to judge orchestral performance, giving the same 11-15 percent treatment to all symphony orchestras across the board, regardless of merit or recent progress. One band, Bournemouth, perhaps the least deserving of the regionals, gets a small increase – entirely for regional reasons.
Everyone gets prizes is the slogan.
Apparently, the ACE is talking about talking about orchestras – another four-year review is being mooted within the organisation. They’ve been talking about this since 1963.
Strikes me as a terrible dereliction of ACE responsibility.
Some small ensembles – the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music and Aurora – were included only in the final reckoning, I hear, having been ruled out beforehand.

A snap assessment of the Arts Council’s major grant cuts – broken here this morning – is that Liz Forgan and Alan Davey have gone down the obvious route, top-slicing their biggest gas guzzlers in order to sustain the lower levels of ecology.

If that were the case, it could be justified – even applauded.
But the ACE has fallen into its usual traps of prejudice and favouritism.
Of the five top grants, only ENO’s near-standstill can be seen in a rational light. The Coliseum has recovered greatly in the past two years and any loss of funds at this point – especially when its own fund-raising operation is rudimentary – would have risked killing a patient in the recovery room by premature withdrawal of medication.

The decision to apply the maximum permitted cut – 15 percent to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden smacks of the ACE’s old fear of ‘elitism’ – a word that arose with tedious repetition during last week’s heated grants debate. The ROH has been hit mainly because its profile is wrong for the image the ACE wants to project – young, diverse, non-London.
The two theatre companies – the National and RSC – were penalised for reasons even more obtuse. The RSC is region-based and has one of the youngest audience bases in the land. Nevertheless, both have taken top-line hits.

All four companies are on top of their game, producing work that claims worldwide attention and attracts the finest artists in their field. Why cut them now? The only way to interpret that decision is bureaucratic convenience – easier to save money with a few big cuts  than a lot of small ones – and an inbuilt suspicion of hard-won success.
English National Ballet, presently enjoying its greatest TV exposure on BBC4, is penalised by 15 percent. 
These bad decisions are compounded by one that is simply the worst.
The South Bank Centre, Britain’s largest fund guzzler, was originally protected from the worst of the cuts by virtue of its favoured-child relationship with the Arts Council, which saved it from privatisation when Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council. There was a good deal of debate about this at the ACE and the final execution, left in Alan Davey’s hands, was harsher than the council intended. Nevertheless, although the South Bank is claiming a 15 percent cut, it will return to present funding levels in just two years.
One opera boss, normally restrained, told me this morning that the South Bank grant of almost £20 million was ‘a national scandal’. The South Bank does not originate or innovate art. It merely organises. It is a clearing house, a receptacle. Yet it has received better treatment from the ACE than hundreds of inventive, imaginative, progressive and educative institutions.
That, I’m inclined to agree, is a scandal.

My first leak of the morning gives a rundown on the ACE’s five biggest clients.

Royal Opera House
National Theatre
Royal Shakespeare Company
all three are hit by above average, double-figure cuts. Numbers coming soon.
English National Opera gets a standstill grant, on the grounds that any cut ould jeopardise its recovery.
Most contentiously, the South Bank Centre receives a standstill grant – in recognition of its far-too cosy relationship with Arts Council England.

More details and commentary to follow

In its second swoop of the week, predatory Sony Classical has poached the world’s most prestigious string quartet from rivals Deutsche Grammophon.

The Emerson Quartet will open this November with a Mozart release.
Their output on DG has slowed of late and their relationship with head office has become more distant than it used to be.
Sony are crowing that they have snatched the ‘pre-eminent’ string quartet. A video interview has been posted on the Sony Classical window, ariama, ahead of tomorrow’s press release.



pictured: President of Sony Classical Bogdan Roscic, Co-principal violinist Philip Setzer, Violist Lawrence Dutton, Co-principal violinist Eugene Drucker, and Cellist David Finckel (Photo by Tristan Cook)

Murray Perahia, who stepped in for Maurizio Pollini on April 4, has just pulled out.

Too much work, he told them. Might impede his recovery from injury.
Any pianists who are free that night in New York, contact the address below.

LATE EXTRA: He’s cancelled Chicago, too. Details here

Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss is deputising.

Date: March 29, 2011 | Contact: Public Relations | Tel: 212-903-9750 | E-mailpublicrelations@carnegiehall.org

CARNEGIE HALL ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION OF
PIANIST MURRAY PERAHIA’S RECITAL ON MONDAY, APRIL 4

Carnegie Hall today announced that pianist Murray Perahia must regrettably cancel his solo recital in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage scheduled for Monday, April 4. Since last week’s Carnegie Hall announcement, Mr. Perahia has re-considered and now feels it is not advisable to add additional concerts to his busy schedule, so as not to impair his long-term recovery from an earlier injury. This performance will not be rescheduled.

Ticket holders who purchased tickets for this performance through CarnegieCharge or carnegiehall.org will receive automatic refunds. Those who purchased tickets with cash should return them to the Carnegie Hall Box Office in person to receive a refund. Ticket holders with questions may contact CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.

***Please note that this update supersedes previous press materials related to this concert.***

Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall

Arts organisations across England will learn between 0700 and 0930 tomorrow what they can expect to receive over the next three years. 

At 1000 the ACE will announce its decisions at a press conference, having prepared the softer parts of the media to expect the toughest call since Sophie’s Choice and the most revolutionary overhaul in arts funding since the fall of Rome.

Insiders who have seen the documents say it is neither. Not by a long chalk.
The decisions have been made under five bureaucratic criteria (published in November 2010) among which artistic excellence is often bottom of the pile. The others include access, resilient and innovative management, social diversity, children and young people.
As an artistic exercise, the process is a mountain of paper clips. It’s a bucket of equivocations, a basket made of wet straw, a sheaf of deskbound compromises. 

The phrase to look for in the small print is ‘balancing the portfolio‘. By these weaselly three words the ACE will cover its own back, ensuring that no interest group is left unfunded, no matter how poor its contribution. Many organisations will do much better than they deserve for socio-political reasons that have nothing to do with art. Many of the most deserving will be consequently deprived. The process lacks intellectual credibility and artistic validity.
And some of the decisions, I hear, were taken on the flimsiest grounds.
I shall be dissecting early leaks here from 0800 tomorrow. Meantime, remember that phrase – ‘balancing the portfolio‘. It mocks the Keynesian principles of excellence and nurture by which England has achieved 65 years of artistic renaissance.

Expansionist Sony Classical has launched a dawn raid on bank-owned EMI to snatch one of its crown jewels, the Norwegian pianist, Leif Ove Andsnes.

It’s a blow for the former British label, which had nurtured the artist over two decades, and a coup for Sony to cash in just as Andsnes is winning world acclaim.

He will open with a Beethoven concerto cycle, recorded over three years with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The only cloud on his new relationship is the question of whether Sony will allow him to record esoteric nordic repertoire. EMI bravely indulged all such whims.
 

Press release below:

Sony Classical is pleased to announce an exclusive agreement with the celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to record the full cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Born in 1970, Andsnes has been performing internationally since he was nineteen years old and appears regularly in the world’s leading concert halls with the most renowned orchestras. His combination of superb technique and depth of interpretation have earned him great acclaim, and theNew York Times has described him as “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power and insight.”

“Beethoven – A Journey” will see Leif Ove Andsnes in partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra for a three-year recording and performing commitment commencing in 2012 with the release of Pianos Concertos Nos. 1 & 3, followed by Concertos Nos. 2 & 4 in 2013 and the Fifth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy in 2014 on Sony Classical. Each performance will be recorded live in concert in Prague with Andsnes directing from the piano. The project culminates in the 2014-15 season when Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will re-unite for major residencies in North America, Europe and Asia performing the complete Beethoven cycle.

Leif Ove Andsnes says “I feel privileged to be joining the Sony Classical roster and look a lot forward to embarking on this personal journey to perform and record Beethoven’s complete piano concertos together with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Beethoven’s music is for me both the most human and deeply spiritual music there is, and I can’t wait to see where the next years will lead me in working on these magnificent pieces. I would like to thank both the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Sony Classical for sharing such equal energy and enthusiasm for our common Beethoven journey.”

Bogdan Roscic, President of Sony Classical says: “We are very happy to start our relationship with Leif Ove with this massive project. It is literally a journey of three years and it will not just deliver the outstanding recordings for which he is known. Together with partners from other fields we want to create a unique tribute to Beethoven’s genius and explore why he holds such a special place in the pantheon of composers. It is a huge undertaking and we are proud to be a part of it.”

In the 2010-11 season Andsnes is pianist-in-residence with both the Bergen and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and has toured with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski and the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, performing Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto. This Spring he embarks on a major recital tour performing two sonatas by Beethoven and works by Brahms and Schoenberg with performances in Scandinavia (Copenhagen and Bergen), the States (Boston, Chicago and New York’s Carnegie Hall) as well as in central Europe (including Rome, St Petersburg, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Hamburg and Geneva).

In addition to concert performances with the world’s great orchestras, Andsnes excels as an interpreter of chamber music and pieces for solo piano, and can already look back on a long and distinguished career in recording, which ranges from Mozart and Schubert to Grieg and Rachmaninov and also includes a wide array of contemporary music. He has received numerous musical awards for his performances and recordings, among them the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, five Gramophone and two Classical Brit Awards in the UK, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Echo Klassik Award in Germany, Diapason d’O
r and Choc de Classica in Fr
ance and the Record Geijutsu Academy Award in Japan.

When EMI floated the idea of selling Abbey Road last year, it was an attempt to test the market for state preservation. Still, there’s no denying that work has dried up in sound-proofed rooms – especially those large enough to hold a symphony orchestra – and today one of Britain’s most productive classical venues has been put up for sale.

Potton Hall, near Aldeburgh, has won awards for the quality of its sound in recordings by the likes of Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Belcea Quartet, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Elin Manahan Thomas and James Rhodes. It also functions as a concert hall and centre for creative courses. It is owned by Jeremy Hayes, an experienced producer, and his wife Helen Hayes who runs the live events.
Property Details - Westleton, Westleton, Suffolk, IP17 3EF - Savills Estate Agents

But the couple have found the going tough and have decided to concetrate on family priorities. They have put the property up for sale here for £1.75 million.  
Property Details - Westleton, Westleton, Suffolk, IP17 3EF - Savills Estate Agents

Helen hopes they will find a buyer who will continue the hall’s work as a classical studio and performing centre. In present economic conditions that may not be easy, despite the idyllic setting and truly extraordinary sound conditions.
The hall will remain open for classical bookings until the day of sale.
Any good label need a new home?
Property Details - Westleton, Westleton, Suffolk, IP17 3EF - Savills Estate Agents

The international Welsh tenor, infinitely agreeable and versatile, has died at 72.

Robert Tear was an integral member of the London scene and in high demand at the musical summits, working with most major conductors and appearing on no fewer than 250 records.
He was Simon Rattle’s tenor of choice for Mahler and everyone’s for Britten, owning the role of Quint in Turn of the Screw and delivering indelible performances of the War Requiem. Bearded and bald, he was unmissable on a crowded stage.
My fondest memories of him are in the songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams, which he performed as instinctually and upliftingly as a deer skipping on the crest of a hill. May he rest in peace.

LATE EXTRA: The Royal Opera House Covent Garden is dedicating tonight’s Fidelio to his memory.
And here’s Bob with Julian Bream on youtube.