Brad Wilber provides information, or speculation, about artists ho have been engaged by the Met. He has been doing so for 15 years, since the dawn of the blogosphere. Now the Met have ‘persuaded’ him to shut down.
Read all about it in the Los Angeles Times, and in Wilber’s own statement.
Who on earth do these people think they are? Whatever became of the first amendment?
If Brad wants to post on (offshore) slipped disc, he’s welcome to get in touch.
Funny things happen in these summer galas. According to the Berliner Morgenpost, the tenor ended the concert with a bleeding lip. ‘It was all in fun,’ said Anna, her hunky husband standing by. Erwin seems to find it funny. Read all about it here.
A young conductor, Jesper Nordin, prepared the Copenhagen Philharmonic for a performance of Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite, followed by Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Renee Fleming. Krystian Järvi then arrived to take over the general rehearsal and the concert.
The young conductor (below) watched closely…. and did not like what he saw. Not one little bit. Here‘s how he describes it on a new blog.
![[dk35_RJ.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qiMjpEqt3uw/TinvAXPD4BI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/OF8AG4PVmuY/s220/dk35_RJ.jpg)
Here’s a sample quote:
I was surprised to find Mrs. Fleming unfocused, the orchestra too loud and Järvi extremely nonchalant.
By some, his casual body language when conducting – when it looks the best, it’s somewhat akin to a Bernstein or Charles Munch – is interpreted as ‘charming’ and as being extremely ‘on top of everything’.
As in: “Oh look, his beats are so random he must not care how it looks – simply because he’s so good it doesn’t matter!!” I didn’t quite mean that as sarcastic as it may seem, but to those who believe it doesn’t matter how a conductor beats or ‘carries himself on the podium’, I can’t begin to tell you how wrong you are.
The National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica will not be engaging Daniel Nazareth as chief conductor next season, and that’s official.
The reasons, given to La Nacion, is that Nazareth’s $60,000 salary would take up more than half the orchestra’s budget for conductors and soloists. Also, that the maestro has made remarks that are ‘disrespectful’ to local artists, officials and the country itself.
Nazareth, born in India, has been music director of the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, and the MDR radio orchestra in Leipzig.
He has yet to give his side of the story. But La Nacion seems to have the lowdown.
He’s signed a book deal with W. W. Norton, Inc., apparently. The unvarnished saga from Baltimore to Brooklyn, nothing left out.
I’ve been sent some sample text by a jealous competitor (don’t even think of naming him). Here’s how it begins:
This is… this is… this is…. this is…. the story…. this is…. the story….. this is… the story… of… of….of…. of….the story…. this is…
It gets quite interesting in volume three.
Or is Index on Censorship totally losing the plot? This just in from the libertarian organisation.
Jordan Blackshaw, 20, from Northwich Town, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, were jailed for four years yesterday after admitting using Facebook to organise riots in their home towns. No trouble took place.
Emily Butselaar, Online editor of Index on Censorship said:
“These sentences and the government’s rhetoric on banning social media during unrest are undermining our international reputation as a bastion of free expression and justice. The fact the Chinese state media have praised the UK government for suggesting such a ban should be acutely embarrassing for No. 10.”
The sentences were imposed with the aim of deterrence. Index is concerned that the courts are in danger of undermining the UK’s reputation for both justice and freedom of speech. Even though these cases did not lead to violence, these “speech crimes” have led to some of the harshest sentences seen following the riots in the UK last week.
In adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to sentencing, the courts have failed to recognise that these are very different cases. Sutcliffe-Keenan claimed he created the Facebook event as a drunken joke. His post was only up for a matter of hours before he took it down and apologised online, whereas Blackshaw was arrested by police at the meeting place he’d designated for ”Smash dwn in Northwich Town”.
For comment contact Index on Censorship tel + 44 (0) 20 7334 2522
The greatest German lyric tenor of the 20th century? Perhaps of all time?
Well, someone had to spot the talent.
The man who did was Emmerich Smola, chief conductor for 40 years of the radio orchestra in Kaiserslautern, southwest Germany.
Starting in 1946 as a double-bass player, Smola became conductor two years later. In 1949 he heard this stunning voice in a programme about the Berlin composer Carl Friedrich Zelter, Goethe’s buddy. ‘Book him,’ said Em. He managed to make several records with the golden lad before he was snapped up by the majors.
Smola died on Tuesday, aged 89.
An authoritative figure at Universal Music has strongly denied my earlier report that its classical agency is about to be shut down. It will, instead, be ‘reconfigured’.
What that means is that one of the two senior agents – no names yet, for legal reasons – will be ‘moving on’ (as the current industry jargon has it), while the other remains in a reformed organisation. The company will be moved to Berlin, in close proximity to Deutsche Grammophon.
That’s all they can say for the moment, even off the record. Here are the two likely lads in happier times, Vanderveen with his Anna
and Seipt with the DG label chief Michael Lang.
Many ulterior agendas lurk behind the new twinning deal between the New York Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Here are some of the more disquieting ones.
1 Long Yu, the Shanghai conductor, is a senior Communist Party official who was appointed music director in Shanghai without the musicians’ approval. Many, in fact, opposed his accession. How does that square with the democratic values of the New York Phil?
2 The agent behind the deal is Jean-Jacques Cesbron, president of Columbia Artist Management (CAMI, right in the pic below). JJ, as he’s known, is Lang Lang’s personal agent. Was Lang Lang party to the deal? Did he broker it? Lang Lang turns very shy when asked in interviews about Long Yu.
3 CAMI has moved in to replace IMG as Long Yu’s preferred partner. On what terms?
4 The Shanghai players are traditionally polite, the New Yorkers notoriously not. Who will be teaching what to whom?
5 How soon before Long Yu conducts the New York Philharmonic?
Credit to Brian Wise of WQXR for breaking the story.
Leaked sections of an independent report suggest that cocaine use has been so extensive at Danish Royal Ballet that even casual visitors and guest artists were aware of it. The company has withheld any substantive comment or disciplinary action, but its balletmaster Nicholas Hübbe (below), once a star of New York City Ballet, is heavily implicated and may struggle to survival the scandal. Several dancers have quit in disgust.
Here‘s the latest summary and here‘s the full report.
photoL Nikolai Linares. all rights reserved.
A senior figure at Universal Music has contacted me to contradict my earlier report, based on several sources in Salzburg, that its controversial artists’ agency will be shut down. It will, instead, be ‘reconfigured’. More details here.
The project was always contentious, seducing a pair of ambitious agents with four major stars Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, Karita Mattila and Thomas Hampson – to quit IMG and set up shop inside their record store. There were obvious conflicts of interest and Mattila soon quit. The agency, headed by Jeffrey Vanderveen and Manfred Seipt, struggled at attract new talent and an attempt to shore it up by means of a dodgy merger with the London agency Harrison Parrott crashed in flames before the lawyers were finished with the fine print.
Now Universal has finally lost patience with the operation. Vanderveen has approached other agencies to take him on, so far without success. The artists, I hear, have not been told. They are always the last to know.
Anna, Rolando, if you’re reading this: your agent is looking for a bed for the night.
Trebs with King Rollo
Trebs with Vanderveen
Very good news just in from my man in Japan.
Seiji Ozawa is back in action, and on top form. Here’s the word from Rob Weir, principal bassoon of the San Francisco Orchestra, in Matsumoto:
Just wanted to pass along to you that I can very happily report for the Saito Kinen Matsumoto Festival, that Seiji Ozawa is in his fabulous fine form conducting Bluebeard’s Castle here in Matsumoto. It is so wonderful seeing him looking so fit and, while still a little thin, vigorous and so thoroughly the inspiring and inspired maestro.
The performances beginning, next week, will be sensational with the incredible baritone, Matthias Goerne, Mezzo Elena Zhidkova, and Andra Palerdi, bass. Wish you could be here to listen. I am happily making whatever contribution I can as principal bassoon for these performances and for the Miraculous Mandarin complete ballet. A pure joy in making music with this collection of international orchestral stars.
Ozawa, 75, has been out of action for more than a year after surgery for oesophageal cancer and hernia.
