Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has invited one of her country’s endangered orchestras to play on her state visit next month to Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The Radio Philharmonic Chamber orchestra will cease to exist in August 2013 if government cuts go through. The Queen is a strong supporter of classical music. Her invitation may be taken as a strong signal of royal displeasure. Read on here.

Koningin Beatrix.

Helmut Oehring was born to parents who were profoundly deaf. He has written a book about finding his sound language through sign language.

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Der Standard interview here.

It’s Sam Rivers, RIP. read here. Listen up here:

The Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, conducted by the American Eugene Tzigane, has been given three year’s breathing space by the town of Minden after running into financial crisis. It’s being paraded as a good news story, but in the small print the town will actually reduce its subsidy from 146,000 Euros to 81,000 and the orchestra will have to find the rest from private sources.

Where do we think these guys are going?

Photo: Joachim Grothus, Bielefeld

Advance data suggest a one percent increase in 2011, against a 12.7 percent drop in 2010. But Digital Music News thinks it could be wishful thinking. Revenue is likely to be down again.

The treat on your Slipped Disc turntable this morning comes from the oh-so shrewdly named French label, naive.

It’s an upcoming release of Mémoriale by Pierre Boulez for solo flute and 8 instruments (2 horns, 3 violins, 2 violas, cello) lasting 5’39, followed by a bonus track of Fantaisie (Les Pleurs d’Orphée ayant perdu sa femme), possibly by Luigi Rossi.

Listen up here for your lovely download.

The death is reported of Martin Isepp, who coached two generations of singers at Glyndebourne over forty years and was greatly responsible for the festival’s enduring success.

 

He was the son of a Viennese singer, Helene Isepp, who came to Britain as a Hitler refugee in 1938 and taught many fine singers, most notably Dame Janet Baker. He also taught at Juilliard and the National Opera Studio.

 

Martin, who was 81, will be sorely missed.

During the course of 2011, this site has undergone radical change.

It has metamorphosed from an early-model, one-track opinion blog to an international, often multi-lingual, crowd sourcing and crowd sharing highway for breaking news and major issues in the lively arts. Plus a good deal of fun along the way.

We will shortly publish a list of the year’s ten top stories, but it is gratifying to note that Slipped Disc interventions in 2011 have helped to resolve ugly orchestral disputes in Brazil and Russia and to shed light on other abuses that might otherwise have been silenced.

To our gratified surprise, Slipped Disc is currently receiving 200,000 hits a month, and rising. Over the next year, we are planning further improvements.

So here, for the time being, are four key tips on how to get more out of what is fast becoming one of the biggest cultural online communities.

1 Click the orange ‘sign up here’ button, on the middle-right of your screen, to receive instant updates of breaking stories.

2 Follow @NLebrecht on Twitter for feedback.

3 Send breaking stories and ideas to norman@normanlebrecht.com.

4 Watch daily for further developments.

Happy New Year, everyone, especially to our friend Tommy Q. who is due for a big bounce-back.

Click here for full display and sound track.

The songs of Marc Blitzstein do not exactly trip off the tip of memory, but the man was a close friend and collaborator of Leonard Bernstein and the chance to revisit his work is not to be missed. The symphony referred to above was written in London in 1944 and premiered by Bernstein in New York. Click here for free download in his song ‘Then’, wonderful;y sung by Mary Carewe on a forthcoming Orchid release, with Philip Mayers as pianist and arranger.

This should work, after previous fluffs. Enjoy – I did.

I’m getting fonder and fonder of Bernd Neumann. The German culture minister who gave the arts a 50 million Euro investment boost last  month has turned his guns on the main TV channel ARD, attacking it for replacing arts programmes with talk shows.

And he’s not just on about high culture. This guy likes to give his policy statements in jazz clubs. My kinda minister.

Peter Konwitschny, director in chief of Leipzig Opera, quit his job with one week’s notice on Christmas Eve. He will be out by January 1, 2012.

No reason has been given. Konwitschny, 66, called in sick early this month and Verdi’s Macbeth was staged without him. He has been in the post for three years.

Colleagues say they are surprised. General manager Ulf Schirmer stuttered out a few grim words of thanks. More here. I gues it’s one of those human chemistry things.