First he cancelled Spotify. Now Rhapsody and others have been unlooped from the Macca machine. Here‘s the latest.

He’ll be an iTunes exclusive. (So who’s next?)

Original story here.

Luis Alberto Spinetta, known as El Flaco (Skinny), has died in Buenos Aires of lung cancer, aged 62.

More here.

Waiting at the dentist’s this morning – it’s all right, just keep up the flossing – I read the dullest, bottom-of-the-page piece I have seen about a conductor in a long time. And, yes, I do see lots.

The New York Philharmonic are very proud of it. They have just tweeted: nyphil NY Philharmonic

It’s the radio orchestra. But a guy’s gotta start somewhere.

Read on.

It has been such a long time since the cultural irrelevance known as ACE last fluttered an eyelid that I was half-hoping it had been declared defunct.

Sadly not. Attention is drawn to a new ACE website, titled SOTA2012, for State of The Arts, something to do with an upcoming conference.

In it, variously officially approved ‘curators’  blog their views.

One post, by ‘SOTA12 co-curator Hannah Nicklin’ is headlined: The UK Riots were a flashmob

She proceeds to explain: ‘The UK riots of the summer of 2011 are definitively a flashmob; flashmobs are not explicitly a game but certainly a first-person playful and pervasive form.’

Playful and pervasive. Go tell that to thousands who lost their businesses, homes and jobs. Further comment is superfluous.

This is state-funded idiocy. The Arts Council should take it down right away.

Better still, the Arts Council should be taken down. It has long outlived its chartered purpose.

A reminder of what these idle idiots are playing with:

The official version was that Simon Crookall resigned of his own accord after seven fruitful years at the Inidianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Slipped Disc didn’t buy that.

Now, the Indy Star won’t either. It reports he left practically under cover of night, without so much as goodbye to his staff.

There are questions here that need answering.

Hats off to Alan Rusbridger for leading by example. His pay will drop from £438,900 to £395,100 next year.

Mind you, the paper has shrunk so severely there can’t be quite so much to edit.

And in this one he’s playing the young Shostakovich:

This is not new – the video has already scored 700,000 Youtube hits – but for those of you who, like me, were unaware of its origin, the Nokia ringtone comes in at 14 seconds of this Gran Vals by the Spanish composer. And it does not outstay its welcome.

This is the composer, smoking.

Thanks to Anders Nilsson for the tip-off. This is the actual Nokia version.

And here‘s a set of contemporary variations.

There has been much disquiet about the International Arts Managers Association staging its annual conference in Budapest, where the Victor Orban government endorses racism and two outspoken anti-semites have been appointed to run an important theatre. Several artists, whose managers are members of IAMA, are refusing to perform in Hungary and demanding its international isolation.

IAMA is going ahead with its conference regardless, but has pulled out of an official reception at the Hungarian Parliament to avoid any taint of association with the regime.

Here’s the statement they have issued:

22nd IAMA International Conference

Following a number of concerns raised by members regarding IAMA’s next conference in Budapest, the board have issued the following statement:

“The board of IAMA is aware of the actual situation in Hungary that has been featured, recently, in the press and has taken into account members’ opinions both volunteered and solicited over the last few weeks. The matter has been discussed with our hosts, the Palace of Arts, in a meeting in Budapest at which the chairman was also present and in a number of ensuing conversations and meetings. We would like to make clear our support of institutions and managements in Hungary with whom our members deal. In this light, our conference in Hungary is a signal of our support – to our members and Hungarian companies who wish to engage with the wider world. Our hosts are mindful of the opportunities this meeting presents to the Hungarian music community and the forthcoming conference will again show IAMA’s role to be a supporter and promoter of the international music community”

After due consideration, the ice-breaker event at the Hungarian Parliament building has been withdrawn and an alternative venue is being sought.

A plaque has been affixed to the Bristol home of Elsie Griffin, the opera singer who made ‘Danny Boy’ one of the most beloved songs of the First World War.

Written in 1910 by a US-based English lawyer, Frederick Weatherly, and recorded in 1915 by one of Mahler’s singers, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, ‘Danny Boy’ was then given by Weatherly to Griffin, who made it universally popular. Over time, it became an anthem for Irish expatriates.

We can’t find a recording of Griffin singing it; make do with the lovely Deanna Durbin.

Griffin went on to become a stalwart of English opera between the two wars. She died, aged 94, in 1989.

Here she is singing Yum-Yum in a 1926 Mikado.

It’s an original work by Marc-André Hamelin. Puts all imitations to shame. When you’ve heard it, check out the classical source.

Listen here:

He’s 87 next month and becoming  frail.

Boulez is well enough to do the first half of three concerts this weekend, but not the Mahler symphony in the second half. That will be taken by David Robertson, standing in. More here.