How’s this for cultural priorities? Chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted that Beethoven’s 250th anniversary in 2020 is written into the new coalition agreement with the SPD as a national spending priority.

Page 132 of the coalition agreement contains the following statement: “The 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven in the year 2020 offers excellent opportunities for profiling German culture at home and abroad. Preparing for this important anniversary is thus of national concern.”

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Does President Obama, we wonder, have plans for Bernstein 2018?

Or Phyllis Tine Cameron for Vaughan Williams 2022?

Yeah, right.

My album of the week on sinfinimusic.com is a recital of piano music by Hungarian composers, modern and contemporary. What they have in common is the knack of making you listen to the piano as if you’d never heard it before. Read the review here. Then try some.

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The viola player Maria Jose Igual has been robbed of her instrument.

She tells Slipped Disc:

On November 28 somebody broke into my apartment in Brussels and stole my new viola that I bought a month and a half ago.

Also there was two bows that I was trying, one from Cornelissen and the other one from Atelier Flagey-Bruxelles.

The viola is Gasparo da Saló model, 40.5 cm with the back in one piece and double purfling. The luthier who made the instrument is

Nikola Popara.

If you know something, please let me know:

mariajoip_82@hotmail.com

 

Christina Scheppelmann, former head of artistic operations at Washington National Opera, has accepted puritanical rules at her new job among the oil wells. No bare legs on stage, for starters. And Domingo conducting. Read here (auf Deutsch).

 

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photo: tedescavagabonda.blogspot.co.at 

Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1940 to 1985, standing head and shoulders above the rest, died on November 30, aged 94. Chicago born, he was taught at high school by two members of the CSO (does that still happen?).

Ed Kleinhammer was a mighty influence on generations of trombonists, both in person and as author of “The Art of Trombone Playing” and “Mastering the Trombone.” Full life story here.

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His name’s Callum Smart and he’s not yet out of high school, but he’s releasing his first record on Orchid Classics – the Grieg and Franck sonatas. The pianist is Gordon Back.

Callum plays a 1698 Antonio Stradivari violin, on loan from J & A Beare Ltd. He has an agent, Hazard Chase, after scoring a high placing in the 2010 Menuhin Competition in Oslo.

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The 2013 Grawemeyer Prize has gone to Djuro Zivkovic for a chamber orchestra work, On the Guarding of the Heart.

Belgrade born in 1975, Zivkovic went to study violin at the Royal Academy in Stockholm when he was 25 and has lived there ever since. His award-winning work was premiered this year at the Wiener Konzerthaus.You can hear it below. The opening riff is oddly reminiscent of Mahler’s second symphony.

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The Grawemeyer, founded in 1989, is worth $100,000. Recent winners include Michel van der Aa, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Louis Andriessen.

The things that cross a maestro’s mind… you may wonder how far it has wandered this winter. Just read this LM post.kim_kardashian_goes_without_underwear_takes_bathroom_selfie_244

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Hours after having to give up on Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, the principal conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was said to be resting in his Sydney hotel. A source close to the orchestra said there was no cause for concern. The tour had been too much for him.

The orchestra flies home tomorrow at the end of a four-week tour.

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UPDATE: The Concertgebouw have made no mention of Janson’s unfortunate withdrawal on their official sites. But they have moved swiftly to deny reports on this site that their principal conductor will not renew his contract. That’s Dutch for media policy.

The Concertgebouw founder, in an extremely rare spoken recording (auf Deutsch)

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On Friday at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, an eighteen year-old backstage cleaner, Daniel Ayala, fell three storeys to his death.
Unions say there have been multiple safety violations since the theatre was reopened in 2010, after renovations. Rehearsals were suspended by worker protests and today’s Ballo en Maschera premiere has been called off. Read more here and here.