This comes our way from a Moscow insider:

Two members of the Bolshoi staff are discussing the candidates for chief conductor.

What do you think about Vladimir Jurowski?, – asks one of them. – Well?

He is good, – answers another.- But he is obviously too busy, has a lot of obligations and that’s why it will be hardly possible.

 

jurowski

 

Then may be his younger brother Dimitry?

He is still too young, not experienced enough.

Then maybe their father Mikhail?

Oh, no! Impossible – I am sure he is a Jew.

 

A thoroughly researched piece by Elisabeth Braw on the irresoluble Italian opera crisis yields this incomprehensble statistic.

How did anyone in authority allow them to run up such a huge deficit? And how will it ever be paid off?

Read the excellent article here.

It contains, inter alia, a snarky remark by Peter Gelb to the effect that since Italy won’t take Met broadcasts the country must have lost its love for opera….

Cecilia-Bartoli-Daniel-Barenboim-La-Scala-Milan

KLEIN–David, The Juilliard community mourns the death of David Klein, an active member of this nation’s art world and the husband of Heidi Castleman, a distinguished member of the School’s viola faculty. An engaged and knowledgeable supporter of the arts, his presence added immeasurably to the quality of life of our students. Our condolences go to his beloved wife Heidi and the members of his family. Joseph W. Polisi, President Ara Guzelimian, Provost and Dean Adam Meyer, Associate Dean.

Klein-Klein

Our sympathies to Heidi, family and friends across the viola playing community.

 

The glamorous and indomitable Marta Eggerth breathed her last, in New York, on December 26.

Budapest born to a Jewish mother, Marta was on stage at 11 and in a Max Reinhadt Fledermaus at 17. Note perfect and good looking, she was the darling of the leading operetta composers Lehar, Stolz and Oscar Strass

A 1930s film star, she married the Polish tenor Jan Kiepura in 1936 and made the rest of her carer in the US. Kiepura died in 1966. They are survived by two sons.

 

marta eggerth

Peter Vujica, the influential culture editor of Der Standard and a composer and novelist under the pseudonym Peter Daniel Wolfkind, died on Christmas of leukemia, aged 76. He held the reins at Standard for 13 years from 1989 and ran some of the liveliest arts pages anywhere in world journalism. Before that, he was director of the Styrian Autumn Festival, one of the standout new music venues.

Vujica, whom I dealt with occasionally on the phone, was a contrarian. No-one could predict what he wanted since he changed his mind from one day to the next. Infuriating as this could be, he was also stimulating and sometimes downright funny. I enjoyed working with Der Standard and think of Vujica with a nostalgic smile. Characters of his ilk do not survive in the journalism of the 21st century.

peter vujica

The Palau de les Arts in Valencia has been shut and all performances suspended after heavy storms brought ceramic tiles down from the roof. The centre opened in 2005, with Lorin Maazel as artistic director of the Valencia Opera.

 

palau de les arts valencia

The Moscow theatre has a hole in the pit and needs to fill it fast.

Three names have been leaked to the Russian press as leading contenders:

– Tugan Sokhiev, a Gergiev protégé, presently head of the DSO Berlin and the Capitole orchestra in Toulouse;

– Vasily Petrenko, chief of the Royal Liverpool and the Oslo Philharmonic and principal guest at the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg;

vasily petrenko

 

– Dmitry Jurowski, younger brother of Vladimir who has repeatedly shunned approaches from the Bolshoi.

Of the three, only the last would be available in the immediate future.

 

Clemens Hellsberg, the erudite violinist who has steered the Philharmonic through multiple pitfalls through the past two decades, has broken his arm and will miss the annual showpiece concert for the first time in memory.

Hellsberg, 61, slipped while walking on an icy road and underwent surgery on a complicated fracture of the elbow. It will be three months before he can play again. He managed, however, to collect Daniel Barenboim from the airport last night and will appear at the pre-New Year’s press conference. We wish him a full recovery.

clemens hellsberg

The composer Rand Steiger reports the death of János Négyesy, at 75. A friend of John Cage, Négyesy premiered works by many composers, most notably Attila Bozay, Vinko Globokar and Isang Yun.

Here is Rand’s appreciation on his Fb page:

cage negyesi

It is with deep sadness that I write to inform you that the great violinist János Négyesy passed away today due to complications that arose during cardiac surgery. Professor Négyesy was 75 and had been a member of the UCSD faculty since 1979. He is survived by his wife, Päivikki Nykter. No plans have been made yet for a memorial service, but I will keep you informed.

János Négyesy was born in Budapest, Hungary and studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and later at Detmold in Germany. He left Hungary in 1965 and from 1970-74 was concertmaster of the Berlin Radio Orchestra. He lived and worked in Paris, Vienna and New York before joining the UCSD faculty in 1979. Long an advocate of new music, Mr. Négyesy appeared at major festivals throughout the world. In addition to performing, recording and teaching he wrote a definitive study of contemporary violin techniques, and was an innovative visual artist working with computer graphics.

Some of Négyesy’s landmark recordings included the first European recording of the complete Violin and Piano Sonatas of Charles Ives with pianist Cornelius Cardew and recordings of works specifically dedicated to him by important contemporary composers such as Attila Bozay, Carlos Fariqas, Vinko Globokar, Hans Otte, Isang Yun and his UCSD colleague Roger Reynolds.

Négyesy had a long friendship and collaboration with John Cage, who dedicated his piece One6 to him. Négyesy gave the world premiere of Cage’s Freeman Etudes I-XVI in Torino, Italy in 1984 and XVII-XXXII in Ferrara, Italy in 1991. He then produced a double CD of the complete Etudes in 1995 on Newport Classics Records. The complete Bartôk Duos for two Violins – with Päivikki Nykter – was released by Neuma Records in June 1993. Dedications – with solo works written especially for Mr. Négyesy by current and former UCSD students was released in June ’96 and a CD with solo compositions by Bartôk, Berio and Xenakis was released in Winter 2000, on Aucourant Records and Neuma Records, respectively.

This is the trailer for the forthcoming movie, Grand Piano, in which a soloist is warned he’ll be shot by a sniper if he plays a wrong note.

Can you see anything credible in this?

grand piano elijah wood

We are receiving reports that Shi-Yeon Sung, associate conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, has been named chief conductor of the  Gyeonggi Philharmonic. Shi-Yeon, 38, won the 2006 Sir Georg Solti International Conductors Competition and was assistant conductor to James Levine at the Boston Symphony.

She is the first woman to take charge of a Korean orchestra, a small but not insignificant step in the world’s keenest market for classical music.

suwon

It’s no secret at Yale University that the president, Peter Salovey, plays bass in a bluegrass band. They don’t lecture much about music in the psych department, where Professor Salovey plies his trade, but the prez has given a relaxed interview here. Watch.

 

salovey-double-bass