piano bridge

Watford shopping centre, north of London, has installed a six-metre-long curved piano for shoppers to tap-dance their favourite tunes while strolling from one outlet to the next. Someone, please, play misty for me.

And send a video to Slipped Disc.

The pop pianist has given his prized piano to Stony Brook University on Long Island, his alma mater.

It’s the second piano he has given to the campus and it’s an unusual one, with 97 keys, valued at $250,000.

Story here.

 

bosendorfer

Here’s Billy Joel talking about not being Beethoven.

The radical feminist attack on an act of Christmas worship in Cologne Cathedral should dismay readers of all persuasions. Freedom of religious worship is a human right as sacrosanct as freedom of speech. When one is attacked, so is the other. The Femen group damaged their cause by denying the people of Cologne the peace of Christmas Mass.

Any attempt to justify this attack by reference to the Pussy Riot demonstration in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February 2012 is misplaced. Pussy Riot were protesting against the church’s support for the Putin regime. They did not disrupt an act of worship. Their protest was staged at a relatively quiet time in the church day as the basis for a video titled ‘Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!’

It was crass, misguided and offensive to the church and the regime but it made a legitimate political point and it did not attack the rights of any other individual. The punishment inflicted on the protestors was out of all proportion to their alleged crime. Pussy Riot’s protest was redeemed by the over-reaction of an authoritarian state.

Femen conducts its guerrilla tactics in the impunity of free societies. Its attack in Cologne was odious. The group needs to rethink its modus operandi if it is to gain any semblance of civilised support.

more femen

 

 

An activist of the Femen group climbed half-naked on the altar of Cologne Cathedral during Christmas Mass. The words ‘I am God’ were painted on her body.

femen+köln+tuomiokirkko+51154603

photo: yle.fi

more femen

photos: Femen

Cardinal Meisner asked for the 20 year-old woman to be peacefully removed. Clerics covered her in their cloaks and the service proceeded without further disruption.

Following yesterday’s murderous bombing in Mansoura – 16 dead, 134 injured – the Cairo Opera House has pushed back its Christmas concert with Gala El Hadidi to next Sunday.

cairo opera house

The time has come around again to ask you to guess which was our most-read story of 2013.

Was it, for instance, orchestral misconduct in Vienna?

jasmine2

The unending miseries of Minnesota?

minnesotaorchestraghost

Rumblings in Berlin?

rattlekozena

Death of a record label?

 

emi vaughan williams

Or a human emotion to touch all souls?

 

diego frazao torquato

Send in your thoughts. We’ll publish the full list in a week.

Robert Wilson, a hedge-fund mogul who used to be chairman of New York City Opera, jumped to his death from his 16th floor apartment in Central Park West.

Wilson, 87, had suffered a stroke six months ago. Detroit born and divorced for the past 35 years, he had given much of his fortune to charities, the arts and Roman Catholic causes. The full extent of his gifts is believed to reach half a billion dollars. Aside from his chairmanship of the ill-fated City Opera, he was also a member of the boards of the Metropolitan Opera and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Nature Conservancy's Global Gala

Photo: Andrew Toth/PatrickMcMullan.com

Vasily Sinaisky’s walkout as chief conductor three weeks ago has left a huge hole in the schedule. There’s a signature new production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s royalist opera coming up in February and no-one’s available to conduct it.

Ria-Novosty reports that the embattled chief exec Vladimir Urin has asked the veteran Vladimir Fedoseyev, but he’s too busy. Anyone care to volunteer?

It seems incredible that the Bolshoi Theatre should end 2013 in a worse state than it began.

bolshoi

andre rieu

We didn’t make it up. It’s an official Dutch stat. Read here.

The Stuttgart Philharmonic has appointed Dan Ettinger to be the city’s GMD, succeeding Gabriel Feltz.

A former assistant of Daniel Barenboim’s at the Berlin State Opera, Ettinger, 41, is presently music director in Mannheim, and chief conductor with the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Israel Symphony Orchestra.

ettinger

Some recent releases that may have passed you by..

pletnev2

A stunning, contemplative soliloquy.

corinne morris

A fine cellist fights back from years of shoulder injury.

matan porat

Too clever by half, but infinitely engaging.

avec un frisson

Clever still, plays misty for me.

 

lsolivelso0749

And a great ghost story for tonight.