We’ve been reading rave reviews overnight of an Osmo Vanska concert in Geneva. It included one of his trademark Carl Nielsen symphonies and a new concerto by the exquisite French composer Pascal Dusapin – the kind of new-frontier music he would have struggled to squeeze past the custodians of Midwest culture. Review here (en francais).

A psychological survey at the University of Hildesheim confirms that musical taste changes as we age. At 19, we want it loud, zappy and in short bursts. At 65, we are more reflective. No surprise there.

But the listener’s reaction to music does not atrophy with age. The survey, of 470 people aged 19 to 85, finds the same intensity in advanced age as it does in blazing youth. That’s interesting.

Results here, with details of a forthcoming lecture.

image source here

I met her in Warsaw last summer and was charmed by her vitality.

The Chicago psychotherapist Dr Gerald Stein believes in mindfulness and meditation as routes to overcome the stresses and strains of life in the 21st century. Neither, however, is easy to approach or to practice effectively.

So Dr Gerald recommends the music of a particular 20th century composer as an entry point. Read his essay here. Listen to the music below.

photo: (c) Betty Freeman/LebrechtMusic&Arts

Bryan Fairfax, whose death has just been announced, gave the UK premieres of the third symphonies of Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich at a time when the works were considered box-office poison. Bryan performed the Mahler with a pro-am orchestra, the Polyphonia, in St Pancras Town Hall in February 1961 (the professional premiere was given by Berthold Goldschmidt that year for the BBC).

A few months later, Bryan gave the world premiere of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony.

Other major works he introduced to Britain were by Nielsen, Percy Grainger and Franz Schmidt.

Australian by birth, Bryan never held office with a UK orchestra. He died on Thursday, aged 83.

Amid the welter of confusing signals from Teheran, comes a report on national television that the president, Hassan Rouhani, has decided to reopen the national symphony orchestra which was shut down late in 2012.

‘I am so sorry to see the Iranian National Orchestra shut down,’ Rouhani said, adding that ‘the administration will seriously pursue its revival, even if it results in another yellow card to the Culture Minister, Ali Jannati from the parliament.’

A “yellow card” is a term used in Iranian media, when a minister is questioned in the parliament and the MPs are unsatisfied with his answers. Rouhani went on to say that he is unconcerned by yellow cards. ‘We are proud of men like Jannati who defend freedom,’ he said.

Bangor University will inaugurate Theatr Bryn Terfel in September. Full story here.

Covent Garden cleaners want an extra £1 an hour for covering the BAFTA film awards, raising their pay to the London living wage.

Nothing to do with us, says ROH. They should discuss it with their employment agency.

Tim Penrose, one of the generations of singers that stretched early music back to the 13th century, has died after a short illness. He was 64.

A member of Pro Cantione Antiqua, Tim recorded music that went back into the mists of time, as well as masterworks by Orlando and Palestrina. He sang Athamas in John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of Handel’s Semele, among many other solo roles on record.

In recent years, he was director of music at All Saints Church, West Dulwich, which announced his death.

Kamala Sankaram composed and sang the lead role in the world premiere of an opera about a revenge gang-rape in Pakistan. Powerful and focussed, says New York Classical Review, whose critic is first on the scene. Read here.

Menahem Pressler was snowbound in Bloomington Indiana, with Indianapolis airport closed, when he had rehearsals the following day in Berlin with Semyon Bychkov and the Berlin Philharmonic.

What to do? He hired a 4-wheel drive jeep and asked a devoted student to drive him to Chicago. After a seven-hour drive, he found Homeland Security blocking the main roads in to Chicago.

Undeterred he took a side road without knowing where it would lead. He reached the airport and was delayed there for two hours by the plane’s de-icing. At Munich airport, his connecting flight to Berlin had gone and he had to wait hours more for the next connection to Berlin.

He arrived sleepless for rehearsals, played an immaculate Mozart Piano Concerto in G major K453 at the concert, received a standing ovation and encored with a Chopin Nocturne.

There is only one Menahem.