We have been in touch again with Boujemaa Razgui, the virtuoso player and instrument maker whose 11 neys were seized and destroyed by Customs at JFK Airport, as reported exclusively on Slipped Disc. Boujemaa has since been talking to the Globe and Mail, CNN and other media. Notwithstanding language difficulties, the facts of the case are now abundantly clear.

The case in which Boujemaa carried his instruments and some bamboos for making new ones, was seized by Customs at JFK Airport. It was delivered empty to his home, he assures us, with a slip of paper saying all of the contents had been destroyed.

A spokesman for New York Customs initially admitted that they destroyed bamboos, but not instruments. Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection later told Foreign Policy report that they had identified the instruments as agricultural products that risked introducing “exotic plant pathogens” to the US.

Boujemaa told the Globe and Mail: ‘I’ve been doing this for 26 years – travelling with my instruments and material to make instruments – and nothing like this has ever happened …They never gave me an opportunity to explain.’

An eminent ensemble director and colleague of Boujemaa’s told us last night: ‘To put the best possible light on the NY Customs assertion: The agents conceivably did not KNOW that they were destroying musical instruments; they thought that the items were just sticks of wood. This may eventually be their defense.’

Boujemaa told CNN: ‘I need something to work with, it doesn’t make sense to me that they were just cut off, I have a big heart for this… Right now I don’t have a job; I don’t know what to do… I need my materials to make my living.’

A group of supporters of the locked-out musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have appealed to the city of Minneapolis to revoke the lease to Orchestral Hall, arguing that the orchestra management has violated the terms by leaving it dark. More here. This ugly conflict has now run into its third calendar year. Please let it be the last.

I’m ashamed to say the orchestral footwear theme has taken off like … veruccas. The conductor Jesper Nordin has found that the Vienna Phil strays far from the traditional path in some of its concerts. Nix to Nikes, we say. More to follow.

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By the way, we hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are strikingly well-shod. Pics, anyone?

Behold the working boots of LSO violinist Maxine Kwok-Adams, who – in the absence of much competition – is hereby declared the best shod orchestral player in London. Beat that, you Berliners.

Maxine is, of course, not the only musician who pays attention to life below the ankles. Holly Mulcahy, concertmaster at Chattanooga, has been casting meaningful glances at how her male colleagues fill their boots. Read her admonitory words here.

Oh, and this is Maxine having a few bars rest:

There are very few women stringed instrument makers of international rank.

Copenhagen’s Lise Ingeborg Jørgensen was one of the cherished few. The Strad reports that Lise has died of cancer, aged 51. Very sad.

A discussion with orchestra friends raised the vexed (and little treated) question of podiatric etiquette. What should players wear on their feet, for comfort and elegance, in both rehearsal and concert? Which would you say is the best (and worst) shod orchestra on the world?

Do send in some pictures*.

This, for instance, is orchestra wear in Charlotte, North Carolina.

These, apparently, were seen in a BBC Symphony orchestra concert.

This is the Wroclaw Philharmonic (Poland), definitely a no-no.

Not sure about these: Eduardo Marturet wears specially donated Donald Pliner shoes while conducting the Miami MISO. They look like carpet slippers.

Are those two-tones in Philly?

And there’s more here. Including socks.

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*send pics to norman@normanlebrecht.com

This is Yundi Li on China television playing an acrobatic version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. The video was swiftly removed from its original Chinese site but a kindly soul has uploaded it on Youtube where Yundi’s legions of fans will rush it into the millions before the day is out. Unless it gets removed again. Watch, and wonder.

And another version:

We have been notified of an imminent happening at Logos, ‘the most experienced and innovative music ensemble in (Belgium) in terms of music and technology. Particularly over the last few decades, collaborative concert projects involving interactive robots and musicians have become a very hot focus of our activity. 40 years of experience in the use and development of all kinds of musical interfaces (wireless gesture control, real time sound analysis, microwave radar, acceleration sensors, pyrodetectors, lightsensors, myoelectric devices, brainwaves, EEG and ECG and so on), combined with the results of our experimental robot design, are bearing fruit. This has inevitably led to the formation of a professional ensemble with an international profile, specialized in performances where humans meet machines. Hence the name man and machine, M&M.’ See our calendar for information about the next performance.

Hmmm… bit cold in January for that sort of thing.

Terrible news from Spain of the death of Simone Bosé, head of Universal Music on the Iberian peninsula. Simone had a meteoric career at Mercury and EMI, switching back to Universal just before the British label was sold last year to Warner.

Well liked and open minded, his artists included Mariza and the chart-topping Pablo Alboran. Simone died of post-pneumonia complications.

Our sympathies to his family.

This unusual planned construction in London N16 has been designed by an electronic musician with a firm of local architects. It is modelled on an inter-connecting loop suggested by the infinitely repetitive piano piece Véxations by the infuriating French composer Erik Satie.

The district, Stoke Newington, is where I was born. Many musicians have since moved in. I’m delighted to see N16 getting an imaginative makeover.

The musician is called Scanner and the architects Chance de Silva. More details here.

… and they’re proud of it. They used to be a classical artists agency. Now they’re blowing millions of dollars into the sky for oil sheikhs when, across two borders, Syrian refugees starve and die.

IMG Artists’ Co-chairmen Alex Shustorovich And Barrett Wissman Announce Dubai’s Achievement of Guinness World Record® For The Largest Firework Display

A post from Juan Diego Florez:

We are blessed and forever grateful to have witnessed yet again the miracle of birth of our second little angel, Lucia Stella.

She was born today, 1st of January, in the loving and calm atmosphere of our home in Pesaro, Italy.

With love and thanks to all for your kind support and good wishes,

Julia and Juan Diego Flórez