Mark O’Connor, the American cross-genre performer, saw his fiddle fall to the ground as he was getting ready to go on stage Monday night in Sioux Falls, SD. The instrument, made for him in 2002 by Portland luthier John Cooper, suffered two dreadful cracks.

Here’s Mark’s firsthand account of the disaster:

 

cracked-violin

 

 

My back was turned, as I heard it hit the ground. I swung around hoping that the violin would survive the fall as I needed to go immediately to the stage and perform my improvised violin concerto with the orchestra. The first thing I saw was the bridge down. I hoped it was simply a dislodged bridge and I could tune it up… Please, please let me just tune it up. Please, I will simply have to spend the only couple of minutes I have before I take the stage to tune it…just baby it, fuss with it. Make sure it is ready to go. As I picked the violin up off the carpeted floor in the dressing room, I cradled it as I cried out no, no… I placed it in the open case on the counter again, turning away while I sat back down in the chair, covering my eyes with my hands in disbelief of what I had caused.

The presenter was waiting for me to take the stage at that very minute. In a measured voice I informed him that I would need to borrow a violin. They paused the orchestra concert on stage already in progress, taking their intermission early while the conductor gathered up a few volunteers including the concertmaster to see about a violin I could play. After I closed my case, not letting the orchestra musicians gasp and get too stressed about seeing my violin, I tried their violins out in the dressing room for about 15 seconds each. I chose the best one quickly. It belonged to the concertmaster.

Yes, I most likely could have done anything in my career with any good instrument in the final analysis – in theory. But you get better in life by allowing people and allowing things around you to help you. You have to feel psychologically prepared. It is all about what we feel towards people, towards things, towards the instruments we play. Not how valuable the instrument is to someone else.

It is everything about human connection that causes us to be more attached to our musical instruments. The time spent with an instrument, finding every quality about the instrument and knowing how to discover those qualities at least once in a while, because you played your sound and your very soul into the body of it, into the wood. Your constant and consistent best playing made the molecules in the violin wood adjust to your sound and have it actually hum and resonate to your own musical personality, finding pure beauty at times. Maybe not every note or even every 100 notes, but once in a while it gives you exactly what you had been looking for and what you invested of yourself into it – pure magic. One of my secrets was that I never let the violin hear the worst I could play – ever.

I have to edit and pick out takes all week and mix my new album…deadline is this weekend. It is an amazing process, choosing takes. You grade yourself you know – self producing. But when you find in some of the takes, those “magic dust notes” that you only had dreamed of – you know the instrument had something to do with it. And it is pretty simple. There are about a millions notes left on the cutting room floor that only amounted to mediocre on your score card. The mediocre notes were you. The magic notes were a team effort – you and the instrument responding to you. It has been interesting to listen to the violin all day and all night long mixing the album this week immediately after I accidentally silenced it 3 days ago. Hours upon hours this week of reminding me how good it was, how good it all was.

It is not just the music though that connects you to the violin, it is everything else too that makes the instrument seem so close to you – cleaning it up and caring for it, taking it into every restaurant because nothing can happen to it, every grocery store, putting it just right in the back seat of a car or straddling it in the front seat because there is no room in back. All of the questions, thousands – “I bet you take that everywhere?” Responding yes, I don’t know what I would do without it. It is also about sleepless nights over it because the violin frustrated you because it didn’t like the new strings, or the re-hair or that you took her to dry winter weather. The countless hotel rooms where I put it in the bathroom during winter months and navigating around it in the middle of the night so I would not have to have forced air blowing on the case with it shielded inside, and maybe drying it out – just in case.

Or there are nights when you can sleep 10 hours in comfort because you did something great together – when you come off the stage and you are pacing in your dressing room because you were amp-ed up from climbing the mountain together again. When you feel those things with your violin…well it changes from an inanimate object to something you believe in, and somehow believes in you. An entity that helped you become better somehow.

The photo here is after the concert Friday night. They all said I did really well at that concert – it was a blur. Completely emotionally drained from the orchestra concerto performance, I tried to go to my highest mountain top on a violin that I didn’t know for the Improvised Violin Concerto. It seemed that a lot was on the line. The piece was hard enough before, but without all of my pedals, without the tones that I knew I could get out of it acoustically, was it possible for me to give up on my best that night? I couldn’t let that happen. After I was back in my room alone, I took the violin out of the case to look at it more completely.

Michael Nyman has written a symphony for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra containing the 96 names of innocent football fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster 25 years ago. The composer hopes it will make ‘a small but significant contribution to the healing process for the families.

The premiere is in Liverpool on July 5.

 

hillsborough fans

Maggie in her heyday narrated Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with orchestra for EMI.

Now David Cameron has gone into studio for Decca to recite a Rupert Brooke poem for charity.

Details here.

 

margaret thatcher copland                                     david cameron decca

This just in from City Hall, believe it or not:

boris johnson

Mayor urges young musicians to sign up for Gigs busking competition and launches #BackBuskingcampaign to support capital’s street musicians

 

Reams of red tape and a myriad of confusing rules could force talented buskers off London’s streets, the Mayor Boris Johnson has warned as he launched a new campaign to nurture the capital’s street musicians.

 

As this year’s Gigs busking competition gets underway, the Mayor is calling on musicians and music lovers to sign up to #Backbuskingand is setting up a taskforce involving the music industry and key agencies, with the aim of developing a pan-London approach to make London the most busker friendly city in the world.

 

In public spaces like Covent Garden and on the Tube, buskers have become a much loved feature of London life, but a myriad of confusing rules mean musicians are often unsure about where they can perform. Some parts of the capital now operate mandatory licensing charges and can impose potentially large fines, making it financially prohibitive for many musicians.

 

Busking is an opportunity for new and emerging artists to hone their skills and gain experience, but the Mayor is concerned talented musicians could be put off, even giving up on London altogether. Such an exodus would threaten the capital’s status as one of the world’s greatest cities for music.

 

The Mayor wants the new busking taskforce to consider a Five Point Plan, looking at the following:

 

1.         One busking plan for London: Can we create a one stop shop so it’s really clear and easy for musicians to busk in London?

2.         Red tape: can we simplify the rules and regulations across London to make it easier for buskers?

3.         Legitimise busking: can we all agree busking is a good thing and make sure genuine buskers outside designated schemes don’t get moved on?

4.         A London code for busking: can we create an accepted code that local authorities, private landowners, police, and musicians agree?

5.         Celebrate our great busking talent. Busking is too often seen as a form of panhandling or begging and musical talent is overlooked, how can we turn this around?

 

One idea being considered is the development of a website and an app, creating a ‘digital shop front’ for musicians to exchange news and obtain a range of information, including available busking pitches around the capital and whether popular locations require booking.

 

The Mayor is determined that London maintains its international reputation as the home of live music. London 2012 showed there is an appetite for outdoor arts and live performance and the Mayor’s Gigs busking competition has become London’s biggest free music festival. Music tourists contribute almost £600m to London’s economy each year and evidence shows live music and performance not only enhance the experience of public spaces for shoppers, visitors and commuters, they help to increase footfall and the amount of time people will stay in an area.

 

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: ‘There is no doubt that live music on our streets adds to the city’s vibrancy, but I fear some parts of the capital could become no-go areas for buskers. Rather than shackling our musicians with unnecessary bureaucracy, we should treasure the spontaneity they bring to our high streets and town centres. I want to work with the boroughs, businesses, the music industry and other organisations to cut through red tape and support the talented musicians that are part of the magic of our city. Come on, let’s form a band and make this work – BackBusking now!’

 

No tears will be shed for Maria Miller, who diddled her expenses and grudged her apology to Parliament. She was an arts agnostic who cared little for the vibrant and varied cultures she was supposed to promote and protect.

Report here.

maria miller

It looks and sounds like a professional chorus turned into a flash mob of survival fighters. The council seem to like it. Watch.

san diego opera

The Royal Northern College of Music announces today it has hooked the  French violinist Renaud Capuçon on a one-year contract as International Chair in Violin. Class act.

renaud capucon

Carnegie Hall, hustling round for a second replacement for the indisposed Lorin Maazel, followed the old dictum: always ask a busy man. It looks like the LSO get short measure from his translatlantic rescue mission, but that was never likely to bother their outgoing chief. Release below.

gergiev china

VALERY GERGIEV TO CONDUCT MUNICH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

IN ALL-RICHARD STRAUSS PROGRAM AT CARNEGIE HALL ON

FRIDAY, APRIL 11

Lorin Maazel, Scheduled to Conduct on April 11 and 12, Unable To Appear Due to Illness

As Previously Announced, Fabio Luisi To Conduct April 12 Program

Carnegie Hall today announced that conductor Valery Gergiev will step in for Lorin Maazel on Friday, April 11 at 8:00 p.m., leading the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in the first of two all-Richard Strauss programs this week at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. Due to illness, Maestro Maazel with deep regret has cancelled his professional engagements in Munich and New York this week. As previously announced, Fabio Luisi will conduct the orchestra on Saturday, April 12 at 8:00 p.m.

The two programs are unchanged, with Mr. Gergiev—the Music Director Designate of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra—leading a program of Strauss’s Also sprach ZarathustraTill Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, and joined by pianist Emanuel Ax for Burleske. The following evening, Mr. Luisi conducts the orchestra, with soprano Karita Mattila singing the composer’s Four Last Songs on a program that also includes Ein Heldenleben and Der Rosenkavalier Suite.

Carnegie Hall and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra are very grateful to Mr. Gergiev and Mr. Luisi for agreeing to conduct these concerts on short notice. Mr. Gergiev, who altered his schedule to fly from Europe expressly for this event before immediately returning to London to conduct on Sunday, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Maazel as the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra’s Music Director in 2015. Mr. Luisi is currently in New York leading rehearsals of La Cenerentola and appears at Carnegie Hall courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.

Brian Wise reports that Klavierhaus has gone. Yet another victim of midtown developer greed.

Brian notes: The transaction is the latest in a series of moves that signal the downsizing of the midtown piano retail district, which sits between Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and for decades has drawn piano buyers from around the world. 

Sic transit….

klavierhaus

 

Anthony Field was Finance Director of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1957, when its budget was under £1 million, to 1985 when he was handling £300 million a year. Over that period, the field he tended matured from pro-am to world rank. Anthony, who died on Sunday aged 85, was an apolitical nurturer who sought only the best for civilisation. He went on to become a successful consultant. Tribute follows.

anthony field

ANTHONY FIELD

Anthony Field Associates announces with deep sadness the passing of Anthony Field CBE, FCA, D.Litt.,DFA.  Aged 85, Tony died peacefully in his sleep at home on the morning of Sunday April 6th,following a protracted struggle with an untreatable heart condition, cardiac amyloidosis.  Although this condition sapped his physical energy enormously, and made it necessary in recent months for Tony to use a wheelchair to get to the office, he maintained his rigorous schedule of work commitments coupled with the responsibilities of caring for Ted, his 92-year old civil partner who survives him (the longest “run” of any of Tony’s many achievements, lasting 65 years).

Trained as an actor, he fell into accountancy as a more steady career, and rose rapidly. Within a short time, at the Comedy (now Harold Pinter)Theatre he established the New Watergate Theatre Club which hastened the demise of censorship of theatre productions, bringing “banned” new work such as A VIEW FROMTHE BRIDGE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and TEA AND SYMPATHY to eager London audiences.  He began a 28-year tenure as Finance Director of the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1957, and oversaw its development from holding a budget of under £1million to over £300million at his departure.  He was the leader in developing the successful collaboration between subsidised and commercial theatre, with an acute understanding of the fluidity of relationships between these worlds.

Deeply involved in every strand of the arts, he fostered lifelong friendships and close creative links with musical stars such as Dame Cleo Laine and Sir John Dankworth,  inspirational theatre leaders both onstage (Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Antony Sher, Sir Paul Scofield) as well as offstage (Richard Pilbrow, who virtually created the language of contemporary stage lighting), as well as supporting the early stages of the careers of creative visionaries such as Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Thelma Holt, not to mention being a practical supporter of newer generations of producers such as David Babani at the Menier Chocolate Factory and David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers.

Tony was always passionately aware that the greatest investment of all types had to be in education, to support the leaders of tomorrow , and so excited was he at the vision of Mark-Featherstone-Witty he collaborated closely to make the dream of Sir Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts a reality, raising millions of pounds to create the school which each year now  brings highly-skilled actors, musicians, technicians, directors,  producers and manager s to fuel the future of our business. Tony always adored visiting LIPA, and the sense of his excitement of being there was palpable to those of us fortunate enough to work with him.  Tony always made time to talk to any aspiring producer, to help them in whatever way he could, and was for decades a leading advocate of ISPA, the International Society for Performing Arts, which recently awarded Tony its Unique Lifetime Achievement Award. Tony created- and taught- the first ever arts management courses in the late 1960s, also lecturing at Harvard University for ten years. Also a prolific columnist, lecturer, producer – and so much more.

His brilliantly sharp, witty and enquiring mind was thankfully undimmed by the condition which finally felled him, and our team loved working with him as much as he loved working with us, right up to the end. He is utterly irreplaceable. A man who made theatre history on so many levels in so many ways is finally history himself. So many of us owe him so much, and we are all the richer for having the privilege of having known, respected and loved him.

John Causebrook, Gary Donaldson and Darren Black

Lluís Andreu, director of the Liceo in Barcelona (1981-90) and the Maestranza in Seville, has died at the age of 79. Under fire for paying high fees to big singers, his proudest day was bringing Luciano Pavarotti to his home town. ‘No promoter ever lost money on me,’ Big Lucy assured him.

andreu