A new study by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago attempts to assess which cities do most to support their arts.

The diagram says it all:

 

cultural policy

In order of per capita generosity, the cities rank:

1 San Francisco ($12.95)

2 Cleveland ($12.48)

3 Miami

4 San Diego

5 Columbus, Ohio

6 Denver

7 Houston

8 Portland, Oregon

9 Philadelphia

10 Chicago

11 Boston ($0.21)

12 Phoenix ($0.18)

Read the full report here.

 

 

Gustavo Gimeno is to be the new chief conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic, succeeding Emanuel Krivine.

He was preferred to the only other shortlisted candidate, Joshua Weilerstein. Details here.

Gimeno has been rising all year like a comet. A percussionist in the Concertgebouw, he stood in several times for Mariss Jansons and has been hotly fancied for several vacancies. Luxembourg is rich and has a terrific hall. Can he bring it to life?

 

gimeno

 

When we reported a few days back that Hartford, Connecticut, was staging a Ring with a funny-sounding canned orchestra, there was a wave of understandable shock and outrage across the music world. The festival has just issued this response, for what it’s worth:

connecticut ring

 

 See Update below.

A Statement from the Hartford Wagner Festival
This project of presenting “Das Rheingold” was originally conceived to use a digital orchestra and was never intended to use a live orchestra. There was never an opportunity for instrumentalists to be involved in the first place and consequently there is no loss of work for them. The project was solely designed to employ and test the use of a digital orchestra in a performance situation as the state of the art of sampled instruments has progressed immensely in recent years.

The project was also designed to give American singers the ability to try out these roles in a smaller theater and add them to their resumes which would allow them the opportunity to perform the roles in larger houses here and abroad. All of our artists and their managements were aware of the scope of the project and agreed to perform knowing that we would be utilizing a digital orchestra. The excitement within our organization has continued to build as we come closer to our performances.

Once again, however, let me reiterate that the project was never intended to use anything other than a digital orchestra and therefore no opportunities for instrumentalists have been lost. We have, however, provided opportunities for 32 singers, conductors, pianists, production staff etc. that they would not have had without our production of “Das Rheingold.”

 

UPDATE, June 16:

It is with great sadness that we must announce that the 2014 production of “Das Rheingold” has been postponed until next year due to the vicious and coordinated attacks on the Hartford Wagner Festival by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) which have forced the resignations of our Music Director and two of our performers with threats of loss of future work.

We continue to support all our local musicians as we have stated from the beginning of our project and we hope that our patrons will continue to support them as well.

The Hartford Wagner Festival, Inc.

In case anyone thought it was getting easier to fly the friendly skies, here’s a horror tale that came our way today from the cellist Raphael Wallfisch.

Raphael had a concert in Rome and rang British Airways to ask what it would cost to book his 1760 Gennaro Gagliano cello in the cabin.

He’d have to buy six seats, he was told, to carry the cello in safety. Oh, and the seat configuration was only three across. tricky, that.

He flew Easyjet.

When will they ever learn?

 

raphael wallfisch

We hear word of internal turmoil at the exquisite Hyperion label.

Although none of the parties involved have responded to our inquiries, it appears that Mike Spring – who was producer and commercial director – has walked out after 25 years.

He has been seen lately at industry gatherings recruiting talent for the APR label that he bought off the shelf a few years ago.

Mike Spring is an aficionado of piano music, 19th century romantic in particular, and he has been the driving force behind Hyperion’s vast and intriguing series of long-forgotten concertos. He is personally close to several the label’s major artists.

It appears that Spring has fallen out fatally with Simon Perry who inherited the label from his late father, Ted. Simon has lately assumed total control of the business, buying out his siblings. This may have been the trigger for Spring’s departure, but neither man is saying much.

 

hyperion

 

Message just received:

We are very sorry to inform you that Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu will not attend the press conference announced for Saturday 7 June 2014, 12 noon, at St Paul Pavilion Room, Level 6, Southbank Centre.

The press conference will go ahead with:
Christian Vasquez, conductor of the Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra
Eduardo Mendez, Director General of Fundacion Musical Simon Bolivar (El Sistema)
Gillian Moore, Head of Classical Music at Southbank Centre
Shân Maclennan, Creative Director of Learning & Participation at Southbank Centre

Please receive the apologies of Fundacion Musical Simon Bolivar for this inconvenience.

No reason has been given. Could it be that Maestro Abreu did not want to face independent questioning about his political allies in Venezuela?

abreu dudamel

 

south bank shell

This is the unsightly new Shell Centre, approved this morning by the an-aesthetic Tory Government as the new face of London’s South Bank, close to the concert halls and National Theatre.

Ugly? Not even. It’s just another characterless development that could be anywhere in the world (the developers are from Qatar).

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, had the sense and good taste to kill off  the latest anodyne development plan for the South Bank Centre culture area. He needs to get stuck in and stop this defacement of a riverfront stretch of national and world heritage.

Boris, are you reading me?

 

Sian Edwards, head of the Advanced Conducting Course at Dartington International Summer School, is more than a little surprised that not a single woman has applied this summer.

Sian, a former music director at English National Opera and head of conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, was apparently expecting a surge after Marin Alsop’s challenging words at the 2013 Last Night of the Proms. But her words have not percolated down to Dartington level.

 

sian edwards

 

Nicholas Daniel, this summer’s artistic director, said: ‘In our Summer School this year, I just wanted the best people. As it turns out two of them (Holly Mattieson and Sian) are brilliant and talented women, and one of them, Sian Edwards, has the important job of training new conductors on our highly respected Advanced Conductors Course. Given the same opportunities and training there is no reason why, as in much of the rest of our profession and in all of the training schools, more than half of the great conductors should not be women. That they are not already is an appalling stain on the front of the white shirted reputation of our business, and it must as quickly as possible be corrected.’

So why have no women applied?

 

 

Leonard Slatkin’s scouts have been busy as the close season approaches. Two principals were hired last weekend, bringing the season’s recruit total to eight. The new guys are Ralph Skiano, 34, principal clarinet and Kevin Brown, 27, principal double-bass.

 

 

detroit-symphony-orchestra-tickets-ann-arbor_13028879199

James Randall, composer and Princeton electronics pioneer, has died aged 84. The university has published a tributes page here.

 

james randall

 

 

One of the richest political capitals in Europe has cancelled its 2014 music festival for lack of interest.

There’s talk of a 300,000 Euro deficit and tickets sales were running at below 30 percent, must three days before opening.

You might have thought a few gravy-train MEPs might have liked a night at the opera, but clearly the restaurants come first.

 

strasbourg restaurant

Here’s the letter received by artists, three days before they were due to turn up:

Strasbourg, le 03 juin 2014

Madame, Monsieur, Compte tenu de différents éléments conjoncturels, notre Association, qui avait été placée en redressement judiciaire puis admise au bénéfice d’un plan de redressement et d’apurement du passif selon Jugement du Tribunal de Grande Instance de Strasbourg en date du 10 avril 2014, se voit contrainte d’envisager sa liquidation à effet immédiat.

Les ventes de billetterie ne permettent pas de faire face aux engagements devant ainsi être respectés. Une requête en ce sens a été déposée. En conséquence, l’engagement que vous avez pris vis-à-vis de notre Association n’a plus lieu d’être et ne saurait être maintenu. Nous ne pouvons que regretter cette situation, alors que notre Association exerçait depuis 1932 pour la promotion notamment du Festival de Musique de STRASBOURG et le domaine culturel musical. Nous tenions à vous informer par priorité compte tenu de l’excellence de nos relations. Veuillez croire, Madame, Monsieur, en l’expression de mes salutations les meilleures. Marc-Daniel ROTH Président”

Now that’s a role I’ve always coveted. Details below.

 

car-men

 

El Vacie, Seville, 1920

Set in the gay community of liberal 1920s Spain, Don José is the central character in this all-male reworking of Bizet’s tragic opera.  Sexually confused and dominated by the strictly religious upbringing imposed by his mother, he has come from the country to Seville to get a glimpse of the young man he has idolised from afar, the dancer, Carmen.

Two simple events change the course of their lives.  Carmen, a hedonistic player, chooses the simple man as his sexual plaything that night.  José falls in love – but Carmen already has his eye on the famous matador, Escamillo..

With pent-up rage and jealousy, he watches as the dancer and the matador flirt before his very eyes.  At that moment, news comes that the one person who can control him, his mother, is near death.

With the shackles of maternal and religious influence removed, there is nothing to prevent Don José from taking what he has always wanted.

 

With homosexual, religious and psychological themes, this intimate production involving just five singers shows Bizet’s tale of love, passion, jealousy and anger between men.  Performed in the round, with the audience on scene and free to move around the action, Secret Opera will give an unforgettable and heart-rending experience to all.

 

Sung in English with piano accompaniment by Andrew Charity.  Design by Richard Cooper, costumes by Natalie Lewis, directed by Robin Pietà. The opera is double cast, featuring company regulars alongside new artists for this project.

 

The performances run from June 30th to July 6th at the Studio Theatre, the Poor School . Internet interest in this unusual production has been high.