Tight-lipped company statement:

San Diego Opera, Ian Campbell, and Ann Spira Campbell announced today that they have mutually resolved their differences arising out of their former employment relationships.  Out of respect for each other’s privacy, no further comments about these resolutions will be made by any of the parties.

We hope not much money changed hands.

ian campbell san diego

 

We hear that Carlo Bergonzi, who turned 90 last week, has been taken to hospital in a serious condition. We pray for his full recovery.

 

bergonzi

Brighten your day with Joyce and Jessye.

 

joyce and jessye

One of the few things everyone agrees on in the London orchestras is that, when it comes to shoes, no-one comes close to Maxine Kwok-Adams of the LSO’s first violins.

Maxine stnds out from the pack as she strides on stage in a gravity-defying succession of Manolo’s, Jimmy Choos and what-have-yous, every single shoe a winner and none worth less than a conductor’s fee. (She has other celebrity accoutrements, too, see pic).

maxine and clooney

Well, we have just received the following important information from the Musafia company of Cremona, Italy:

(Maxine’s) new Musafia – her no. 3 – is lined in a haute couture fabric depicting footwear galore, designed by none other than Blahnik himself, and supplied for the occasion. The very same material, in fact, that is the profile photo on the official Manolo Blahnik Facebook page.

Maybe Maxine can’t wear her latest Blahnik-Musafia, but her violin certainly can! 

Eat your hearts out, Berlin Phil!

maxine's musafia

 

The BBC Proms opens tonight with a performance of Elgar’s The Kingdom.

Seldom has a season launched on a more sombre note. The world is mourning almost 300 people on board a passenger plane shot down as an act of war. Repercussions will follow. A new ground war has begun in Gaza, adding to those in Syria and Iraq. World leaders are staring at their fingernails instead of talking to each other, just as they failed to do in July 1914. The atmosphere at the Royal Albert Hall will not be joyous.

The first night is also the last night for Roger Wright as director of the BBC Proms and Radio 3, a feat he has managed for 15 years, longer than any head of any BBC service since the company’s incorporation in 1927.

Roger has resolutely refused to look back on his achievements, which were many and varied despite increasing interference from swelling levels of BBC bureaucracy. If he put a foot wrong over the past 15 years, he quickly put it right. His departure leaves an almost irresoluble vacuum. No successor has yet been announced. A pop-oriented overlord has been appointed over the whole of BBC music. Another round of cuts is looming. This may truly be the end of days.

roger_wright_rah

 

Since I don’t want Roger to go out on a downer (especially with England doing so ineptly at Lords), let me share in fond remembrance the beginnings of our long collaboration. Soon after he took over at Radio 3, Roger asked me to breakfast. Over the first orange juice he asked why I never did anything for the classical network. I said I couldn’t work with them. The output was stale, stuffy, over-scripted, over-managed.

‘What would it take?’ said Roger.

‘A show about musical issues that never get talked about on Radio 3. Live, interactive, not one scrap of paper in the studio,’ I replied.

‘When can you start?’ said Roger.

That was the green light for Lebrecht Live, a programme that – in certain ways – was the forerunner of Slipped Disc. It brought down barriers in the music world and allowed artists and managers to vent their opinions freely in a secure space.

It was a huge risk for Roger to take. At that time, no producer on Radio 3 had ever managed a phone-in, let alone a live international text-in, online conversation. It was a leap into the future. That’s what Roger Wright had in mind for Radio 3. That, and much else.

He should be honoured for it.

 

 

On Monday, at the St Michael Church in Munich, Valery Gergiev will conduct Brahms’s German Requiem in memory of Lorin Maazel. The orchestra will be made up of musicians from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Maazel had been music director of both orchestras. The chorus will combine singers from the Munich Philharmonic Chorus and the Bavarian Radio Chorus, with soloists Christiane Karg and bass Georg Zeppenfeld. Bavarian Radio will carry a live broadcast of this concert.

Gergiev will be conducting Mahler in London until 10pm the night before. He is due to succeed Maazel at the Munich Philharmonic in September 2015.

maazel_fcb_180513

Levi Hammer is a young conductor who worked with the late maestro at the Castleton Festival. He has sent us a third intimate memoir to complement those we have published by a cellist and a violinist.

Here’s a sample paragraph:

He wasn’t a natural teacher, and he often couldn’t explain his legendary stick technique, at least not in terms of mere mechanics.  Instead he taught “the craft,” the innumerable individual skills that go into “the profession,” (both terms he used regularly).  He lamented the decline of the profession: that modern conductors no longer know the languages of the operas they conduct, that the fundamental skill of fluently reading a score is a rarity, that the basic study of harmony and counterpoint is neglected, that the exacting standards of the giants of his youth (especially de Sabata and Toscanini, whom he always called “Arturo”) have declined.  And despite my probing for him to name names, he gentlemanly remained silent, though he didn’t hide his approval of Gustavo Dudamel. 

Now read on here.

young lorin maazel

Paul Laumann, the radio voice of classical music in Cincinnati, has died, aged 89. He founded Kitchen Koncert in 1958 and presented it for nearly 30 years.

Paul-Laumann-1978

 

Cor Pan, a drummer and singer, will be remembered forever for the pre-takeoff words her published at noon yesterday Amsterdam time on his Facebook page. Cor posted a picture of the plane he was boarding and captioned it: ‘If it should disappear, this is what it looks like.’

Cor was heading on vacation with his girlfriend, Neeltje Tol.

Both perished, to a Putin missile.

This is Cor at work on July 12, in what may have been his last session. Rest his soul. May his loved ones find comfort in the terrible times ahead.

 

(If the video does not come up on screen, click the word ‘Post’ below)

cor pan

The German horn player Felix Klieser has joined the one-handed musical instrument trust (OHMI) as an ambassador, together with the one-armed English pianist Nicholas McCarthy.

 

felix klieser

Felix, 22, was born without arms and took up the horn at five years old. He has played with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and with Sting.

 

Nicholas, 25, was born without a right arm. He specialises in the concertosthat were written for Paul Wittgenstein.

 

nicholas mccarthy1

 

The OHMI Trust was established in 2011 to tackle the absence of suitable instruments available to the disabled. 

 

We reported a couple of days back that the Turkish pianist and composer had been evicted from the festival he founded by an Islamist mayor.

Today, he confirms the situation:

Important Announcement

As you know, I had founded the Antalya Piano Festival 14 years ago…

I am so sad to announce that I was forced to resign from my position as Artistic Director of Antalya Piano Festival due to current political situation….

I would like to thank to all the artists who had participated in Antalya Piano Festival and all the audience who had supported our festival within 14 years…
And I would like to announce that our festival is cancelled.

 

fazil-say (1)

mikhailovsky2

 

 

 

Note to P. Gelb: That’s sold out, not locked out.

(It’s Onegin in St Pete, if the Russian’s a problem)