Adrian Brendel, Alfred’s son, has been appointed cellist of the long-running Nash Ensemble.

Congrats both sides.

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press release:

CELLIST ADRIAN BRENDEL APPOINTED MEMBER OF NASH ENSEMBLE

NASH CELEBRATES 50TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON AT WIGMORE HALL FROM 18 OCTOBER

The Nash Ensemble is happy to announce the appointment of Adrian Brendel as its cellist. His first performance with the Ensemble in this capacity is at the Nash Ensemble’s 50th Anniversary Concert at Wigmore Hall on 18 October.

Adrian Brendel said: “I am delighted to be joining the Nash Ensemble, whose reputation as the UK’s leading chamber music collective has been so admirably developed during its first 50 years. The musicians are of the highest calibre, and Amelia Freedman’s inspiring direction and programming – including her incredible commitment to a wide range of contemporary music – make this a wonderful project to be a part of.”

Amelia Freedman, Founder and Artistic Director of the Nash Ensemble said: “I am truly delighted that Adrian Brendel has agreed to become a member of the Nash Ensemble. Adrian is a fine cellist and has a wide ranging interest in a diversity of repertoire, including embracing with enthusiasm, the Nash’s commitment to new music. This appointment augers well for the future of the Ensemble and for the wonderful players Adrian will be joining. I look forward to working with him on many happy and fruitful musical collaborations”

The concert on 18 October at 7.30pm features music by Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Berlioz. It is preceded at 6pm by a free concert featuring works by David Matthews, Gordon Crosse and Mark-Anthony Turnage, all commissioned by the Nash Ensemble during its 50 year history and introduced by the composers.

Born in London in 1976, Adrian Brendel studied at Winchester College, Cambridge University and with Frans Helmerson at the Cologne music conservatoire. His other important teachers have included Alexander Baillie, Miklos Perenyi and William Pleeth, with whom he developed a strong attachment to the chamber music repertoire from a young age. He attended masterclasses with members of the Alban Berg quartet and Gyorgy Kurtag and was also a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s prestigious CMS2 scheme for two years from October 2002.

The Nash Ensemble, Resident Chamber Ensemble at Wigmore Hall since 2010, is acclaimed for its adventurous programming and virtuoso performances, presents works from Haydn to the avant-garde, and is a major contributor towards the recognition and promotion of contemporary composers: by the end of the 2014/15 season the group will have premiered over 300 new works, of which 193 have been specially commissioned.

The Residentie orchestra of The Hague has been cleaned out of 75,000 Euros.

The theft came to light during the annual accounting procedure.

Curiously, it was almost the same amount as the concurrent payoff to the last chief executive. The police are looking into it.

Story here (in Dutch).

 

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I went last night to see my first Norma for 20 years and found myself wondering all over again why Bellini had put his best aria just 20 minutes into the piece, leaving the rest of the first act hanging in limbo.

During which time I tried to think of a more persistent earworm than Cast Diva, and couldn’t.

Can you?

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Greatest of all?

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We regret to report the death of Frank Shipway, a British conductor of vast experience. Frank, who was 79, was killed after a to-vehicle crash on the A342 at Wedhampton, in Wiltshire.

He was driving  a Jaguar XJ8 that collided with a Vauxhall Astravan travelling in the opposite direction on Tuesday, around 5pm. He died of his injuries yesterday at Southampton General Hospital. The driver of the van was discharged from hospital on Monday night.

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Assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1973, Frank Shipway formed the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Italy in 1993 and was its chief conductor for four years. Between 1996 and 1999 he was chief conductor and artistic director of BRT Philharmonic Orchestra in Brussels, then on the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. He guest conducted with the Cleveland Orchestra, Teatro alla Scala Orchestra, and the Moscow, Helsinki and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestras.

A recording of Mahler’s fifth symphony that he made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1990s is highly prized among Mahlerians.

 

In an otherwise thoughtful piece on the new-production aspect of the Metropolitan Opera dispute, chief music critic Anthony Tommasini has a typically wimpish conclusion: On the whole, one hopes that the unions will tone down the rhetoric. In his public statements, Mr. Gelb has consistently praised the artists and technicians at the Met, whereas many company members have denigrated their boss as overbearing and clueless. How can these put-downs not engender serious doubts about the Met among the very public the company needs to court right now? Never mind that the Times is, as usual, way behind the Times. There has not been a peep from the unions, or any of their outspoken members, since the federal mediators stepped in at the weekend. A nervous peace prevails. Wagners Das Rheingold Metropolitan Opera 2010 The false note here is Tommasini’s blind eye. Here’s what he failed to point out: – Peter Gelb has spent way over his budget. – He admits that box-office and donations have fallen way below target. – But Gelb blames high wages for the deficit and demands that the people who make the music take a 17 percent cut. Are they supposed to remain silent while Gelb threatens them with a lockout, loss of health cover for their sick children and a period of existential difficulty? What Tomassini ignores is that the Met dispute has become, in part, a discussion of Peter Gelb’s competence to run a major opera house. The unions – the musicians, especially – have raised serious factual doubts on that score. They were also right to question Gelb’s handling of human relations, never his strongest point. When the dispute is over, Gelb will be on probation to see whether he can restore financial stability. The musicians will play on.

The press service of the Central Military District in Astrakhan has announced that military psychologists have prescribed a programme of classical music for pilots as obligatory stress relief after combat sorties.

The music therapy takes place in specially equipped tents right at the Armavir air base, where pilots take off in Su-24M bombers and MiG-31 interceptors. The music is administered while the flight crew are sitting in charirs filled with polystyrene beads and designed to take the shape of each individual body for ultimate muscle relaxation. Tchaikovsky tops the list of prescribed classics, followed  by Mozart.

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Do other air forces have a similar programme?

We shared the lovely news a month ago that Midori, 42, is expecting a baby.

This has entailed a number of cancellations.

The latest, from her charity in Japan, speaks of  ‘complications in her pregnancy.’

That’s alarming. We wish her all the very best.

 

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Please note that the application cycle for Music Sharing’s ICEP the Philippines/Japan (2014-15) has been cancelled, effective immediately.
We will re-open a new cycle of ICEP application in spring 2015 for the next program, which will take place in December 2015 and May/June 2016.
Midori and the Music Sharing regret having to cancel the current ICEP application cycle due to complications of her pregnancy.

Music Sharing

 

 

This may be the dumbest promo in a century of audio recording.

‘Tell us why you deserve to be recognised as a superfan,’ it pleads. You have til August 31 to reply.

Oh, ffff……

Don’t click here.

 

 

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The Royal Ballet Flanders has sacked artistic director Assis Carreiro after two years in the job.

She was hired from Dance East in Ipswich by a panel headed by Serge Dorny, opera director at Lyon and a considerable fixer in Belgian affairs. The appointment was far from transparent. The end was very swift. Here’s the official statement.

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Dozens of opera houses and orchestras all over the world are free-streaming their performances, most with very little uptake.

Who would have known that Malmo was running a free Rosenkavalier, had it not been announced on this site?

How else would you get to hear of the world’s finest at Grafenegg this weekend, except by checking Slipped Disc?

For the month of August, we are running a special-offer advertising promotion for live-stream performances.

Space is limited. Please contact Matt Newton (matt@koo-boo.com) for special August rates.

 

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The first was the Irish mezzo Tara Erraught who sang on as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier after an unprecedented volley of sizeist, sexist abuse from male, middle-aged London critics.

The second, Christiane Karg, dislocated her knee in a stage fall on Sunday while singing the role of Sandrina in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera. In acute pain, Christiane refused medication and sang the second half of the show in a chair after a doctor in the house put the knee back in place.

christiane karg

Later, there was some doubt as to whether she could continue the run.

Glyndebourne have told us today that nothing is going to stop Christiane from singing it out.

When Slipped Disc hands out its end-of-2014 medals, reminds us to mint one for the slipped kneecap.

 

Derek Klingenberg of Peabody, Kansas, amuses his herds with trombone practice. That’s two herds – the 2.8 million people who have watched this video in the past two days of their own free will, and the poor cows who have no choice.

Shame their response is (largely) unrecorded.

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