Derek Berditch, 58, head of music at St Joan of Arc catholic school, Herts, since 1987, has been jailed for 18 months for possessing 58,770 images of ‘extreme’ child pornography.
The judge said: ‘This is not a harmless hobby like stamp collecting and it is not a victimless offence.’
The news value of the story has been somewhat inflated by the discovery that Berditch once had a pop star, Kate Nash, among his pupils.
That’s what he says in the letter.
h/t: Guy Traviss
‘Well done and good luck!’ says Dave in the handwritten bit. ‘Our music is doing exceptionally well around the world and we will continue to address all the piracy issues. Yours, David’
A wonderful picture has come in overnight of Daniel Barenboim, working with Martha Argerich in Buenos Aires.
It called to mind an earlier image, about 50 years old, with Claudio Abbado.
Spot the difference.
Tales from the wild west:
Kyra Kopestonsky says she was stalked by a mountain lion. In fear for her life, ‘I don’t know why, I just started singing opera really loud, she said. ‘It kind of put its ears down and just kept looking at me, and it sort of backed away. Then, it came around the bushes an came towards me again and crouched about 10 feet away.’
A critic, maybe?
Report here.
The Pleyel was Chopin’s piano. They’ve upgraded it, again.
Message from Vanessa Benelli Mosell:
In June I recorded two videos on one of the two existing pianos Pleyel designed by Peugeot. You may have already seen how beautiful the piano looks and it has also a wonderful sound. The mechanic is actually built by the French piano maker Stephen Paulello working for Pleyel. We recorded the videos at his atelier near Paris.
The great baritone’s library – his books, scores, thousands of recordings, his grand piano – have been transferred in 20 crates to the Berlin State Library. The legacy, announced by the library today, includes signed photographs of Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Bernstein and more.
The bequest was made by the singer’s widow, Julia Varady. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau spent his entire working life in Berlin. He died in May 2012, aged 87, on a Bavarian mountain.
The Hobart Baroque Festival, one of the few cultural highlights on the island of Tasmania, has been cancelled for last of state funding.
Festival founder Leo Schofield said: ‘You know, Tasmania gets left off the map on a Commonwealth Games swimsuit and there’s a furore. We were trying to put it back on the map, culturally.’ He’s planning to leave the state.
Parting message from Leo:
Torrid day in Tassie.
Have reluctantly pulled the plug on Hobart Baroque.
Rather than deliver a half-baked program Jarrod and I decided not to do one at all.
Former Premier Lara Giddings acknowledged that we’d done two ‘on the smell of an oily rag’. Despite that they were both triumphs. We felt we needed to move on from oily rags and presented a three-year plan to the State Government to build Hobart Baroque into a world event but vision is in short supply in Tasmania.
Heading home to Sydney soon.
Thanks to all for sensational support.
Leo x
The BBC’s Director of Music, Bob Shennan, has lost no time in attacking the culture of its orchestras.
The new season of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra will feature a reassembled Culture Club with the exotic pop star Boy George and (less offensively) the chart-topping dance act Clean Bandit (which used to be an authentic string quartet).
The pop acts are ‘designed to broaden the appeal of orchestral music’. The BBC Phil is under a yet-unspoken threat from BBC cuts.
Shennan said the new season would ‘showcase some wonderfully diverse music to our audiences.’
‘Wonderfully’, ‘diverse’ and ‘broaden’ are code words for BBC multicultural mashdown.
Translated into plain English: Classical music is a yawn.
No wonder Roger Wright had to go. He was a doughty defender of the integrity of orchestras.
UPDATE: The BBC responds:
This is the third in the series of Presents, when the Phil collaborates with artists and presenters from lots of different genres and BBC networks. These have in the past included live concerts of iconic film music on Mayo and Kermode’s film review on Radio 5 live, a premiere of Californian composer Steve Mackey’s extraordinary Dreamhouse for BBC Radio 6 Music, a Dubstep symphony by Nero for Radio 1, as well as performances with Mercury prize winners The XX and with songwriter Richard Hawley. The plans for the 2014 Presents have been in the offing for many months, certainly prior to Roger’s departure, who also oversaw the series in 2011 and 2012.
Indeed he did. But not with a comment that suggests the orchestra cannot survive without pop add-ons.
The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has exposed his racial contempt for Armenians, a resident minority who were massacred by his country in the world’s first state genocide 99 years ago.
Here’s what Erdogan said: ‘I was called a Georgian. I apologize for this, but they even said [something] worse: They called me an Armenian.’
This man needs to be put into international isolation.
There’s a world dance premiere by Ivo Dimchev and the DV8 Physical Theatre.
Do not try this at home. Slippedisc is uninsured for reader accidents.
The Metropolitan Opera has forecast a ‘significantly larger’ deficit for the year ending July 31, exceeding last year’s $2.8 million budget gap.A financial-disclosure document released last night blames the fall on lower than expected contributions and a dip at the box-office.
Whose responsibility is that?
WSJ reports: The Met’s budget grew to $327 million last year from $222 million in 2006, when Mr. Gelb took the helm. To cover its operating costs, it has drawn heavily from its endowment, which now stands at $267 million, compared with $306 million in 2006.
Gelb is demanding 17 percent wage cuts from musicians, chorus and stage workers.
Anton Gerashteschenko of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has announced an entry ban on 500 Russian artists who backed the annexation of Crimea. No names yet. No guesses, however, who will top the list.
The Ukrainians are also taking about banning Russian books and films, in order ‘to block Russian propaganda’.
That won’t win them many friends. Nor will it help counter Russian claims that Ukraine is turning fascist.
Told of the ban, the Russian culture minister Vladimir Medinski said: ‘I hope Ukraine has not completely lost its mind’.
