The fullest account of poor Anne Naysmith, killed last week by a lorry in west London, appears today in the Independent newspaper. The obituary writer Garry Humphries knew the old lady and provides some fascinating facts – that she was just 39 when she went to live in her car, that she had been a rising artist on the Wilfred Van Wyck list, that her mother was Russian and that she performed what must have been the London premieres of piano works by the mystic and altogether absorbing Russian composer, Karamanov. Read here.
Hong Kong’s traditional Chinese orchestra has sacked three principal players after the called for a change of management. Hsin Hsiao-ling, Hsin Hsiao-hung and Liu Yang, principals of the orchestra’s gaohu, erhu and zhonghu sections, were fired with immediate effect. There is no immediate sign that the dispute is connected to the local democracy protests. nThe sackings were announced on the eve of the Chinese new year.
More here.
From one of our correspondents:
I just got a fundraising call from the Met Opera. They had some sort of matching grant and were selling memberships to the Met Opera Guild, minimum membership level of $75. I said I couldn’t do that today but I’d be happy to donate $25. Embarrassed, he said “Sorry we can’t accept donations on that level. Thank you and have a good day.” I stopped the guy and said “You are refusing to take a donation?” and the guy simply said “I’m not in charge. Goodbye.”
Can that really be policy?
Every discussion of English National Opera’s problems winds up at the same door: the boardroom.
Say what you like about the achievements of John Berry, the company’s director, but governance is in the hands of the board, and the board has taken no responsibility for anything since Vernon Ellis handed over the chairmanship to Peter Bazalgette, who did a midnight flit to the Arts Council, where he has led the witch-hunt against Berry.
Yes, it’s that kind of board – divided, and divisive. Hopeless.
The solution? The board must go. But who will step up to chair a company that has lost the confidence of its funding body?
There is one person. He’s an opera lover and opera-goer. Immensely wealthy. Passionate about England and its institutions. Exceptionally adroit at business.
Don’t even think of smiling. He’s the best man for the job.
He is certain to be informally approached.
You read it here first.
We have received news of the death of Anne Koscielny, who won a major Chopin contest in New York and received a medal of honour at the Warsaw competition. She had a far-flung performing career in chamber music, working with the Guarneri and Emerson quartets, among others. She was professor of music at The Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford; also at the University of Maryland at College Park and the Eastman School of Music.
One day last week, the world’s self-styled ‘leading classical label’ signed a sweetheart deal with an online upstart.
Naxos of America licensed its entire catalogue to Pandora, an internet radio service that is gnawing away at pop and rock radio stations across the USA. Now, it’s into classical. Be afraid. Be more than a little afraid.
Pandora wants your ear time and will trample on existing outlets to get it. The energy is all flowing one way.
Pandora allows listeners to choose the music they like. Personalized stations launch instantly with the input of a single “seed” – a favorite artist, song, or genre. The Music Genome Project®, a deeply detailed hand-built musical taxonomy, powers the personalization of Pandora® internet radio by using musicological “DNA” and constant listener feedback to craft personalized stations from a growing collection of more than one million tracks.
If Pandora wins the classics war, many will say that classical radio was the author of its own downfall. For two decades, stations have been laying off presenters and putting large chunks of airtime into the hands of a central syndicator, eliminating local character and musical know-how. Listener loyalty is probably at an all-time low.
It need not be that way, however. One Texas station is trying to buck the trend (see below). Others should take note before it’s too late.
In Britain, meanwhile, a man with no broadcast experience has taken over as head of BBC Radio 3.
As it approaches its 50th anniversary, Austin’s classical music radio station KMFA 89.5 opted for a little rebellion of sorts.
The nonprofit station recently went more local.
And that bucks a trend followed by other Texas classical music radio.
Stations in major markets such as San Antonio and Houston have, in the last few years, eliminated nearly all of their local programming and opted instead to broadcast nationally syndicated channels, primarily Classical 24, produced by American Public Media.
KMFA, on the other hand, significantly increased its locally created programming.
Now the station features 22 hours of locally hosted or produced programs on weekdays. And while it kept popular national shows such as “From the Top,” “Concierto” and the live Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, KMFA has dropped Classical 24 entirely, even from the convenient overnight slot.
When he fled to Milan from the Salzburg Festival, Alexander Pereira was placed on probation for a year, after revelations that he had prettied up the Salzburg accounts through production sales to La Scala. Pereira’s term was due to end in December 2015.
This morning (we hear), without warning, the board of La Scala handed him an extra five years. The reason given was that his first months in office have restored the board’s confidence in his judgement.
After a slew of Russian-school pianists who bang like road hammers and pedal faster than Lance Armstrong, it’s a huge relief to come across a keyboard artist who treats the modern piano like Meissen china.
His latest release is my Album of the Week on sinfini.com. Click here.
The veteran crooner Joseph Kobzon, a popular purveyor of smooch for the past half-century, has been added to the EU sanctions list for his outspoken support for Russian actions against Ukraine, according to the Moscow Times.
Kobzon, 77, is a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament. Raised in a mining town near Donetsk (where a statue was erected to his fame, he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1983 after singing Jewish songs at a Soviet-Arab friendship concert, causing several delegations to walk out in dismay.
He has used his wealth to found and support orphanages around the country.
Putting him under an EU travel ban is a petty act of bureaucracy that will only convince Russians of the West’s absurdity while more outspoken pro-Putin musicians are still free to roam the world.
We understand that a leading PR firm has been commissioned to press the case for a new concert hall in the east of London. The LSO and Barbican are for it, as well as the broadsheet print media. But the political response has been total silence.
A full Rattle programme with the LSO is in place for next year. As pre-marital relationships go, this is pretty heavy petting:
Sat 9 & Sun 10 Jan 2016
Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande(semi-staged performance)
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Peter Sellars director
Wed 13 Jan 2016
Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin
Dutilleux L’arbre des songes
Delage Four Hindu Poems
Dutilleux Métaboles
Ravel Daphnis and Chloe –Suite No 2
Sir Simon Rattle conductor Leonidas Kavakos violin
Thu 14 Apr 2016
Messiaen Couleurs de la cité céleste
Bruckner Symphony No 8
Sir Simon Rattle conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
Sun 17 Apr 2016
Haydn The Seasons(sung in German)
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Sun 30 Jun 2016
Ives The Unanswered Question
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4
Rachmaninov Symphony No 2
Sir Simon Rattle conductor Krystian Zimerman piano
While Simon Rattle and the players are basking in London adulation, the Berlin Phil’s general manager Martin Hoffmann is demanding an increase in the funding the orchestra receives from the city/state of Berlin.
Hoffmann told Handelsblatt that the annual grant of 14 million Euros (US16 million) has scarcely changed in 13 years and all possible savings in the organisation have been exhausted. He has written to the new mayor, Michael Müller (SPD), and says: ‘I am confident he knows the global importance of the Philharmonic and its unbelievable publicity value (for Berlin).’
Hoffmann also dropped a thick hint about the future, saying ‘Simon Rattle’s successor has already played with us.’ Surprise, surprise.
When the Hanover Band performs Bach’s St John Passion at St Andrew’s Holborn at the end of next month, all proceeds will go to London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, by order of the band’s founder Caroline Brown.
Caroline, a cellist, has been the Band’s artistic director for 35 years. In 2012, she began treatment for a rare cancer and underwent three invasive operations. During the third operation she was fitted with an external stoma bag, which meant she was unable to play the cello for three years – and was told she might never play it again.
Then she was transferred to the Royal Marsden where three surgeons reversed the stoma last November in an eight-hour operation. Thanks to their care, Caroline is back in action once more with the Band’s busiest programme for years. Still under treatment, she hopes to take up her cello again before Christmas.
And she’s undertaking charity walks for the Royal Marsden. To sponsor her, click here.
