When the New York Philharmonic awarded its front seat to a guy there was a general shrug and a sigh: that’s how things are, right?

But during the interregnum since Glenn Dicterow’s retirement, the orchestra has been very capably led by Sheryl Staples and the Philharmonic has two further associate concertmasters in Michelle Kim and Carole Webb. These days, you are almost more likely to see New York Phil with a woman leading than a man.

 

nurit bar-yosef

Elsewhere, Nurit Bar-Josef (above, right) is concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra and four more women concertmasters have been appointed around the country since 1988 when Emmanuelle Boisvert became the first, in Detroit. In Minnesota, the concertmaster recently married the music director. Still, the situation is patchy and five concertmasters is not that many in a pack of 250 orchestras. (UPDATE: see below: there are more, many more).

In Europe, the distribution is northerly – more women concertmasters in Scandinavia, few in Austro-Germany.

Maybe we should start a list.

Send in details of concertmasters or acting concertmasters of symphony orchs, wherever you are.

We’ll exclude chamber orchs for the time being. Bear in mind, too, that many German orchs have three or four concertmasters, greatly increasing equal opportunities.

*

Here goes:

North America (from north to south):

Diana Cohen, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra

Gwen Hoebig, Winnipeg

Bénédicte Lauzière, recently appointed concertmaster of Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Ontario.

Yukari Cousineau, l’Orchestre metropolitain in Montreal

 

Yoonshin Song is the new concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Juliana Athayde, Rochester

Susie Park, Kalamazoo

Holly Mulcahy, Chattanooga Symphony and Opera

Robin Mayforth, Symphony Silicon Valley

Terrie Baune and Dawn Harms, co-concertmasters, Oakland East Bay Symphony (northern California)

Erin Keefe, Minnesota Orchestra

 

erin keefe

Nurit Bar-Josef, National Symphony Orchestra

Ruth Lenz, Reno Philharmonic

Stephanie Sant Ambrogio, Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jessica Mathaes, Austin Symphony.

Suzanne Jacobson, Temple (TX) Symphony

Carolyn Richards-Chacon, Austin Civic Orchestra

Annamaria Karacsony, Colorado Mahlerfest Orchestra.

Denise Tarrant, Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet

Jessica Tong, Evansville Philharmonic

Susanna Perry Gilmore, concertmaster of the Omaha, Nebraska Symphony

Jill Levy of the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra

Sarah Kwak at the Oregon Symphony.

Yumi Hwang-Williams, Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver

Dawn Gingrich, Orchestra Iowa

 

South America

Lucia Luque, Córdoba Symphony Orchestra (Argentina).

 

Europe

Anna Gebert is concertmaster in Trondheim, Norway.

 

anna gebert

 

Melina Mandozzi , Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Norway

Elise Båtnes at the Oslo Philharmonic

Camilla Kjøll and Catharina Chen, Oslo Opera orchestra

 

Maaria Leino, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Finland

 

Malin Broman, Swedish Radio SO, Stockholm

Jannica Gustafsson and Tale Olsson, Stockholm Opera orchestra

Øyvor Volle, Gøteborgs Opera

Sara Trobäck, Gøteborgs SO

Marika Fältskog, Malmö Symphony Orchestra

 

Yana Deshkova Aalborg Symphony

Christina Åstrand and Soo-Jin Hong Copenhagen Radio, Denmark

Sigrún Eðvaldsdóttir, Iceland SO

 

Sabine Vivian-Höpker at Nordwestdeutche Philharmonie, Germany

Dora Bratchkova and Margarete Adorf, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken

Kathrin Rabus at NDR Hannover

Ursula Berg in the Gürzenich orchestra, Cologne

Natalie Kundirenko, Göttinger Symphonie Orchester

Anna Rezniak, Nürnberger Symphoniker

Mila Georgieva and Natalie Chee, co-concertmasters of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Yun-Jin Cho, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Heike Janicke, Dalia Schmalenberg, Eva Dollfuß, Dresdner Philharmonie
Juliane Winkler, Staatskapelle Berlin
Odette Couch, Munich Philharmonic
Alexandra Psareva, Ruxandra Klein, Marietta Kratz & Brigitte Lang, NDR Sinfonieorchester

Friederike Starkloff, NDR Radiophilharmonie

Naoko Ogihara, Susanne Richard & Ye Wu; WDR Sinfonieorchester

Barbara Kink; hr-Sinfonieorchester, Frankfurt

Franziska Früh; Düsseldorfer Symphoniker / Deutsche Oper am Rhein

Barbara Burgdorf; Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Judith Eisenhofer, Annegret Knoop, Claudia Ander-Donath, co-leaders at Thüringen, Gera/Altenburg

 

Albena Danailova, one of four concertmasters at the Vienna Philharmonic, is presently in maternity leave with her second child.

Bettina Gradinger, Vesna Stankovic-Moffat, Anne Harvey-Nagel at Vienna Volksoper

Lieke te Winkel, Tonkünstler Orchester

Yukiko Imazato-Härtl and Fuyu Iwaki, Graz Philharmonic

Marianne Riehle, Monika Kammerlander, Mozarteum Salzburg
Monika Schuhmayer, Vorarlberg Sinfonieorchester

 

Geneviève Laurenceau Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse

Charlotte Juillard, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg

Dorota Anderszewska Orchestre National de Montpellier

Sarah Nemtanu, Orchestre National de France (her sister, Deborah, leads a chamber orch)

sarah and deborah nemtanu

 

Jennifer Gilbert, sister of Alan Gilbert, is concertmaster of Orchestre National de Lyon.

Vera Novakova, first concertmaster of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice

Ann-Estelle Médouze of L’Orchestre National d’Ile de France

 

Carla Leurs, Nederlands Sinfonieorkest

Elisabeth Perry & Nadia Wijzenbeek, both Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Olga Martinova, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra

Cécile Huijnen, Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra

Lisanne Soeterbroek, Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra (Belgium)

 

Wioletta Zabek, Concertmaster of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon in Valladolid since 1991.

 

 

 

Lisa Schatzman and Ina Dimitrova, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Switzerland

Anna Weinmeister, Zurich Opera

Julia Becker, Tonhalle Zurich

 

Lynn Fletcher, Halle orchestra, Manchester

Clio Gould, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London

Janice Graham, English National Orchestra

Lesley Hatfeild, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Thelma Handy, joint leader Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

 

Helena Wood (with co-leader Elaine Clark) – RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra

Mia Cooper – RTÉ Concert Orchestra

 

Russia

Lyudmila Tchaikovskaya, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra
Tatiana Porshneva, Russian National Orchestra
Alexandra Zhavoronkova, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra
Elena Reznichenko, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia
Olga Dzerzhinskaya, New Russia State Symphony Orchestra

 

Africa

 

Joanna Frankel serves as Concertmaster of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, South Africa.

 

Middle East

Jenny Hunigen and Geana Gandelman, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra

We have been speed-reading an early copy of the tell-all book by the former head of the Lincoln Center.

In They Told Me Not to Take That Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center, Reynold Levy praises Peter Gelb’s initial courage and vision in renewing the Met repertoire and pushing its movie drive. But he depicts Gelb as financially reckless and his board as unwieldy and irresponsible.

‘Was anyone pressing Gelb for a major course correction?’ he demands, after spending soared from $215 million to $330 million in ten years. It was, reports the Lincoln Center chief, ‘frustrating to run the risk of being be held accountable for the travails of resident organisations like…. the Metropolitan Opera’.

Wagners Das Rheingold Metropolitan Opera 2010

He pinpoints Gelb’s nemesis to the moment in March 2014 when he told the UK Guardian – not any of the New York press pack who might have challenged him – that the Met faced an ‘existential’ battle. It stood, in fact ‘on the edge of a precipice.’ The calamitous warning was designed to bring the unions to heel under threat of closure and job losses. Instead, it provoked forensic scrutiny of Gelb’s retreat and a management retreat on an epic scale.

Levy asked Gelb in a private meeting what would happen if his schemes did not bring in enough money, or if his strategy failed. ‘It has to work,’ said Gelb. ‘There is no Plan B.’

Levy goes on to say: ‘I know of no successful CEO without a backup plan in the event of failures or shortfalls.’

GelbTV

 

On the same page, Levy charts the ten-year decline and demise of City Opera on a path the Met now seems to be taking. ‘Why didn’t the Met’s board of trustees demand early on the development of an economic model that held promise of a viable financial future?’ he laments.

They Told Me Not to Take That Job will make grim reading for Peter Gelb and essential reading for all who need to know how not to sail a ship into a storm.

 

 

The composer of ‘In C’, arguably the simplest piece of music since scores began, is to be awarded a doctorate by his alma mater, the SanFranCon.

terry riley

Go, Dr Terry!

Press release: The San Francisco Conservatory of Music will grant Terry Riley, one of America’s most influential living composers and a former Conservatory student, the honorary degree of Doctor of Music at this year’s commencement ceremonies. With his landmark minimalist work In C, Riley pioneered a compositional style that has influenced everything from chamber and orchestral music to rock and roll. An artist who continues to inspire new generations of musicians, Riley was honored at SFCM last January with a concert of premieres written for his 80th birthday and at the recent Switchboard Music Festival with a rendition of In C rewritten as a tribute and performed by numerous Conservatory alumni. Riley will help send off the class of 2015 in ceremonies held at 10:30 a.m. on May 22 in the Conservatory’s Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall.  
 
President David H. Stull says the Conservatory is privileged to honor Riley as a role model for this year’s graduates. “His work as a composer is clearly extraordinary, but more important is his impact on musicians and the art form itself. The music of our century would be demonstrably different in his absence; this truth is both a rare phenomenon and a monumental achievement, the full measure of which will not be known for generations to come. He is a remarkable individual and we are proud to honor him as an alumnus and friend.”

The Montenegro guitarist Miloš Karadaglić has signed for the US with CAMI, specifically with its boss Jean-Jacques Cesbron, mastermind of the global Lang Lang brand.

This is cool news for Milos, but it’s a dunk in iced water for IMG Artists, which used to look after Milos in the US.

Milos is managed worldwide by Kathryn Enticott, who left IMG eight months ago to go independent. She is at liberty to place him wherever he gets best service.

milos raymond weil1

Jukka-Pekka Saraste, 58, will stay chief conductor of the WDR radio orchestra until 2019.

He has been in the job since 2010. Before that he conducted with Finnish radio for 15 years. One of the last radio careers.

saraste134_v-ARDFotogalerie

One of the players who will be voting on May 11 reckons it’s a four-way election:

1 Thielemann

2 Jansons

3 Kirill Petrenko

KirillxPetrenko_35902168_original.large-4-3-800-277-0-2872-1948

4 Ivan Fischer

ivan fischer piano sleighbells

Take this whispered tip cum grano salis (as Mahler would have said). There are presently more opinions in the orchestra than there are blossoms on a Mandelbaum.

Anther player whispered that they were all going ‘ganz diskret und neutral’ (totally discreet and neutral) into the voting chamber.

 

Various interested parties have informed us that one of the anti-Kiev pianist’s two Toronto recitals next month has been cancelled by the venue for lack of sales. A screenshot of the cancellation has been put out by pro-Kiev sources. However, it has been blocked by our computers as malware and may well be a propaganda attack.

Lisitsa has not confirmed any such cancellation. So far as we know, the two recitals are still on sale.

 

lisitsa toronto

 

The music director issued this short statement:

I am heartbroken for our dear city. With so much need alongside so much possibility, I hope we can use any opportunities we get to set an example and inspire others to join us in trying to change the world.

marin baltimore chi-chi

Photo: recently with my BSO OrchKids with visiting guest artist, Chi-chi Nwanoku.

Last night’s concert was cancelled under curfew. The Baltimore Symphony will give a free concert today (Weds)outside the Meyerhoff at noon ‘in support of our community. It seems we could all use a little music in our lives right about now.’ ‪#‎BSOPeace‬

Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin was performing her duties on television at the Molières 2015 when a disgruntled author, Sébastien Thierry, decided to deliver a diatribe about low creative wages. To do so, he got down to basics.

Madame La Ministre acted like she had seen it all before.

Avert your eyes, ye of nervous disposition. There is more on the link below.

sebastien thierry

The contestants were whittled down from 24 to 12 today and none of the five Americans made the cut. A Hong Kong/UK candidate and a Canadian are all that remain from the English-speaking world.

The last 12 are:

Andrey Rubtsov (Russia)

Anna Rakitina (Russia)

David Niemann (Germany)

Earl Lee (Canada)

Elim Chan (HK/UK, winner of the 2014 Donatella Flick)

elim chan

Giedre Slekyte (Lithuania)

Jesko Sirvend (Germany)

Jesus Eduardo Uzcategui (Venezuela)

Risto Joost (Estonia)

Seokwon Hong (S. Korea)

Stilian Kirov (Bulgaria, ex-asst. Seattle Symphony)

Tung-Chieh Chuang (Taiwan)

You can watch the jury announcement here.

CAMI have announced the sudden death of Rolf Smedvig, member of Empire Brass and soloist with many symphony orchestras.

Rolf started out as the youngest member of the Boston Symphony, aged 19,. He was married for a while to its PR, Caroline, before setting out on a solo career as trumpeter, conductor and composer.

He died reportedly of a heart attack. He is survived by four children.

rolf smedvig

There will be no teaching at Peabody today, or tonight.

See here.

peabody