Kiri’s old pad is for sale on Long Island. 

Sales blurb:

Here is a rare opportunity to purchase a unique property, tucked away at the end of a cul de sac, located on almost 4 acres in one of the most desirable areas of Oyster Bay Cove in the Syosset school district. This house boasts a long history as it is believed that Theodore Roosevelt socialized here. The previous owner was the soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who lived here in the 1980s. Full of warmth and character, this special home integrates sophistication with country elegance.

kiri's house

 

h/t: Shleppy Nabucco

 

kiri's pool

Yale is engaged on a restoration of Benny Goodman’s film bequest, which is beginning to disintegrate.

Remember when artists were proud to be sponsored by an oil company?

Read here. The promo’s on the last clip.

goodman_in_moscow

Dave Valentin is a legend on jazz flute. Three years ago he suffered a stroke, followed by a heart attack. Then another stroke. Dave, 63, needs help of every kind. Go to crowdfunder.

And hit one of the social media buttons at the bottom of this page to share.

dave valentin

In an article of serene unreality, the New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini responds to comments by a former head of Lincoln Center, accusing him of ignoring financial failure while extolling artistic success.

Tommasini sets out his credo in response to the charge:

His comments got me thinking about whether critics should take financial realities into account in writing about the arts. Should they dig through the details, or imagine what could be?

As I see it, imagination should win out. In-depth coverage of budget battles and managerial incompetence is better left to arts reporters. A critic is empowered to dream, to provoke, to foster excitement. The challenges facing classical music, the performing art most fixated on the standard repertory, demand that critics stand up for principle, even at the risk of seeming bent on a cause or unrealistic.

Read the full article here.

My personal view of this statement is that it is intellectually dishonest and professionally lame.

A critic’s job is to report and engage, not to campaign for a better world. If a critic were to pursue dreams, most review space in the New York Times would be taken up by esoteric productions in lofts and colleges, rather than at the major orchestras and opera houses whose full-page advertisements sustain the newspaper’r culture department and indirectly pay the critic’s salary.

To ignore these priorities is not just myopic. It runs counter to the raw instincts of journalism, which are to be curious about all aspects of any matter which you are reporting or reviewing. A journalist in an opera house needs to be alert to all prevailing circumstances. A pack-horse wears blinkers, not a music critic. Tommasini, in this credo, disables his vocation.

I can readily imagine what his streetwise forbear Harold Schonberg would have made of it.

NL

harold schonberg

Sandra Bernhard, who worked at Houston Grand Opera for many years, has died in a Houston hospice. Sandra guest directed around the country and headed the opera program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as teaching at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Sandra_Bernhard
Photo: Alberto Demestres

The following pianists have got through round 1:

Sergei Redkin; Maria Mazo (pictured); Reed Tetzloff; Ilya Rashkovsky; George Li; Lucas Debargue; Lukas Geniušas; Daniel Kharitonov; Julia Kociuban; Mikhail Turpanov; Nikolay Medvedev; Dmitry Masleev.

The lone UK competitor, Alexander Ullman, was eliminated.

 

maria mazo

 

These are the violinists who made it into round 2: Christopher Tun Andersen; Alexandra Conunova; Yoo Jin Jang; Clara-Jumi Kang; Haik Kazazyan; Bomsori Kim; Younguk Kim; Mayu Kishima; Pavel Milyukov; Sergei Pospelov; Stepan Starikov; Yu-Chien Tseng

And cellists: Fedor Amosov; Alexander Buzlov; Tristan Cornut; Leonard Elschenbroich; Pablo Ferrández-Castro; Andrei Ionuț Ioniță; Seung Min Kang; Anastasia Kobekina; Bruno Philippe; Alexander Ramm; Jonathan Roozeman; Valentino Worlitzsch.

 

 

We have been informed of the death today of Brian Fennelly, a widely performed composer who lived in upstate New York.

brian fennelly

Brian was professor of music in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University from 1968 to 1997, and Professor Emeritus until his death.

We have received these impressions of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2015 from the South African baritone Njabulo Madlala:

 

njabulo

The Cardiff Singer of the World’s diversity is really inspiring and assuring. It needs to be congratulated, encouraged and celebrated. The work is terrific! I have watched in awe and wonder.

During this week of the competition I have seen so many people on there that look like me. This is not to say that is what I am constantly looking for but when one sees it it’s impact is huge. On stage I have seen incredible talent of all races,  within the team of presenters and this year even on the panel there is that fantastic singer Claron McFadden. This is something I don’t think has happened before and boy do we need it. We need more of this kind of embrace everywhere especially in classical music where this is happening in very small numbers. I have a lot of admiration and respect for this kind of effort.

The embrace as I call it is not only interesting, morally correct but it’s also desperately needed by the kids aspiring to go into the field and those who could potentially make future opera stars. It makes me proud to have chosen this career path and most importantly to have chosen to come to the UK to study and pursue it where there is always possibility for change and dialogue.

There will be a lot, a lot of young black, Asian etc kids watching and thinking, I can do this too. It’s not just something for a certain few anymore.

It might sound like I am racially aware and maybe I am, I don’t know. But what I do know for sure is this, we and the children need role models and sometimes they really do have to look like us for the message to hit home.

This embrace says to the children and all of us that there are no boundaries and that anything can happen in the arts. How fortunate for us that we have this platform and that we can use it as catalyst that will continue to fuel all our desires for change. Thank you Cardiff Singer of the World ‪#‎BBC‬

(c) Njabulo Madlala/Slipped Disc

Jongmin Park, 28, from South Korea, won the Song Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2015.

He is also one of five finalists in tomorrow’s main prize final.

jongmin park

John Terauds on MusicalToronto touches on one of the great music industry anxieties: what will happen when newspapers stop publishing reviews?

Is there mileage in the new model of venues paying critics to attend and review on their own websites?

We happen to think that independent, credible sites like Chicago Classical Review, written by trusted critics, are an important addition to the musical ecology.

John T seems to think the same. Read his think-piece here.

music critic cartoon

All week long there have been low fat murmurings on social media around BBC Cardiff Singer of the World.

We ignored them. So did everyone else. Until today, when BBC Wales put up a debate on ‘fat singers’.

Have they learned nothing from the fattist Glyndebourne furore? Body image slander can kill great art.

Anyway, soprano Liz Meister has had enough and she’s lashing back. Liz writes:

fat singer

 

When did we all become so judgey?  We’ve become a culture of demonisers: everyone is discriminated against in some sense.  The overwhelming likelihood is that people are unconsciously transferring their unresolved issues with themselves onto fat (usually female) singers, in the same way that men often transfer their unresolved sexual issues onto homosexuals so they can be angry at them instead of themselves.

Read her full diatribe here. And learn from it, BBC Wales. Learn.