The paper has finally got around to talking to the Leipzig string quartet leader, Stefan Arzberger, who allegedly rampaged naked through a New York hotel ten weeks ago and was subsequently charged with attempted murder.

It looks from the context as if the interview was brokered by or through Kurt Masur, who was Stefan’s conductor in Leipzig and a former music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Most of the salacious details reported by the local tabloids are omitted. As are many of the things that Stefan and his lawyer have said before but couldn’t apparently, get past the Times censors.

Here, for what it’s worth, is the very dry piece.

stefan arzberger

Two protestors, who named themselves as composers Kate Honey and Dr Chris Garrard, held up a banner and chanted slogans on Wednesday night at the end of the first interval of La Bohème. Others continued the protest outside.

The banners read ‘End Oil Sponsorship’ and were aimed at BP, a major sponsor of the ROH and the British Museum.

Honey said: ‘By accepting BP’s money, the Royal Opera House is giving BP a legitimacy that it does not deserve. With this ‘social license’, BP is able to keep drilling for new sources of oil that will push us into runaway climate change, putting my generation’s future at risk. As composers and musicians, I feel it is our responsibility to defend classical music from appropriation by corporate criminals like BP.’

Garrard added: ‘The conductor Claudio Abbado once said, ‘Everything that is not for freedom, I protest’. By supporting repressive regimes in West Papua and Azerbaijan, BP has made it clear that it is not on the side of freedom. BP should have no place in our cultural institutions when these are spaces where freedom of expression is celebrated. This is why I felt called to protest BP’s presence at the Royal Opera House.’

 

BP-banner-in-opera-house (1)

Photo by @yanniknaud

The FT reports: The Royal Opera House, which said BP had been with it “through thick and thin” with a partnership beginning in 1988, said it had begun the staff consultation process on sponsorship renewal.

The Kickstarter for Verbier Summer Music Camp 21 has raised just 11% of its target, a mere $3,916 in 25 days.

There are six days to go and the $35,000 goal seems a distant mirage.

Lessons to be learned?

1 Verbier’s in Switzerland. It’s not Third World. The money’s there for the taking. Nobody believes it’s in need.

2 Kickstarter is for individual human causes, not institutions.

3 Don’t start a summer camp unless you can finance it. The only outcome is a lot of disappointed kids.

verbier

A tricky one, this.

A Florida insurance company is suing its former agent, and a business rival, for poaching four clients. One of them is the Florida Orchestra.

The defendants are accused of donating $20,000 to the orchestra to wean it away from its original insurer.

Trouble is, most orchestras – especially smaller ones – are not much bothered where their money comes from, so long as it comes in.

florida orchestra

 

From a correspondent in Athens:

Yesterday was the first day of the reopening of ERT orchestra and chorus. We celebrated it with a short concert. Greek Radio music ensembles are back and they will have full schedule from September.

That is because of people efforts that changed the government. Yesterday 11/6/2015 exactly two years after the closing.

You may remember the tears on that occasion.

greek violinist crying

Oleg Vedernikov was principal cellist of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra when a drunken incident on a train three years ago resulted in him being kicked out of the orchestra and the country. He was accused of insulting a Chinese woman.

Oleg returned to Russia, played in a string ensemble and rebuilt his life. A few weeks ago he messaged that he was about to undergo a serious operation and asked for prayers. Death notices have now appeared on his social media.

May he rest in peace.

vedernikov

Davide Martello, from the German town of Konstanz, has been granted the civic award of the European Parliament for his ‘outstanding contribution to European cooperation and the promotion of common values.’

Davide, 34, travels around conflict zones, playing the piano, forming a cultural barrier between citizens and oppression. He appeared in the Taksim demostrations in Istanbul…

in the Maidan revolution in Kiev and in the thick of the civil war in Dontesk. He has also given a Christmas recital for German troops in Afghanistan.

He names his website stop-killing.com.

 

davide-martello

The cellist and teacher Alison Moncrieff-Kelly, a musician with long experience of music schools, has written a powerful reflection on the flaws and dangers of the music education system.

Among other observations, she highlights how easy it is for untalented individuals to rise within the system and exercise an uncontrolled influence. Alison writes:

Unfortunately, it would seem that many of those to whom we have entrusted talented young musicians, are people of proven flaws; and not just small frailties – no, appalling, huge, catastrophic personality disorders that are a long way beyond Miss Jean Brodie and her somewhat homo-erotic fantasy.

miss jean brodie

No, this is a vast panoply of contenders, some very skilled musicians (of which much was made of that in both the Layfield trial, and that of former Guildhall School teacher Philip Pickett earlier this year) some unknown for any professional playing, but who have carved out work lives as ‘career teachers’. Those people often have their own universe of issues to address, because within their ‘vocational’ teaching world may well exist a whole raft of elements like disappointment, bitterness, jealousy…and yes, some of those people may be capable of subjugating those issues to the back-burner and be the best possible teacher; but some won’t, and will work a terribly odyssey of vicarious pressure on the students who come their way.

These are possible scenarios, and I would argue, all extant in the UK. What is only now coming to light is how ruthlessly and systematically some of the least capable, the least emotionally suitable, and above all the least self-aware people achieved positions of power within the specialist music world. In these positions, they were enabled and facilitated to wreck young lives and pervert the healthy growth of vulnerable young people.

Read Alison’s full argument here.

In today’s JC, I publish an open letter to Daniel Barenboim on his latest shift on the Middle East, announcing a qualified support for the BDS movement which calls for the economic and intellectual isolation of the state of Israel. What Daniel said was: ‘‘I think the boycott movement BDS is absolutely correct, its perfectly right and necessary with one limitation…’ You can read the full text here.

I believe he has crossed a Rubicon, a point of no return. Among other things, I remind Daniel:

In a maestro milieu where most music directors look no further than the fourth horn, you stuck your neck out for a prickly cause that was always bound to earn you more heartache than acclaim.

I applauded your gumption, your physical courage and your personal commitment to Israel, where you continue to maintain a home. You talked to me once, in Paris half a lifetime ago, of your idyllic boyhood in the young state of Israel, where girls wore no lipstick and men no ties. Something of that naked idealism, that transcendence of spiritual values over material display, is imprinted on the artist you became – one of the foremost classical interpreters of our time, perhaps the only one who commands the attention of world leaders when you speak on great issues of the day….

Read the full letter here.

 

barenboim ba

On Sunday morning, November 14, 1943, Bruno Walter called in sick with flu and the New York Philharmonic had to find an instant replacement, without rehearsal, for its nationally broadcast afternoon concert.

Assistant conductor Leonard Bernstein had been out partying all night. He took the call, dropped by Walter’s sickbed to check his score markings and ripped into the concert as if life itself depended on it.

Next morning, Leonard Bernstein made the front page of the New York Times.

bernstein-nytimes

A star was born.

Yesterday, a major conductor came down with an ear infection, hours before a concert that was to be broadcast nationally on BBC Radio 3. A young assistant stepped in ‘at very short notice’.

The concert went out last night. Nobody noticed.

We hear from musicians that Alpesh Chauhan, 25, did extremely well in Andris Nelson’s place, never having studied the Strauss horn concerto before and leading unflappably through Schubert’s Unfinished and Dvorak 7th symphony.

There are no reviews this morning, no media excitement.

What has changed? In 1943, radio was the only domestic entertainment and there were few available channels. The nation huddled around the receiver on a Sunday afternoon for whatever it might yield. A change of maestro was big news.

In 2015, there are so many other things we can do at home, and very little attention to live concerts on Radio 3, a background burble at best. A sign of our times, perhaps, but a sad one for new talent.

Bookmark the name: Alpesh Chauhan. He used to be principal cello in Birmingham’s youth orchestra and he’s yet to make his official debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. That will come on June 25.

 

Alpesh-Chauhan

I wonder if Andris was able to hear the concert?

You can hear the broadcast here (for 30 days).

Two members of a gang of violin thieves operating in the southeast USA were arrested today. Details here from Atlanta Violins owner Bill McClain.

strad stolen

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has a new, young president starting soon. One veteran exec sniffed the air and decided to call its quits. He circulated his resignation reasons today.

pittsburgh halls

 

Dear friends and colleagues:

Last December I began a sabbatical which has been very beneficial for me and my family. It has been a wonderful time of reflection and contemplation. This process has allowed me to do a thorough re-evaluation of my priorities and plans.

As a result, I have decided to retire from the Pittsburgh Symphony. It has been my honor and privilege to work with Music Directors Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, and Manfred Honeck. I have the utmost respect for Jim Wilkinson, Dick Simmons, Tom Todd, the Trustees of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and my colleagues on the staff present and past. I would specifically like to thank Jim Wilkinson, Katie McGuinness, Jesse Montgomery, Yonca Karakilic, Alison Bolton, and Shelly Fuerte for their steadfast support of me, and of the PSO’s artistic excellence.

And to the gifted musicians of the PSO, please know how much I admire and respect you. The very best thing about working here has been listening to you play literally thousands of concerts over a quarter of a century, in Heinz Hall and around the world. These have given me immeasurable joy. And I will look forward to listening to many more in the future.

This orchestra is the cultural crown jewel of Pittsburgh, and one of the great orchestras of the world. I am honored to have been a part of it for twenty-six years, and I will always wish for its continued success and prosperity.

Robert Moir
Senior Vice President of Artistic Planning and Audience Engagement
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra