Not even the fastest pianist that ever lived. Just the fastest to a media opportunity.
There’s a new release of the second Prokofiev violin concerto, and it’s a stunner. Much the better for not being coupled with the first concerto.
Why is that? Read my Album of the Week review on sinfinimusic.com right here.
At the Proms this summer, all five piano concertos were heard in a single Valery Gergiev vanity concert. We were left none the wiser.
Echo Klassik, the biggest German music industry event, has just announced its annual awards:
Male singer of the year: Jonas Kaufmann
Female singer of the year: Joyce DiDonato
Solo recording of the year (voice): Elina Garanca
Instrumentalists of the year: Lang Lang (piano), Tianwa Yang (violin) Andreas Ottensamer (clarinet), Maurice Steger (flute)
Conductor of the year: David Zinman
The televised gala awards night will be on October 18.
Awards for rising artists: Bryan Hymel, Sonya Yoncheva, Florian Noack, Sophie Pacini, Nemanja Radulović.
Classics without borders awards: Aurora Orchestra, David Orlowsky Trio, Kronos Quartet
Eight violins mislaid early last week by US Air, were delivered yesterday in St Louis.
The cellist and teacher Ken Kulosa, who was responsible for shipping the instruments, tell us:
‘Unbelievably, we got a call this afternoon telling us the case has arrived in St. Louis, five minutes before, we get a call telling us the case was just identified in Barcelona….one minute after the good news, we get a call telling us it has not been seen in Charlotte. This is what we have been dealing with–at least 150 phone calls later, we have it!’
And previously:
Here’s what we’re dealing with: a supervisor in St. Louis at US Airways yelled at us for not doing our job in contacting the right people–supervisors–within the company both domestically and in Barcelona (we’ve been on the phone steadily since Wednesday night, well over a hundred hours of combined time, hundreds of dollars in overseas calls. All we have found are phone numbers that are always busy(a rouse to make you feel like something is happening, emails that are returned to sender after two days, fax numbers that are fake, it goes on and on…..).
When this man was asked for names and numbers that would produce results, he told us the information was private, inside information, and would not give them out! WHAT IN THE HELL IS A PERSON SUPPOSED TO DO?
Do not ever believe that we fly the friendly skies.
Sinem Altan has been named winner of the European Composers Prize 2015 at Young Euro Classic in Berlin. The work that caught the judges’ ear is named ‘Hafriyat – Earthwork’.
Sinem, 30, was born in Ankara and lives in Berlin.
Opera Vlaanderen has released a poster for its forthcoming Wagner production, directed by the provocative Spaniard. Opens Antwerp September 19.
It’s … different.
Greta Bradman, granddaughter of the greatest batsman that ever took guard, is a professional concert singer.
After studies in Wales with Dennis O’Neill, she has been working with Richard Bonynge on a debut album with the English Chamber Orchestra. Bonynge says ‘she should be singing at Covent Gardn.’
Her recording is now top of Australia’s core-classical charts and Greta is off on tour with Zubin Mehta and the Australian World Orchestra.
It’s rare for the physical world of professional sport to meet the spiritual realm of art, but when it does the confluence can be fascinating.
Watch an ABC doc on Greta here.
On a very quiet August weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle has rerun a story from 1983 when a late fly-in from New York by Placido Domingo to replace a sick colleague in Otello had the city up way past its bedtime.
‘This is like going to a Jan & Dean concert and being told you were getting to see the Beatles instead,’ quipped one punter. The opera started that night past 10pm and many in the audience were worse the wear for drink.
Read here.
Photo (c) Chris Stewart, 1983, The Chronicle
One day this May, when there was not much going on apart from a UK general election, a flute student in California managed to get 100,000 hits on a Facebook invitation to his senior recital, half of them from Britain.
So, guess what, we’re told that Azeem Ward is coming on tour in a couple of months to Birmingham, Leeds, Oxford, Manchester and London. This, if nothing else, ought to test the true selling power of viral sensations.
Earlier this year we reported that President Putin had gifted his pal Valery a new opera house. The Primorsky Opera and Ballet Theatre, inauguarated in October 2013 on the Pacific coast, is now to be run from the Baltic coast by the Marinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
Today it was announced that the merger will take effect on January 1, 2016, after which date the Primorsky Theatre will be known as Marinsky 4.
Its director will be the mezzo-soprano Larissa Diadkova but productions and casts will be imported unchanged from St Petersburg.
Here’s what’s to expect:
PARSIFAL
Cond: Andris Nelsons
Dir: Uwe Eric Laufenberg
Amfortas: Ryan McKinny
Titurel: N.N.
Gurnemanz: Georg Zeppenfeld
Parsifal: Klaus Florian Vogt
Klingsor: Gerd Grochowski
Kundry: ??
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN
Cond: Marek Janowski
Dir: Frank Castorf
DAS RHEINGOLD
Wotan: Iain Paterson
Donner: Markus Eiche
Froh: Tansel Akzeybek
Loge: Roberto Saccà
Fricka: Sarah Connolly
Freia: Caroline Wenborne
Erda: Nadine Weissmann
Alberich: Albert Dohmen
Mime: Andreas Conrad
Fasolt: Andreas Hörl
Fafner: ??
Woglinde: Alexandra Steiner
Wellgunde: Stephanie Houtzeel
Floßhilde: Wiebke Lehmkuhl
DIE WALKÜRE
Siegmund: Christopher Ventris
Hunding: Andreas Hörl
Wotan: John Lundgren
Sieglinde: Jennifer Wilson
Brünnhilde: Catherine Foster
Fricka: Sarah Connolly
Gerhilde: Caroline Wenborne
Ortlinde: Dara Hobbs
Waltraute: Stephanie Houtzeel
Schwertleite: Nadine Weissmann
Helmwige: Christiane Kohl
Siegrune: Simone Schröder
Grimgerde: Wiebke Lehmkuhl
Roßweiße: Alexandra Petersamer
SIEGFRIED
Siegfried: Stefan Vinke
Mime: Andreas Conrad
Der Wanderer: Thomas J. Mayer
Alberich: Albert Dohmen
Fafner: ??
Erda: Nadine Weissmann
Brünnhilde: Catherine Foster
Waldvogel: Ana Durlovski
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
Siegfried: Stefan Vinke
Gunther: Markus Eiche
Alberich: Albert Dohmen
Hagen: Stephen Milling
Brünnhilde: Catherine Foster
Gutrune: Allison Oakes
Waltraute: Marina Prudenskaya
1. Norn: Wiebke Lehmkuhl
2. Norn: Stephanie Houtzeel
3. Norn: Christiane Kohl
Woglinde: Alexandra Steiner
Wellgunde: Stephanie Houtzeel
Floßhilde: Wiebke Lehmkuhl
DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER
Cond: Axel Kober
Dir: Jan Philipp Gloger
Daland: Peter Rose
Senta: Ricarda Merbeth
Erik: ??
Mary: Christa Mayer
Der Steuermann: Benjamin Bruns
Der Holländer: John Lundgren
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Cond: Christian Thielemann
Dir: Katharina Wagner
Tristan: Stephen Gould
König Marke: Georg Zeppenfeld
Isolde: Petra Lang
Kurwenal: Iain Paterson
Melot: Raimund Nolte
Brangäne: Christa Mayer
Ein Hirt: Tansel Akzeybek
Ein Steuermann: Kay Stiefermann
Junger Seemann: Tansel Akzeybek
This just in from Ken Kulosa, teacher of cello at Washington University, St Louis:
US Airways has lost my violins!
I am making an appeal for help from employees, managers, and/or executives from US Airways to help us get action in the process, which has been full of roadblocks, passing the buck, and “we can’t make the call”. It appears as though US Airways simply doesn’t care, or doesn’t want to try.
We last saw our 8-violin shipping trunk as we passed it off to oversize baggage in Barcelona on Wednesday the 19th. As far as the airline can tell us, no trace since, as it was never scanned into the system. After hundreds of calls: to the airline, as well as our own exhaustive investigations, we have gotten basically nowhere…..we very much fear theft, certainly at the very least, massive negligence.
All we ask for is a physical inspection of the facility, but they refuse to even make a call to Barcelona, just emails that go without a response.
Over the years, the one thing I’ve learned about airlines is when they say they can’t do something, it just means they don’t want to bother. This is devastating….please PM me if anyone can help, or can put me in touch someone that can, or simply more details.
My many thanks to all!