September 2015 - Page 18 of 24

The manuscript of the tune ‘Here comes the Bride’ from Lohengrin has been put on sale online. The seller wants $3.6 million. No indication of provenance.

He is, as anticipated, Andris Nelsons.

Slipped Disc editorial: This is, whichever way you look at it, bad news for Boston. Nelsons was in line earlier this year to be music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. Had he won that vote, he would have been forced to reduced his Boston Symphony commitment. Much the same now applies to Leipzig.

Face has been saved, and the deal sweetened, by ‘a new cooperative partnership between the two orchestras’ which will mean each taking up residency in the other’s hall for a while. But that attraction will be held together only by the personality of the chief conductor, an element that is not limitless. When it fades, things will come apart.

The fact that the deal was announced in Boston more than an hour before it was confirmed in Leipzig underlines the heavy spin that has been put on the arrangement.

On the plus side, Nelsons is a terrific catch for Leipzig. He’s a brilliant, natural conductor with an insatiable appetite for hard work. He will build on the international kudos that Riccardo Chailly gained for the orchestra and he will probably point it a little more north and eastwards, towards his native Baltic and Russian culture.

Leipzig have done well, Boston much less so.

Further analysis here.

The van B is ready to roll on Friday.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic VAN Beethoven truck will tour Los Angeles, Sept. 11 – Oct. 18, 2015, offering five minutes of Beethoven Fifth in immersive, 360-degrees.

There’s also a free app to download in the Oculus and Gear VR stores.

And a how-it-was-made video.

press release:

Visitors will be welcomed aboard the customized VAN Beethoventruck, complete with carpet and seating from Walt Disney Concert Hall, where they’ll put on the Oculus headset and be transported to the iconic venue. The immersive visual private experience is augmented by a soundtrack that adapts to the viewer’s perspective; whether the viewer is in front of the orchestra, behind or standing amidst the symphony, the music will subtly shift to reflect listener-specific positions and enhance the feeling of being up-close-and-personal with the renowned orchestra.

VAN Beethoven will visit diverse communities throughout Los Angeles, including parks, cultural festivals, museums, and more, providing access to audiences that otherwise may not be able to attend. The full schedule of tour stops is at LAPhil.com/VANBeethoven.

Here’s how.

press release:

The Guildhall School of Music & Drama in association with The Royal Opera today announces Na’ama Zisser as the second Doctoral Composer-in-Residence, starting in September 2015.

Launched in 2013, the collaboration between the Guildhall School and The Royal Opera is one of the first examples of an opera company and conservatoire joining forces to offer a Composer-in-Residence studentship which leads to a doctoral degree. Fully funded by the Guildhall School and supported by The Royal Opera, the studentship offers one composer every two years the opportunity to be Doctoral Composer-in-Residence over a three-year period. During this time, the composer researches and writes a major work, which will be staged by The Royal Opera at the end of the residency.

The studentship aims to offer an enriching model of opera development that allows a composer substantial creative research experience in the development of operatic practice, within the setting of a unique collaboration between an opera company and conservatoire. It allows for both critical reflection and creative research, in both professional and academic contexts. The principal supervisor is the Guildhall School’s Head of Composition, Professor Julian Philips, partnered by Associate Director of Opera for The Royal Opera, John Fulljames.

Na’ama Zisser said of her appointment: ‘I’m extremely excited about this unusual opportunity to focus on what I’m interested in within opera and modern storytelling, creating a work that is very personal to me. It’s quite rare to have the time to reflect and research, work at my own pace, and have mentorship, support and resources. This will have an enormous impact on my own creative development and the work produced. I’m very much looking forward to starting, and hope to build meaningful collaborations and to explore ideas to their full potential.’

Na’ama Zisser began her compositional studies at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, having completed compulsory military service as a pianist in her native Israel’s Air Force orchestra. From here, she was commissioned by a variety of leading Israeli orchestras such as the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Camerata Orchestra. With this experience, she went on to gain her BMus in Composition from the Guildhall School and recently graduated with Distinction from the Royal College of Music with an MA in Composition. During her time at the Royal College, she studied under Mark-Anthony Turnage (supported by the Polonsky Award) and was awarded the Hurlstone & Cobbet RCM special prize for outstanding achievement.

Now, that’s unexpected.

It appears the maestro had such a good time with the Royal Stockholm Phil at the Nobel prizegiving ceremony that he’s coming back for more. The RSPO’s season announcement contains this confirmation:

Riccardo Muti will perform Verdi’s Macbeth with the RSPO for one of his extremely rare guest engagements. The work will receive two concert performances (15 & 17 May) in company with the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, with Luca Salsi taking the title-role, Vittoria Yeo as Lady Macbeth, Francesco Meli as Macduff and Ildar Abdrazakov as Banquo. “We loved working with Maestro Muti for the Nobel Prize Concert in 2013, and we are delighted that he will perform with us again and explore Macbeth with the orchestra,” recalls Stefan Forsberg (RSPO executive and artistic director). “We are very excited to receive him in Stockholm again and are convinced that these performances will become some of the greatest moments in the RSPO history.”

And another offbeat piece of casting:

Renée Fleming joins the RSPO and music director Sakari Oramo on 10 February to perform Anders Hillborg’s The Strand Settings, a substantial song-cycle to verse by the Canadian-born American poet Mark Strand.

Birmingham Post critic Christopher Morley was serially dissatisfied with Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic’s Elgar performance, a warm-up for the BBC Proms. Read his review here.

A somewhat corroborative view from the Guardian, here.

The finalists were announced last night, out of an original field of 69. They are:

Heejae Kim, 28 (Korea)

Tomoki Kitamura, 24 (Japan)

Drew Petersen, 21 (USA)

Vitaly Pisarenko, 28 (Russia)

Anna Tcybuleva, 25 (Russia)

Yun Wei, 21 (China)

posed with founder, Dame Fanny Waterman

The Leipziger Volkszeitung reports this morning across half a page (not yet online) that the Gewandhaus is about to announce Andris Nelsons as its next music director from June 2016, in succession to Riccardo Chailly.

The announcement will be made late this afternoon.

Independently, we can confirm on good authority that the new chief will not be Alan Gilbert, who is well liked in the orchestra, or (on less good authority) Vladimir Jurowski, who has not worked with them all that much.

Apart from Nelsons, we are hearing no big names. But Leipzig may yet pull a rabbit from a hat. Watch this space.

And the new music director is… click here.

If Nelsons accepts the post, he will struggle to balance it with his Boston commitments.

This was taken in Copenhagen in 1925.

The only clue we have is a caption saying ‘Nimb, 1925’. Nimb was a hotel.

Can anyone identify others in the picture, or the circumstances of the meeting?

h/t: Thomas Roth

The former violin teacher at Chetham’s who shot himself last week to avoid extradition on child abuse charges was a not-very successful artists manager in the US. One of the soloists on his roster was Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Frank had his suspicions about Chris:

‘I could immediately sense that something about Chris didn’t quite add up; he was a monumental character even over the phone, simultaneously thoroughly charming and utterly consumed by his own arrogance, sitting in Beaumont. He was also clearly highly intelligent, with a broad knowledge of not only the classical music business (at the time) but also an almost encyclopedic mastery of most elements of playing, teaching, or performing on the violin.’