A roll of 343 UK academics have published an advertisement in the Guardian today, pledging to boycott Israeli institutions until Palestinian rights are restored.
The ad is a direct response to the letter by J K Rowling and others last week, urging dialogue rather than boycott as the best means of progress in the Middle East.
Today’s BDS list contains many of the usual suspects from a variety of disciplines. Surprisingly, there seems to be only one music scholar of international standing.
Step forward Laurence Dreyfus, of Magdalen College, Oxford.
At a session last night with a student orchestra at Peabody Conservatory, I went looking for the music director Ken Lam and couldn’t spot him in the crowded room. ‘Ken’s the one in the hoodie,’ said my companion. And sure enough he was.
A former lawyer with a blue-chip firm in the city of London, Ken is making big strides in his second career. He has a new orchestra – the Charleston Symphony – and a brand-new concert hall. But he keeps the wardrobe cool.
Here’s how they see him in Charleston:
It’s casual Friday at the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CSO) office, and new music director (and conductor) Ken Lam wears a hoodie and shorts, checkered socks emerging from his sneakers. No intimidating, international award-winner here—just a man Über excited about his job.
Seattle Opera has posted an extraordinarily candid statement by Alison Moritz, assistant director on its current production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers:
‘Many people probably won’t talk about this honestly, but I think it’s important to be frank about the personal and financial sacrifices that it takes to be an emerging artist, particularly in the United States. There are many wonderful rewards to this life and work, but they are not necessarily financial. It’s a very hard position to be in—when I first started, I often found myself doing work I loved with people I greatly admired, but not getting paid enough to make a living. What if I couldn’t afford to take that kind of risk on myself? What stories and artists are we missing out on because there are people who simply can’t afford to create art for a living?’
Photo credit: Kristin Hoebermann
‘I wouldn’t say I was a workaholic, but what I had—and still have—is a slightly obsessive nature for solving problems. Like, when I was 12, I was really into the Rubik’s Cube, and would try to figure out faster and faster ways to do it. So when I would get down to working, I wouldn’t stop until I figured something out. I think playing the violin is a lot like a puzzle, and I think my obsessive nature is what helped with my getting things done.’
Our former principal cellist, Ron Shawger, died Sunday evening. Ron came to Milwaukee in 1988 from the Dallas Symphony. He was from Seattle and was a student of Leonard Rose at Juilliard. He left the MSO in the mid 1990s due to multiple sclerosis. His wife Laurie Shawger became a member of the MSO second violin section a couple of years later and still plays in the orchestra.
At Lincoln Center, 0900-1000 this morning:
No resemblance (usual disclaimer) to anyone working inside.
Join New York Mets mascot Mr. Met, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Join New York Mets mascot Mr. Met, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus as well as Stagehands, Electricians, and Props personnel, Security personnel, and other employees as we cheer on the Mets for the start of their first World Series since 2000!
We’ll be wearing New York Mets or Met Opera apparel and/or blue and orange and invite you to do the same!
LET’S GO METS!!era Orchestra and Chorus as well as Stagehands, Electricians, and Props personnel, Security personnel, and other employees as we cheer on the Mets for the start of their first World Series since 2000!
We’ll be wearing New York Mets or Met Opera apparel and/or blue and orange and invite you to do the same!
LET’S GO METS!!
Anne Ewing has resigned from Australia’s ‘national’ music school, blaming a toxic culture and 11 years of staff bullying. Read here.
Press release:
DALLAS – Opera stars, Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Ailyn Pérez, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Rodell Rosel, and composer/pianist Jake Heggie join the Dallas Street Choir in “The Opera Lover’s Broadway: Great Voices Sing Broadway’s Favorite Hits” on Friday, November 13, 2015 at Hamon Hall inside the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and will last approximately 90-minute with no intermission.
This one-night only, intimate performance benefits the Dallas Street Choir, a musical outlet for those experiencing homelessness and severe disadvantage. Jonathan Palant, founder and director of this nonprofit organization, says, “The Dallas Street Choir offers a community for those in need of one. Our members have the opportunity to practice responsibility, commitment, and professionalism, as well as improve their musical skill. We strive to build the self-esteem of our singers through a variety of performance-based activities. Over 300 individuals have attended at least one Dallas Street Choir rehearsal since its inception one year ago.”
Down, but not out
We hear (unofficially) that Nathan Cole of the Los Angeles Phil has won the concertmaster audition at the Seattle Symphony. He will replace Alexander Velinzon who has gone back to his old job as assistant concertmaster in Boston.
Also leaving Seattle are two more front desk violinists – gone to San Francisco Ballet and Australia – a flute player who went to Dallas, 3rd trumpet who returned to the Met and Ben Lulich who won the conveted principal clarinet role in Cleveland.
That’s high turnover.
When the music director James Judd gave up his salary last week, there were fears for the financial security of the Israel Symphony Orchestra, based in Rishon Lezion.
Today, its board issued this statement:
The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion (ISO) continues with its planned schedule and programming and is proud of its enthusiastic audience, its wonderful musicians and guest conductors and soloists.
Being a municipal association, the orchestra is budgeted by the Rishon LeZion municipality and is able to continue to pay salaries and artists’ fees and fulfill its contractual obligations. The municipality backs the orchestra and its management.
The ISO, which is also the Israeli Opera orchestra, has substantially increased its income from tickets, subscriptions and concert sales and has performed several rounds of cuts in production costs. However, this was not sufficient and like many orchestras in Israel and around the world it faces cuts of income from other sources and is required to cut salaries in order to balance its budget and prevent a deficit in next year’s budget.
The General Director of the orchestra and its Music Director announced voluntary cuts in their fees thus offering financial and moral support to the orchestra and its employees.
The orchestra and its management are confident that the planned cuts along with the ISO’s huge success will support its continuous flourishing and let it balance its financial situation.
Five months ago we introduced you to Alan, a homeless man in a soaked sleeping bag who played Beethoven on a piano in Newcastle station, in the northeast of England.
We begged passers-by: ‘Do not avert your eyes’.
Today, we have news that Alan has been found dead, surrounded by needles.
Go home. Watch the Amy Winehouse documentary. Do something.
The never-ending saga of academic back-stabbing and incompetence at the music school of Australia’s so-called National University has been slammed by one of the teachers, David Pereira, as ‘arrogant’ and ‘indecent’. The school has been headless since Peter Tregear was forced out in August. Pereira writes:
I rebuke them for their indecency and for their arrogance; I rebuke them for their managerial inexpertise and their ignorance; I rebuke them for their vandalism. I do this not because what they have done is stupid but because they still are smiling.
There ought to be an enquiry that has the power and the right to expose all of the dishonesty, all of the hidden agendas, all of the meanness, all of the senseless personal ambition, all of the mismanagement and all of the callous indifference to music.
The university is located in Canberra, a boomerang’s whang from the seat of Government. What will it take to get a national inquiry going into this cesspit of self-interest? The Aussie media show scant interest.
