The British and French governments regard the refugee camps at Calais as an unsanitary nuisance at best, even as a potential hazard. Some London musicians look to them as an opportunity for expanding their experience of the great variety of world music. The initiative is the brainchild of Vanessa Lucas-Smith, cellist of the Allegri Quartet.

Vanessa says: ‘I’ve been lucky enough to play in The Wigmore Hall and record in Abbey Road Studios both of which I thought were beyond my dreams as a kid. The Jungle refugee camp and the makeshift studio we set up (complete with deafening generator) definitely wasn’t on my bucket list, but how it has changed me. Honoured and bettered to have shared the stage with the talented musicians there.’

Watch. Buy. Give.

calais sessions

We are an eclectic group of musicians from London who found extraordinary musicians to jam with, write, rehearse, perform and record, over two days in The Jungle refugee camp in Calais, France. Together we are called The Jungle Collective. We have three tracks and with your help we can complete the album and let more voices from The Jungle be heard. 

https://thejunglecollective.bandcamp.com/

vanessa lucas-smith

Jean Batigne, founder of the Percussions de Strasbourg, has died in the Languedoc at the age of 82.

An award-winning percusssionist, primcipal of the Philarmonique de Strasbourg, Batigne’s focus turned to contemporary music after a seminal conversation with Pierre Boulez in 1959. Two years later, he founded the Percussions de Strasbourg, primarily to advance the performance of modern music.

He retired to the south of France in 1992.

 

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Hello?

It’s Shalom from the kosher aisle.

Eight days of parody from comedian Ari Blau.

ari blau

You really needed that, right?

Ok, let’s stick to tradition.

From the website home page of the Georgian pianist, Khatia Buniatishvili. 

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Khatia’s great career has come quite naturally, without a struggle. The sun has no need to move mountains to exist for it rises and shines for all.  And these are the words that spring to mind when one sees her bursting onto the stage or in life: her hair flowing, her fine figure quite the Parisian, her lips smiling, her light sylph-like steps and her feline body.  But the rose will show its thorns if it feels what it holds dear to be threatened. She won’t be made to give up a humanitarian project. She won’t be prevented from helping the country in which she was born and raised. She won’t be forced to play in a land that pours scorn on her values. She won’t have playing partners forced upon her who do not inspire human respect and great artistic admiration in equal measure. For that matter, nothing can be imposed on this young lady of the air whose wing-beats pollinate works and who sprinkles a musical cloud of golden powder to the four winds.

(c) Olivier Bellamy

In an insert to the programme book of a pair of Vienna concerts that he was forced to cancel through illness, Nikolaus Harnoncourt has announced that he is stepping down as head of the Concentus Musicus and will not appear again on the concert stage.

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Harnoncourt, who turns 86 tomorrow (Dec 6), played cello in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra while forming his own period-instrument ensemble. He became one of the most recorded early-music conductors, branching out to direct major symphony orchestras in 19th and 20th century repertoire, all the way down to Gershwin.

A devout Catholic and devoted husband to Alice, he fostered a family feeling among players, a sense f unity rare in the often disputatious world of period practice. His recorded legacy will stand forever.

 

harnoncourt salzburg

David Stark, principal double bass of the BBC National Orchestral of Wales, has sent us pictures from their recent tour of South America.

On a Jetcargo flight from Argentina to Chile, this is what baggage handlers did to the beautiful Neuner Hornsteiner bass belonging to section member Richard Gibbons.

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Richard and the rest of the section are distraught.

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When will airlines be held responsible for mishandling precious instruments that cannot be taken in cabin?

Tributes are coming in for Rodney Milnes, chief opera critic of the London Times from 1992 to 2002. Rodney died last night in Gloucestershire after a long illness at the age of 79.

In addition to his duties for the Times, Rodney was editor and part-owner of Opera magazine. A shy, private man, astute and with a gentle sense of humour he was universally liked and respected by his fellow-critics.

When he retired from the Times, feeling he still had much to give, I tried over a drink to hire him for the Evening Standard, of which I was assistant editor. Rodney couldn’t say no. Nor did he want to say yes. So we had a couple of drinks and left it at that, never mentioning the matter again except with the faintest of twinkles in his eye.

 

rodney milnes

photo: http://www.divasandscholars.com/gallery/bel-canto-evening

Fiona Maddocks called him ‘Human encyclopedia of opera, funniest of writers, kindest of friends.’

Hugh Canning tweeted: ‘RIP Rodney Milnes, the most astute & wittiest opera critic of his generation, a wonderful editor of Opera magazine & friend’.

Rupert Christiansen wrote: ‘Very sad to learn of the death of Rodney Milnes – a great critic & a kind man, who did much to help me in the early stages of my career.’

Martin Bernheimer says: ‘Rodney was unique — a brilliant, oddly self-effacing critic, an astute historian, an accomplished , ultraprofessional journalist, a great wit, a sensitive colleague and, yes, a good friend. Profound sadness.’

Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote: ‘Witty,elegant,sensitive,honest truthful. Glad I grew up reading his words & what was possible.’

Rodney was an ultra-fastidious, thoroughly decent man, dedicated to his art and his craft. In recent years, he withdrew to Gloucestershire to live close to his sister, who died earlier this year.

Rodney’s passing marks the last of his London generation, following the deaths in the past 12 months of Michael Kennedy, Andrew Porter and Edward Greenfield.

 

Out of the blue, at the end of a stressful day, this popped up on social media.

Klaus Tennstedt’s first opera at the Met.

Have you ever heard a Met audience erupt like that for an overture?

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As the cellist James Kreger recalls: From the outset of the very first rehearsal, one could sense his total, life and death, commitment to the score. That made the orchestra even more eager to reciprocate in kind. Those incredible moments on January 7, 1984 made me feel privileged to be part of this great orchestra, and will remain with me forever as one of the high points of my career.

Just listen.

We will never hear his like again.

The Cleveland Orchestra has recruited Opus 3 artists manager Ilya Gidalevich as its Artistic Administrator. Ilya presently looks after such artists as Conrad Tao, Eugene Tzigane, Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Les Violons du Roy, as well as a range of singers.

Before joining Opus 3, Ilya worked for Goldman Sachs. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Yale with majors in Music and Political Science. He was born in Odessa, Ukraine and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He joins Cleveland next month.

 

 

ilya gidalevitch

Message from Knoxville Opera, following the ‘old and ugly’ furore:

Knoxville Opera is deeply apologetic and sincerely regrets the hurt caused by our recent audition notice. When we posted the ad for engaging three singers for our education/outreach production of LA BOHEME we used language to communicate in “short-hand” the specific descriptions of the characters of Mimi and Musetta by Henri Murger, the original author, as they appear in the printed Puccini scores in the prefaces to Acts 1 and 2.

When considering all artists, our first priority has always been and always will be a person’s vocal ability to sing the role. We are a company committed to a culture of inclusion and will continue to hold ourselves ethically accountable for hiring diverse artists. If one were to take a comprehensive look at the entirety of the artists in our company over the past decade, one would find that our casting has been both diverse and inclusive. Please allow us to once again express our sincere and respectful apology.

 

knoxville opera

So it was all Puccini’s fault, then?

Stefan Arzberger, who has been on bail in America for eight months since he was charged with attempted murder after an incident in a Manhattan hotel, has resigned from the Leipzig String Quartet.

A statement by the quartet said he had taken the decision because he was unsure he could return to Germany by the spring of 2016 and this was affecting the group’s touring plans and stability.

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Official statement, released December 7, 2015:

Stefan Arzberger Resigns as Member of the Leipzig String Quartet

The prosecution of the case filed against Stefan Arzberger, first violinist of the Leipzig Quartet, continues to progress slowly. A timeline for a resolution of the process that began in the Manhattan Superior Court in April of 2015 is impossible to predict. His return to Germany by the Spring of 2016 is therefore very uncertain. For this reason, Stefan Arzberger withdraws as a member and stakeholder of the Leipzig String Quartet, enabling his colleagues to plan ahead and secure their futures and careers. Stefan Arzberger regrets that he is forced to make this difficult decision and looks forward to a speedy conclusion of the trial in New York so that he can both clear his name and continue his personal creative development. The Leipzig String Quartet will assume all of its future engagements and tasks with a modified line-up and remains committed to maintaining the high quality of the ensemble. We would like to thank all of our partners, event organizers and hosts, as well as our friends for their help and support during these difficult times and look forward with hope to a positive resolution to Stefan’s ongoing and uncertain case in the United States.

Stefan Arzberger

Leipzig String Quartett

New York Leipzig, December 4, 2015

 

Jimmy Lopez, composer of Bel Canto which has its world premiere next week in Chicago, has been talking about possible controversy to our friend, Elijah Ho. The plot of Bel Canto centres on a hostage siege in Peru.

Speaking shortly after the Paris terror attacks, Jimmy was asked by Elijah whether the Bel Canto siege fell into the same trap of moral ambivalence as John Adams’s Death of Klinghoffer.

He said: ‘In the US, I don’t think it will elicit the kind of reaction Klinghoffer did. If it were to be staged in Lima, it would be a different story….I think neither Nilo nor I try to take sides…You cannot cast moral judgment on your characters while writing…What we have to do is get into the head of the terrorist and find out what he thinks, what’s driving him…It is dark, definitely, but it’s also a great opportunity, musically…’

‘Even though it’s about an event that happened in 1996, somehow history keeps repeating itself…Bel Canto is not there to open wounds. It will remind us of what keeps happening, but it will help us to heal, that there is a humanity that unites all of us, even the most monstrous of people, that there still has to be some humanity left.’

Read the full interview here.

jimmy lopez