From Bavarian Radio:
Regrettably, Robin Ticciati had to cancel his engagement with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks due to health reasons. We would like to thank Joseph Bastian for stepping in as the conductor of the three concerts next week (February 18, 19 and 20, Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich).
Bastian is the orchestra’s bass trombone player. Toi-toi!
Tomorrow (Weds) is the 90th birthday of Friedrich Cerha. The Austrian composer is best known for his completion of the third act of Berg’s Lulu.
Thursday is the 90th of György Kurtág, the formidable Hungarian aphorist.
Long may they thrive.
Kim Gaynor, managing director of the Verbier Festival for the past decade, has been named general director of Vancouver Opera.
press release:
Vancouver, BC ~ The Board of Directors of Vancouver Opera is delighted to announce the appointment of Kim Gaynor as the company’s next General Director, effective July 1, 2016. Ms. Gaynor will replace James W. Wright, who is retiring after 17 years in the position. Kim Gaynor is a highly regarded Canadian administrative leader with more than 30 years in influential and senior positions with cultural and performing arts institutions and festivals in Canada, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe.
She comes to Vancouver Opera from the Verbier Festival, a popular and respected international music festival in Switzerland, where she has served successfully as Managing Director for the past 10 years. Created in 1994, the Verbier Festival offers 65 classical concerts over 17 days and a range of educational activities including a professional music academy. Before her tenure at Verbier Festival, she was Managing Director and Co-founder of Festival Retz, a chamber music and chamber opera festival in Austria; the administrator of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, in London, U.K.; and Head of Marketing Administration at Royal Opera House, London.
Louis Lane, assistant conductor to George Szell and later resident conductor of the Cleveland Orch, has died at the great age of 92.
Louis went on to become music director in Akron, and later with South African Radio in Johannesburg.
He was artistic advisor and conductor at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1982 to 2004.
This may be the most exciting thing to happen to the little kingdom since it lost the leadership of the Holy Roman Empire.
Last night, Angélique Kidjo , the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gast Waltzing won a Grammy in the World Music Category.
(Watch the citation for Luxembourgeois self-deprecation.)
From Matthew Stucky:
It is with a profoundly heavy heart that I say yesterday, February 14th my father,Steven Stucky passed away peacefully in his sleep in his home of many years, Ithaca, NY, at the all-too-early age of 66 in the company of his beloved wife Kristen Frey Stucky.
With his passing the world has lost one of it’s great voices. To me he was a magician. A man who seemed able to effortlessly page back the curtain of The Universe and reveal its wonders with resonant sound and pathos. He could speak through the very fibers of the world itself. He was, and is, my hero.
He showed me to Hardy and DeLillo. Rodin and Chihuly. Rembrandt and Klee. Bergman and Kubrick. Shaw and Ibsen. Le Corbusier and Gehry. Keaton and Cleese. He taught me that grace and poise are the result of humility and to only speak the truth or nothing at all. He taught me the importance of a good suit, an old Islay, and a good meal with friends.
An epic traveller, he saw more corners of the world than most people could in 5 lives and made untold lifelong friends wherever he went.
He was a man of bottomless kindness and empathy. And he was funny, oh so funny, as anyone who knew him could attest.
He was a great believer in social justice and the equal rights of all people. I’m sure he is giving Scalia a piece of his mind this very moment.
And he was, of course, a dog person.
I love you Dad. You changed me and the world forever.
In the lawless state of Venezuela, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Falcón was attacked in mid rehearsal by two armed men. Players were forced to go down to the theatre basement while the intruders cleaned out their pockets and wallets. They made off with cash, and around 50 mobile phones.
There are no reports of injuries and no instruments were taken.
Report here in Spanish.
Andris Nelsons’ DG debut with Shostakovich 10th won best orchestral performance. Seiji Ozawa (in Japan) won best opera recording.
Full winners’ list here.
Green room visitors at the Wigmore Hall were shocked to find that the recitalist had played a full programme with one wrist in surgical strapping. But nothing stops Trifonov when he’s on fire.
It appears that he’d suffered a fall while on a photoshoot in Cologne, hurting his right hand. By the time his plane landed in London, he was in acute pain. On Saturday, his friend and piano supplier Terry Lewis took him to A&E. They found nothing broken, but damage to the soft tissue. An orthopaedic specialist was called on the phone to advise, but Daniil was determined to go ahead with the recital come what may. It was a rare four-hander with his teacher, Sergei Babayan.
Later, Daniil told visitors that they had shifted some heavier passages onto Babayan to reduce pressure on his wrist, but no-one noticed.
Erica Worth, editor of Pianist magazine (who took the pictures!), writes:
‘Two astounding musicians, Rachmaninov Suites to die for, Two Faziolis that sounded amazing – and tuned to perfection. A real rare event. In the third movement of the first suite, I was in tears.’
Or so it says in the Lebrecht Album of the Week review on scena.org and openlettersmonthly.
Most concert pianists are like modern tennis players. They know that only two or three men and women are ever going to win the major tournaments, which leaves all the rest working harder each day in vain pursuit of an inhuman perfection and an inexhaustible hope.
The Russian-born Yevgeny Sudbin is a circuit pianist who, living in London and teaching at the Royal Academy, has yet to break top ten rankings. He’s a tremendous player of exceptional flair who has made recording for the past decade on an esoteric Swedish label, covering mostly Russian music. The reception has been enthusiastic, the major breakthrough elusive.
Might this be it?
Read on here.
The death has been announced of Steven Stucky, one of the most successful and widely performed US composers of his time. Steven died at his home in Ithaca, NY, on Sunday.
He won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Second Concerto for Orchestra and received commissions from many US orchestra. As resident composer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 21 years he played a considerable role in shaping West Coast taste to moderate modernism.
As a scholar, he was a leading authority on the life and music of Witold Lutoslawski.
UPDATE: Family members have reported that he died of brain cancer, peacefully in his sleep. Our shocked sympathies to the Stucky family.
2nd UPDATE: A son’s tribute here.
Any guesses?
It’s the Irish tenor’s Irish home, the place John McCormack bought eight years before he died. Yours for 3.6 million Euros.
