Word went out last weekend that Monday would be Cliff Colnot’s last concert as chief conductor of Chicago’s Civic Orchestra. And so it was.
He got a rare review in the Tribune, but no-one has said why he’s going after 22 years and what will become of the orchestra, except that Colnot will continue working with the ensemble until the end of the season.
The Civic is a training ensemble for the Chicago Symphony.
In Solti’s time it was exactly that. Now, outsiders seem to be winning auditions for CSO seats.
Is the Civic safe?
press release:
Berlin receives Abbado bequest
The musical estate of Claudio Abbado (1933–2014) is to come to Berlin. The donation to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin) includes an extensive collection of scores, handwritten notes, audio/video releases, musicological literature and letters. The Staatsbibliothek is to look after the collection and make it available in a reading room dedicated to Claudio Abbado. It is also planned to digitise large parts of the archive. The Berliner Philharmoniker will curate the content of the collection. In addition to the existing Claudio Abbado Composition Prize, exhibitions will be held, works analyses will be made possible, and study opportunities for young conductors will be created.
An agreement to this effect was signed by Paolo Lazzati, president of the Fondazione Claudio Abbado, Barbara Schneider-Kempf, director general of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and Martin Hoffmann, general director of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation at the Berlin Philharmonie on 3 March 2016.
The Fondazione Claudio Abbado was set up by the heirs of Claudio Abbado at the end of 2014 to preserve the musical legacy in its entirety and to donate it to an institution that guarantees its archiving and availability on a permanent basis. It was also a particular concern of the Abbado heirs that the legacy be kept alive.
The Fondazione is delighted that the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker are taking on this task together. The music department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is the perfect place for the archive as it specialises in the preservation and restoration of valuable manuscripts and is one of the world’s leading institutions in this field.
Due to their long-term artistic bond with Claudio Abbado, the Berliner Philharmoniker are ideal to supervise the archive content and to realise projects that offer young conductors and musicians the possibility of working with the archive.
The Staatsbibliothek and the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation are delighted that they have been entrusted with the Claudio Abbado collection which will thus find a permanent home in Berlin.
Rumours are flying around that English National Opera, when it leaves the Coliseum, will decamp to the Roundhouse at Camden.
We’ve established that nothing has yet been signed, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Roundhouse seats 1,700, has staged work for the Royal Opera and has a young audience who live across north London in residential heartlands that ENO has long abandoned. It’s a perfect place for ENO to start reconnecting with real people.
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Hat-tip to Aribert Reimann, accompanist to the great recitalist in the later stage of his career and a composer of two stark operas, King Lear and Medea.
Fischer-Dieskau personified his Lear.
Sophie Koch, who sings tonight in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Vienna Staatsoper, Sophie Koch has been awarded the title ‘Österreichische Kammersängerin’, even though she’s proudly French.
Like the Staatsoper director Dominique Meyer (and in common with the owner of Slipped Disc), Sophie originates from Alsace-Lorraine.
pictured: Sophie Koch, Dominique Meyer and Josef Ostermayer, Austrian Minister for Arts and Culture (c) Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Poehn.
The Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie, who is making a fine comeback after an 18-month cancer struggle, has posted a health update on Slipped Disc. After cancelling a London date, he writes:
To reassure everyone: cancer is NOT back. I’m just experiencing the ups and downs of a long recovery and the joys of a weak immune system, which is perfectly normal after fighting the kind of cancer I faced (T-cell lymphoma). Among other temporary health issues, flying is still very difficult as I tend to catch every bug around (and everybody knows there is a lot of them on a plane…), which led to the decision not to travel overseas for a while. I am still conducting at home and will be back on the international stage very soon. Meanwhile I send my very best wishes to the wonderful musicians and staff of the Academy of Ancient Music for the concerts in late March.
Delighted to share good news.
There are two striking precedents in this world premiere, shown first on Slipped Disc.
The Ra’anana orchestra’s music director, Omer Meir Wellber, leads from the accordion – yes, he conducts and squeezes at the same time.
The other is that the new work, by Ella Milch-Sheriff (pictured), is composed in Yiddish, a language all but destroyed in Hitler’s Holocaust and now experiencing a gentle revival.
Oh, and it’s a remarkable piece. Watch.
Olga Rostropovich has been forced to call off this year’s tribute festival to her father in his birthplace, Baku.
She blames Russia’s all-pervasive economic crisis and hopes to reinstate the festival next year, which would have been Slava’s 90th birthday.
She was over the age limit, but they let her attend today’s rehearsal anyway. So long as she didn’t tell anyone.
press stuff: The Queen today witnessed the power of peer inspiration as she attended an NYO Inspire session at Lister Community School in Plaistow, London, as part of a day to showcase the work of charities funded by The Queen’s Trust.
Talented and committed musicians from National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain – the world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers – led a rehearsal with young instrumentalists from the Lister School Orchestra for The Queen before performing a specially-arranged excerpt of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in front of the entire 1350-strong school audience.
The Royal showcase followed several sessions where NYO musicians have worked alongside the less experienced players in the school as part of NYO Inspire, a nationwide programme in which players from the orchestra share skills and inspiration with committed young musicians who lack opportunities to advance their playing, and bring workshops and performances direct to teenage audiences in schools.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is about to announce a visit to Mongolia as part of a bilateral memo of understanding between the two states to be signed today in Washington.
Not many international orchestras touch down at Genghis Khan International Airport. This may be a first.
Yannick will conduct.
The last Soviet leader is 85 this week.
Two years ago, on his birthday, he broke into song during a Steve Rosenberg interview.
Two professors at Indiana University have run an employment survey among music graduates at 150 institutions, testing their employability on graduation. They covered two disciplines, music and music education.
Here’s what they found: More than half the students in music performance found related work within four months of graduation, as did 75 percent of music-ed grads.
That’s great. It compares to a national average of 25 percent of graduates finding jobs within their field.
The downside? Pay.
Most people with a music degree wound up earning between $20,000 and $60,000 a year.
