He’s the only world leader to give more than a passing glance to a contest that viewers in most countries regards as an outworn joke. So what’s in it for Russia?

Fascinating BBC analysis here.

It seems likely that Russia will win.

The 2014 winner – not Putin’s type

This is Daniil Trifonov’s acceptance in absentia this week on an RPS award.

Another world.

Newly released on Youtube. Only clips, but still gripping.

The country wakes up this morning to the realisation that state funding has been removed from 20 music organisations and 40 more groups in other arts. Jonathan Holloway, artistic director of the Melbourne Festival, explains how deep this will cut into the national creativity.

Here’s his post:

All of us at Melbourne Festival are stunned and saddened by the funding announcements of the last week.

Many acclaimed and well-loved Melbourne Festival productions in recent years have been realised by organisations who lost their funding this week including Arena Theatre, Black Arm Band, KAGE Physical Theatre, Legs on the Wall, Phillip Adams BalletLab, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Force Majeure and Theatre Works.

The creative industry in Australia – which gives back so much more than it receives, which makes a $50bn economic impact annually against investment of $7bn, which attracts more people than sport and employs more people than mining – have lived with the unbearable expectation of this week’s announcements for months, but nothing could have prepared us for the unbelievable ferocity of the cuts.

The chief executive of the National Association for Music Education, Michael A. Butera, has lost his job for saying that ‘blacks and Latinos lack the keyboard skills needed for this field’ in his organisation. This is him.

And this is his instant successor, Michael Blakeslee.

He says: ‘In hindsight, well, gee, maybe our board should have appointed one of our very fine African-American educators or teachers. ‘All I can say is, I think I have some skill sets that will be helpful, and experiences that will be helpful… to move the needle toward a more diverse workforce in education.’

I review a sudden downpour of Haydn releases in the latest Lebrecht Album of the Week and Lebrecht Listens.

Among them are some stunning pieces that seldom or never get played by major orchestra.

Why is that? Because orchestras have surrendered Haydn to the period-instrument crew? Because they’re scared of being held up for political incorrectness? Because Haydn doesn’t sell? Because, because….. excuses.

There are three pieces in this batch that I want to hear live. Like now.

Let me know if you know anyone that’s doing them.

Read all about it here or here.

And here.

The American violinist Anthea Kreston is adjusting to her new life in the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet. But almost everywhere she turns there is someone who raises an uncomfortable question. Latest instalment of Anthea’s candid weekly diary.

This week, Vineta was in Latvia playing concertos, and the rest of us busied ourselves with concerts with others (which are referred to as “Quartet Affairs”) and the business of life and quartet.

Jason and I had our second visit from family – it seems like we will have one visit per month in the next months. Some of our family members travel often and have lived overseas and have a fearless, easy-going approach to adventure. Others have stayed close to home for many years and see our move as a chance to branch out in a safe and comfortable way. In both cases, it is a chance for us to get to know our own city better, and we often learn about new things to do from our guests. This week we were also given a bunch of furnishings from IKEA, due to arrive any day. We are still living out of cardboard boxes, and now we just paint them and put glitter on them to make them more homey.

Our German tutor, Sebastian, has been coming twice per week, and spends 45 minutes first with me, then with Jason. He somehow can understand my babbling, I don’t know how, and asks me about Oregon. He can’t believe the differences and coaches Jason and I about cultural differences and how to relate and what to expect. For example, I was planning a little “gorilla gardening” adventure – these are very popular in Oregon – if there is a sunny spot, why not just plant some things – there are huge luxurious gardens planted between sidewalk and street (officially town property) and even chicken coops in town-owned property.  In our courtyard there is a prime sunny spot with some mangy, unloved plants. I have some tomatoes (in Oregon we left behind a huge garden and I love to have enough tomatoes to last through the year) that I was hoping to nestle in that spot. Sebastian, with a horrified look, said “oh dear Anthea, this won’t work in Germany!”.  In the mean time, our little balcony is starting to have a nice container garden.

I also had a wonderful time reconnecting with Fred Child from Performance Today (American Public Media).  This show is one-of-a-kind in America – it features live classical performance and Fred is a knowledgeable and passionate speaker. He happened to be on a two-week tour of Germany with three busses of classical radio music lovers, and asked me to come play and speak to his group. In 2003 my trio (Amelia Piano Trio) spent a week with Performance Today as Young Artists in Residence – an hour of live performance every day and interviews. This was an incredible experience for Jason (cellist in the Trio) and I – and more than 1.5 million listeners tuned in. To play a weeks-worth of concerts, note-perfect, and to speak eloquently was an overwhelming task for us as young musicians, and Fred made it feel easy and comfortable.

Performance Today was travelling with a fine young pianist, and they suggested we read the Kreutzer Sonata together for the group after Fred interviewed me. Because our things finally came, I was able to find my music (and a fun vintage gown from the 50’s) and spent a couple of days refreshing my Kreutzer Sonata.  We went as a family to a beautiful large banquet hall for a lovely meal of salmon and spargel – the white asparagus which is in season now.

Being interviewed by Fred is both comfortable and in-depth, and I was surprised to find myself quickly on the topic of being a woman in this field, at this point in my life. He introduced me as a violinist who also has a Women’s Studies degree, and spoke glowingly about the Artemis and their shared history. He spoke about the extreme schedule, and my adjustment to this. It is true that this has been a big adjustment, but none of it has been at all out of my comfort zone. I love it. But, as he pressed further, I began to talk about some of the comments I have received in the last months. Questions about if it was appropriate for a woman with young children to be doing this job, direct questions (and disapproval) that I would pull Jason away from his career.  These questions have been straight-forward and pointed, and I have always answered calmly and with an open mind. But I do wonder if people who ask these questions also ask male musicians about their female counterparts, and their careers.  I am one of three members of this quartet with children under age 6, and I don’t believe that similar questions have been asked of them.  All musicians come from different situations, and none of these are simple or easy.

These questions must be coming from compassion, but still they rattle and confound. Also – and I might as well say it – I do read the comments from this diary (why do I do this?? – RW2013 I will have a standing ticket for you at every Philharmonie concert!) Many of the negative ones are centered around a premise that this type of journal is inappropriate or too mundane and refer to the Guarneri Quartet “Indivisible by Four” – but this diary is simply a diary of my journey – and for me it includes my family in every way. It was refreshing to recently read in an interview of YoYo Ma that he counted his family as the biggest accomplishment of his life.

As I left the Performance Today group, a woman raiser her arms and shouted “courage!” to me. She came over to speak and I mentioned that Jason and his kind of supportive husband (giving up his university position and orchestra for this move) should not be a spectacular exception – women do this all the time. Rather it should be the norm. But – we are still a long distance away from this.

And – if Clara could do it with 9 kids, an unstable husband, and in a buggy, I can do it too!

The Chicago Symphony had a pioneering multimedia explanatory program hosted by Gerard McBurney.

No more.

No reason. No announcement.

Read here.

Decca have signed their first recorder player.

Lucie Horsch is Dutch, 16 years old and madly in love with her instrument. She says: ‘There are five-hundred different fingerings, so you can really colour your playing with different choices. And vibrato gives yet another level of expression. Even though the recorder has a smaller dynamic range than, for example, the violin or the cello the potential for expressive detail and nuance is enormous.’

First release in October.

The piano-playing former editor was supposed to become chair of the Scott Trust, which owns the paper. But the Guardian is suffering massive losses, some of which can be ascribed to his expansionist programme.

Here’s the rather sad email he sent this morning to Guardian staff. It will resonate with journalists the world over.

Dear former colleagues

I wanted to let you know I will not be returning to Chair the Scott Trust later this year.

Many of you will know what the Scott Trust has meant to me and for Guardian journalism. It is so unique that not many people – externally, or, sometimes, even internally – truly appreciate the crucial role it has had over many years in nurturing, resourcing and protecting what we do.

When, in late 2014, the Scott Trust appointed me to succeed Liz as chair I was beyond honoured. But much has changed in the year since I stepped down. All newspapers – and many media organisations beyond – have been battered by turbulent and economic forces that were difficult to foresee last summer.

On my appointment to the Scott Trust job in November 2014 the Chair of GMG, Neil Berkett, was kind enough to say publicly : “Alan has set the standard for journalistic leadership in the digital age. His appointment to lead The Scott Trust coincides with rapidly rising readership, continued innovation and secure finances at the Guardian. His successor will inherit a global media organisation in very strong health and with clear prospects for further growth.”

The difference between that assessment and the way things look now is a measure of how much the world has changed.

I have been on the Trust long enough to understand its role. We all currently do our journalism in the teeth of a force 12 digital hurricane. It is surely obvious to anyone that changed circumstances will demand dramatically changed solutions.

Kath and David clearly believe they would like to plot a route into the future with a new chair and I understand their reasoning. I have a fantastically interesting new life in Oxford. I will miss you all.

You have been the most wonderful colleagues and we achieved really amazing things together. I continue to read with immense admiration the journalism the Guardian and Observer produce. It’s all the more enjoyable for having played no part in it.

Thanks to all of you who have quietly emailed support in the past few weeks. And very best wishes to all as you negotiate the storms currently affecting pretty much everyone in our industry. We will come through….

Alan

She’s Elsa in Lohengrin at Dresden next week. This is the first orchestral stage rehearsal.

German’s maybe not her strong point.

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, on tour in Japan, responded swiftly to the closure of the European Union Youth Orchestra with an offer to lobby the EU to reverse its miserable decision.

In an article in today’s Guardian, the EUYO’s CEO Marshall Marcus says the defunding of EUYO was not a considered decision, rather a consequence of some larger, meaningless Brussels policy of the kind that no-one fully understands and which drives many Europeans to despair.

This funding decision is simply the consequence of a change in the EU’s cultural funding policy. Two years ago it was decided by the EU that there was to be no more cultural funding for any single organisation. Instead, €1.45bn of cultural support over seven years (a 7% increase on the previous programme) was only allowed to be used on projects with a highly complicated partnership structure. The new Creative Europe programme has wonderful objectives. But it is project funding to encourage national organisations to get together to become more European, not core funding for what is the original pan-European organisation.

We went to talk to Commissioner Navracsics and also members of President Schulz’s cabinet in early 2015 to say that this “one size fits all”-approach to cultural funding doesn’t work? for an EU orchestra with members from 28 countries, and that we were being forced into the wrong funding box. They listened, apparently, but neither the Commissioner nor the well-meaning cabinet members had any answer. And Navracsics’ hastily put together statement from yesterday seems to only repeat the same category error, a simpleton bureaucrat mantra trying to dodge the absurdity of the EU apparently having no responsibility to give any support to the EU’s own youth orchestra. Excuse me?

This is government in the hands of bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats.

 How you can help.