Teaching staff at the Mozarteum are demanding the replacement of all members of the University’s governing body before a new Rector is chosen.
They originally voted 19-1 against the appointment of the disgraced Siegfried Mauser, who has now left after being convicted in Munich of sexual assault on a female colleague. Now they want the governors to be sacked for their misjudgement.
The university council presently consists of: Viktoria Kickinger, a public functionary; Volksoper Director Robert Meyer; Heinrich Magometschnigg, a mecial practitioner; Nike Wagner of the Bonn Beethovenfest and Karl Ludwig Vavrovsky, a lawyer.
(Suddenly, we’re feeling a bit queasy. And there’s football on telly.)
The Vienna Philharmonic has yet to announce a change of programme. We understand the recording team have been stood down.
UPDATE: The VPO has announced that Jonathan Nott will replace Gatti. Kaufmann will sing both parts in Das Lied. The recording is cancelled.
We regret to share news (from one of his students) of the death in Australia of Alberto Remedios, a stalwart Siegfried at English National Opera and at many international houses.
Alberto was 81. He had lived in Australia since his retirement in 1999.
A Liverpool dock worker, he earned a place at the Royal College of Music and joined the Sadlers Wells company in the late 1950s.
He was the unforgettable Siegfried in Regnald Goodall’s Ring, one cycle of which played in those heady days in his native Liverpool.
The Orchestre National de France has found a successor to Daniele Gatti, who has been upgraded to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
The new music director (gentle drumroll) is a Frenchman (louder), Emmanuel Krivine (as you were).
He takes over in September 2017.
Krivine, 69, has been in charge of the Luxembourg Philharmonic for most of the past decade. He is the ONF’s first French chef for more than 40 years; Jean Martinon was the last, 1969-73.
The Orchestre de Paris recently appointed Daniel Harding to succeed Paavo Järvi.
Harding vs Krivine? Let’s see.
Riccardo Chailly, outgoing Gewandhaus music director, has pulled out of this week’s three valedictory performances of Mahler’s third symphony on unspecified health grounds.
He will be replaced by the incoming m.d., Andris Nelsons.
Chailly, 63, has cardiac history. He will not have cancelled these concerts lightly.
We wish him well.
Not new, but fun.
Part of his schools project, apparently.
Deborah Rutter turned the Chicago Symphony around by hiring Riccardo Muti as music director after he had turned down other US orchs. (Then they fell out.)
Now she’s restoring the fortunes of the Kennedy Center, hiring Gianandrea Noseda as music director of the National Symphony and generally breathing life into a moribund institutions.
A passionate diatribe about the things that stop people singing nowadays.
We began by changing our understanding of corporate worship. It’s not for the church, it’s for those who aren’t part of the church. The historic liturgy is out, and the 19th-century revival model is in. Instead of the entire service being filled with acts of worship – congregational prayers, affirmations, responses, and, yes, singing – we’ve decided that the singing alone is the “worship,” followed by preaching or teaching time (NOT worship), and then followed by a little more singing (again, worship) for good measure.
So, while the congregation once had a vital role in the entire service, we’ve decided they really only need to participate during the music.
Bruce Duffie bravely put that question to Phyllis Curtin, who died this week at 90.
Phyllis, unflinching, said: ‘I remember when I was about thirty I was changing techniques altogether, and he (my teacher) said, “You know, my dear, every singer has to learn to die twice.” That’s a very interesting thought when you’re thirty; quite a wise statement. When you’re sixty it says something interesting, but all along, if you’re canny you begin to notice things….
The Wigmore Hall has made a short film about its Music for Life programme.
It trains musicians and carers to work with dementia patients.
It works.
Prepare to be moved.
Nicholas Edwards, an acoustician who helped restore Birmingham’s Town Hall, explains why the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna is everyone’s ideal and Birmingham’s comparable shoebox was not.
