There’s a whisper backstage that Peter Gelb may jump ship.
Lincoln Center is desperate to find a new president after the last one was dumped for promoting his lover.
Gelb is in ever-deepening mire at the Met. He has done ten years and run out of ideas.
What could be more convenient than a job switch?
At this stage, this is no more than canteen chat. But stranger things have happened.
We’ve heard from the Alfred Brendel Remain camp today.
Are any UK musicians suffiiently sceptical or fed up to vote Leave?
Or brave enough to declare their intention?
English Music Festival, anyone?
HGO has posted season-end figures. Ticket sales were 84 percent of capacity.
Donations came to $16.8 million an increase of $600,000 on 2014–15.
The books are balanced, the city’s happy.
The Met, by contrast, is playing below two-thirds full and needs to find $100 million by next month.
A not-uncommon transaction, seldom brought to court.
A Hungarian pianist who won a Fulbright Scholarship to do post-graduate studies at UCLA is suing the regents of the University of California, alleging one of her professors lured her into a sexual relationship and increased the grade he was giving her after their initial intimate encounter.
Tunde Krasznai’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Tuesday, alleges harassment and failure to prevent harassment. The complaint also names as a defendant Robert Winter, a UCLA Department of Music professor.
…. “After being pressured to and having had sex with Winter, Winter retroactively changed the grade that Krasznai received in his course from B+ to an A,” the suit alleges.
Read on here.
Bavarian State Opera has announced the death of Heinrich Bender, Staatskapellmeister for half a century and head of the opera studio in Munich.
Heinrich Bender, who was 91, worked many of his summers in Bayreuth.
Originally from Saarbrücken, where his father played viola in the orchestra, Bender studied composition with Boris Blacher and was summoned in 1959 to be kapellmeister in Munich by Joseph Keilberth, staying on to work with Wolfgang Sawallisch and Zubin Mehta. He conducted more than 90 operas in the house.
After turning down an offer to be music director in Dresden under the Communist regime, he became chief conductor of German repertoire at the Canadian Opera Company and a regular guest with the Toronto Symphony.
The critic Marcel Prawy called him ‘the last representative of a dying species’.
His students include Agnes Baltsa , Kevin Conners, Petra Lang, Violeta Urmana and Yaron Windmüller.
photo (c) Sabine Toepfer/LebrechtMusic&Arts
The retired pianist, 85, has joined a petition to the British people by 125 cultural personalities, urging them to stay in the EU.
The petition, which appears in today’s Times Literary Supplement, is also signed by the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, the Irish rugby player Tommy Bowe, the chef Raymond Blanc and other public intellectuals.
There are other classical signatories: the composers Krzyzstof Penderecki and Richard Dubugnon, and a French music critic, Michka Assayas.
The petition reads:
Sir, – All of us in Europe respect the right of the British people to decide whether they wish to remain with us in the European Union. It is your decision, and we will all accept it. Nevertheless, if it will help the undecided to make up their minds, we would like to express how very much we value having the United Kingdom in the European Union. It is not just treaties that join us to your country, but bonds of admiration and affection. All of us hope that you will vote to renew them. Britain, please stay.
Like many wavering voters, I am profoundly moved and will give the appeal due consideration.
On the other hand, the day Mr Brendel comes to me for piano lessons is the day I will turn to him for political advice.
See the full petition here.
photo (c) universal-music.de
The hall that Daniel Barenboim is dedicating to the memory of his late lamented friend won’t be ready for concerts for another nine months. But they are starting to give guided tours and the prospect of an infinitely flexible musical space is more than a little enticing.
Check the website for tour details.
Press release, just in:
Tanglewood’s 2016 season, June 17-September 3—which features an all-star Popular Artists lineup, alongside Boston Symphony Orchestra performances throughout the summer—kicks off with a performance by country music icon Dolly Parton on Friday, June 17, at 7 p.m., as part of a season-opening weekend also featuring Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legends Earth, Wind & Fire on Saturday, June 18, at 7 p.m., and a cover-to-cover performance of Pet Sounds headlined by Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson with Blondie Chaplin and Al Jardine on Sunday, June 19, at 2:30 p.m. In addition, Tanglewood welcomes the return of prolific singer-songwriter Jackson Browne to the Shed on Tuesday, June 21, at 7 p.m.
The following weekend will open with a performance by Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti on Friday, June 24, at 8 p.m. in Ozawa Hall. The 19th consecutive live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion with host Garrison Keillor will take place on Saturday, June 25, at 5:45 p.m.
Tanglewood’s Fourth of July holiday weekend will open with celebrated guitaristWarren Haynes performing the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration with theBoston Pops under conductor Keith Lockhart on Friday, July 1, at 8 p.m. Bob Dylan and special guest Mavis Staples perform a concert in the Shed on Saturday, July 2, at 7 p.m., followed by two sold-out performances of James Taylor and his All-Star Band on Sunday, July 3, and Monday, July 4, at 8 p.m. Unless otherwise specified, all performances take place in the Koussevitzky Music Shed.
A legendary Kundry in the 1980s and 1990s, the outstanding German soprano fell out with the elderly and irascible Wolfgang Wagner and swore never to return.
Today, Waltraud Meier agreed to come back as Ortrud in 2018, when she will be 62.
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra has appointed Aram Demirjian to be its next music director, after a year-long trawl of nine candidates.
Demirjian, 29, is currently associate conductor of the Kansas City Symphony.
The writer and critic Janusz Ekiert died today in Warsaw, aged 85, the Chopin Insitute has announced.
A foreign correspondent for state media for many years, he was an influential backstage figure at several Chopin competitions. Janusz Ekiert wrote several books about Chopin, hosted a television series and married the soprano and film actress Violetta Villas.
This EU press release has just landed. It’s an instant fudge that admits no error and patches over the recent chaos. An appalling piece of misgovernance from start to finish.
Brussels, 1 June 2016
Today, the European Commission has found short and long term solutions to keep the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) alive. The Orchestra has been a symbol of Europe’s cultural diversity for the last 40 years.
The EUYO has been supported by the European institutions since its beginning in 1976. The Commission wants to keep the spirit of the Orchestra alive, by allowing it to train the best European musicians in Europe for the benefit of all European territories. We count on the Orchestra in these challenging times to adapt their activities and to spread the European spirit of freedom, creativity and openness in Europe and for Europe.
The President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who gave his patronage to the EUYO when he took office, said: “For the last 40 years, the European Union Youth Orchestra has symbolised Europe’s cultural diversity. The Commission has been proud to support the Orchestra from the very beginning. When I learned that the Orchestra had financial problems, I was very worried and I immediately asked my Commissioners to find a solution. Today, I am happy to announce that we have found a solution, which will allow the European Union Youth Orchestra to continue in 2016 and 2017 and even beyond. I want to thank the European Parliament for helping us to find the solution and notably MEPs Silvia Costa and José Manuel Fernandes. Together we have shown that we can find creative solutions by overcoming bureaucratic procedures when something is in the interest of our citizens. I wish the European Union Youth Orchestra a very successful future.”
Commissioner Tibor Navracsics, in charge of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, Commissioner Günther Oettinger, in charge of the Digital economy and Society and Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva, in charge of Budget and Human Resources, will implement the solutions found. These solutions are also the result of a close cooperation with the European Parliament.
Background information
A solution for 2016 to prevent the Orchestra from closing down would be based on an amendment of the Creative Europe programme’scurrent work programme, the main EU funding instrument for the cultural sector, by the implementation of an action grant for the amount of EUR 600.000.
For 2017, the European Parliament is proposing a “pilot project” to ensure that the EUYO has operational funding by amending the Commission’s general budget proposal. The Commission will support this amendment. Several Member States expressed their support for the EUYO during the EU Culture and Audiovisual Council which took place on 31 May.
In the long run, the Commission will propose to the European Parliament and to the Council sustainable solutions in the framework of the Creative Europe Programme which will provide certainty for the EUYO to continue its activities. In parallel, the Orchestra is invited to seek additional, complementary sources of financing to expand its activities.
The services of the Commission will work on the details to ensure that the activities and expenditures of the EUYO are managed according to the rules and to ensure there is tight control over how funds are used and that the money is spent in a transparent, accountable manner.
