The composer Hans-Jürgen von Bose has been identified in tabloid newspapers as the defendant in a forthcoming rape case in Munich. (The newspapers name him as ‘Hans-Jürgen B.’; his wife went public with his full name.)

The alleged rapes took place while von Bose, 62, was a professor at the city’s Academy of Music, whose former rector was recently convicted of a sex offence aganst a faculty member.

Von Bose, who was suspended by the Academy in May 2015, will contest the charges.

Under the headline ‘A cry for help’, his wife, Karin Susanne ‘Kaline’ Bose, today issued an appeal to friend and admirers and opened a donation account here to help pay legal and health-care costs.

Mrs Bose maintains that violence is alien to her husband’s nature and that his health, already fragile, has been wrecked by the case.

Hochschule_fuer_Musik_und_Theater-munich

Presumptions of innocence apply.

The violinist Anna Markova, who is based in Bremen, Germany, has addressed the following cri de coeur to the UK Government:

I spent one month of my life and a lot of money to gather all the necessary – absolutely stupid! – papers in the right time, I had to go the other town to be controlled in your visa centre as if I were a criminal! I had to give full information about me, such information like my income since the last 6 months, and not only the income, but also my bank statements for the 6 months – all that only to play ONE concert and to stay only 2,5 days in your “Great” country!

And now all this is for nought, because the orchestra cannot wait any longer, they have to invite another violinist, because the concert is in 3 days and I don’t have the answer about my visa till now, and I will not get it in time, although I paid for the visa. And as the result of all the trouble which has been caused me by the embassy of “Great” Britain, I will not be able to play in the concert on 22.07 in BBC Proms.Thank you, “Great” Britain!!!

The concert is by Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. Anna, 30, was a member of the ensemble.

Many non-EU musicians complain of similar obstacles to entering the UK.

After Brexit, it will get much worse.

anna markova

 

Some of the country’s leading opera singers have launched a campaign against its opera chief who, they say, has only put on three productions in two years.

Singers such as Mzia Nioradze, Tamar Iveri, Nana Kavtarashvili, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Lado Ataneli have put their names to a document which describes Davit Kintsurashvili, artistic director of the Tbilisi State Theatre as ‘unprofessional’. Kintsurashvili has dismissed the protest as a ‘conspiracy’ against him.

More here.

tbilisi state opera

A former Turner Prize finalist Catherine Yass has marked the demolition of BBC TV Centre at White City by dangling a piano over the site.

That pretty much sums up the present state of the conceptual arts.

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The ES reports: Catherine Yass was one of eight artists-in-residence who were asked to come up with work reflecting the history of the former BBC site in west London…

Sounds like an Alan Yentob commission.

Stewart Pearce, who gave his entire working life to the Metropolitan Opera, has died after a brief illness.

He was chief executive of the Met Opera Guild from 2010 to 2015. In his previous role, as assistant operations manager at the Met, he was helpful to many singers.

Peter Gelb and James Levine have posted this notice:

stewart pearce

 

 

The Metropolitan Opera mourns the death of our dear friend and colleague Stewart Pearce, whose Met career spanned 39 years from 1976, when he began at the Metropolitan Opera Guild as an intern, to his retirement in 2015 as Managing Director of the Guild. From 1982 he worked for the Metropolitan Opera Association in various business-related capacities, and was Assistant Manager of the Met from 1997 to 2014. The wide scope of his experience with the company included finance and budgeting, marketing, fundraising, and operations management. Few administrators in the Met’s history have had such varied responsibilities, and Stewart’s knowledge of the Met and how it worked was second to none. He was tapped by succeeding general managers to tackle some of the company’s biggest administrative challenges, and he consistently carried out his tasks with efficiency, tact, precision, and an unflappable calm that earned him everyone’s admiration and affection. Stewart loved opera and loved the Met. He played one of the most important roles in the Met’s administration, perhaps invisible to the general public, but essential to making our company run smoothly. Stewart’s passing came much too soon, and his many friends and colleagues express their deepest condolences to his husband, Kevin, and to all those in and outside of the Opera House who will miss him dearly.

Peter Gelb
General Manager

James Levine
Music Director Emeritus

Vladimir Urin, general director of the Bolshoi Theatre, has denied creating a post for former English National Opera boss, John Berry.

Urin said there had been no discussion of a permanent job for Berry in the Bolshoi’s governance structure.

He added, however, that Berry will be in Moscow this week for Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust and that discussions with him would continue.

john berry

New York musicians are sharing their sorrow at the death of Lloyd Arriola, a widely known and well liked interprter and a powerful advocate of contemporary music.

Lloyd died on Sunday. No cause has been given.

lloyd arriola

From his bio:

Raised in n San Francisco, Lloyd began his career as a conductor for a local performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball. He has continued to music direct and conduct operas ranging from Julius Caesar to La Boheme to La Serva Padrona and I Can’t Stand Wagner. Recently Lloyd was one of the pianists for the world premiere of the two piano version of William Bolcom’s opera A View from the Bridge with Vertical Player Repertory theatre.

Lloyd Arriola studied at The Peabody Institute and at The Juilliard School, where he received his training from Yoheved Kaplinsky. Lloyd received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano from Juilliard in 2002, the first person of Filipino descent to receive his doctoral degree from that institution.

Pianist Lloyd Arriola Performs “Concert Piece” from Riverdale Country School on Vimeo.

The biennial £10,000 prize in memory of a British soprano who was taken by cancer at 40 has been awarded this year to Soraya Mafi, a Harewood Young Artist at English National Opera.

Soraya, 28, will spend the money on extra singing lessons with her teacher, Janis Kelly, language tuition and other travel and promotional essentials for a rising opera singer.

You can listen to her here.

soraya mafi

Dr Derek Williams, former chair of the Wagner Society of Scotland, has written to the lairds of Bayreuth objecting to the extra discomfort they are inflicting on senior Wagnerites like himself by banning the use of cushions.

His letter happened to drop into our inbox. Dr Williams writes:

Dear Ms Wagner and Mr von Berg

Thank you for your email to the Wagner Society of Scotland, with the PDF attachment outlining enhanced security arrangements.  I am one of a number of society members who will be attending Der Ring des Nibelungen this coming August (6-13), and other events over the coming years.  While I acknowledge and appreciate the imperative to safeguard the precious Festspielhaus and to protect patrons from explosive devices being smuggled into the theatre, it also concerns me as an older person that I may have to sit for 15 hours on solid wooden seats.  Can you please reassure me that the venue will be providing alternative cushions?

With best wishes

Derek Williams

 

bayreuth lohengin rats

Message from Melanie Erena, a member of Chicago’s Civic Orchestra:

melanie erena

‘San Francisco horn players: I am here vacationing with my family. Without thinking, I left my horn in the car while we went to dinner. We came back to the rental car to find the window smashed and the horn gone.

‘This happened today (Sunday) between 4:30 and 6:30pm right across from Pier 19. Please, please, PLEASE keep your eye out for it…Karl Hill Geyer in a Marcus Bonna case. Serial numbers:
Under 2nd valve: 309
Under 3rd valve (made in June 2002): 0602’

UPDATE: It has been found! San Francisco Police Department recovered the instrument only a few hours after the theft.

Alberto Veronesi resigned today as music director of the Festival Puccini Torre del Lago.

He had been under pressure for weeks over his political connections and the disaffection of musicians in the orchestra.

alberto veronesi

We hear that the Bavarian bass Andreas Hörl has pulled out of the Ring for health reasons.

He will be replaced as Hunding by Georg Zeppenfeld and as Fasolt by Günter Groissböck.

Various other Ring singers are confiding their dismay at the miserable dismissal of Jennifer Ann Wilson, who was supposed to have sung Sieglinde but was told that her voice didn’t fit.

andreas horl