Love this.

New opera. Instantly accessible. Familiar situation.

Jari Piper is an American cellist who moved from Alaska to Istanbul in 2014.

He plays there in the Borusan Philharmonic orchestra and earns extra money playing for commuters on the ferries that criss-cross the Bosphorus.

There’s a nice piece about him in the Guardian today (except the journo neglects to mention his orchestra work).

The work will be premiered at Carnegie Hall on his birthday,  January 31, 2017.

He only started writing symphonies in 1992, inspired by David Bowie’s album, Low.

Gérard Bourgeois, who was 80, captured for all time the summer of 1964.

Both have dropped out of Munich’s Traviata on July 15 and 18.

The replacements are Ermonela Jaho and Pavol Breslik.

Christoph Stephinger has also cried off as the doctor. He is subbed by Kristof Klorek.

Sounds like Munich is having an attack of consumption.

They started out on the Philips label around 1980.

Now the piano duo Katia and Marielle Labeque  are returning to the same stable, signing yesterday with Deutsche Grammophon France.

Not waiting for the Austrians to claim him as a Viennese tax-payer, the federal German government today announced a national festival for the 25oth anniversary of the great composer’s birth, in Bonn, in 1770.

‘The ideas he transmitted through music are more important today than ever. We need to pursue the ideals of freedom and brotherhood more than ever before, and Beethoven transmitted these in a universal language,’ said Culture Minister Monika Grütters.

Very true.

But surely German designers could have done better than this absolutely grotty logo.

There is no end in sight to the vendetta by South Korea’s powerful Park family against the Myung Whun Chung former music director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

Chung will appear in court Wednesday to answer charges of defamation filed by the orchestra’s fired chief executive, Hyun-jung Park.

He has been subjected to a campaign of abuse by newspapers under Park family control. The orchestra has struggled to hire credible conducting talent since his departure.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin ended a three-year residency at the Konzerthaus Dortmund on Saturday.

He never expected this kind of send-off.

Just watch.

Friends report the death last weekend of Catherine Wilson, a busy operatic soprano at Sadlers Wells, Opera North, Aldeburgh and Scottish Opera.

A versatile performer, she created the title role in Thea Musgrave’s opera Mary Queen of Scots and she was much in demand for Britten roles: Governess in Turn of the Screw, Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nancy in Albert Herring and Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes. A full list of her roles with Scottish Opera, where she sang from 1960 to 1987, can be read here.

A strikingly beautiful woman, Catherine turned 80 this year.

She was married to the conductor Leonard Hancock, who died in 1999.

When we reported two and a half weeks ago that Rune Bergmann has been named principal conductor and artistic director of the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, some readers said who? and where’s that?

Today, Rune was announced as music director of the Calgary Philharmonic in Canada from September 2017.

A 40 year-old Norwegian, Rune is being marketed by IMG Artists.

Will he stick at two jobs, or twist?

The Jack Quartet has come apart, it was announced today.

After 11 years together, founding violinist Ari Streisfeld had landed an assistant professorship in South Carolina and  cellist Kevin McFarland has settled in Denver and wants to compose more.

The pair will be replaced by violinist Austin Wulliman and cellist Jay Campbell.

But it won’t be the same jack-in-a-box string quartet.

UPDATE: And there’s a knock-on effect. Austin is leaving the Spektral Quartet. They’re hiring.