Robert Page, Grammy-winning Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra from 1971 to 1989 and assistant conductor of the orchestra from 1979 to 1989, has died at the age of 89.
After 18 busy years in Cleveland, where he also conducted the opera company, he moved on to rebuild the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh from 1979-2005, making it one of the country’s finest. he was co-founder of Chorus America in 1977 and its president from 1990-1993.
Among many triumphs, he conducted the US premiere of Shostakovich’s 13th symphony and made choral settings of Candide arias for Leonard Bernstein.
First Graham Parker quit as general manager of New York’s WQXR to head Universal’s classical labels in the US.
Now Steve Robinson has quit Chicago’s outstanding WFMT after 16 years.
Steve, 69, Robinson told Tribune music critic John Von Rhein: ‘The decision was definitely mine and mine alone. I felt it was time to hand the baton off, that’s one reason. And I also feel it’s time for me to stretch my entrepreneurial wings in the for-profit world.’
CHICAGO – August 8, 2016 – WFMT, Chicago’s classical and fine arts radio station, today announced that Executive Vice President and General Manager STEVE ROBINSON will depart from WFMT, effective October 1, 2016. His last day at the station will be Friday, September 30.
“It is with great regret that we bid farewell to an indispensable member of our WFMT family,” said President and CEO Dan Schmidt of WFMT and WTTW. “It is difficult to imagine the station without his unflagging energy, endless creativity, and deep knowledge of classical music and radio operations. He will be greatly missed, and I know I speak for all of us when I wish him success in his future endeavors.”
“Working at WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network has been the greatest privilege and challenge of my career,” said Robinson. “When people ask, ‘Oh, you run WFMT?’ I always say, ‘No, I run after it.’ And that’s because everyone at WFMT is immensely creative, knowledgeable, and passionate about their work, and all I’ve really done is try to harness this incredible talent to move the station forward. If it has progressed at all in the 16 years I’ve been there, it’s because of them, and I will always be grateful.”
Steve has led WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network since 2000. Under his leadership, WFMT diversified its programming and increased its member base, and the Network became a leading producer and syndicator of music and spoken word programs. In 2002, Steve brought to the WFMT Radio Network a live broadcast of Princess Magogo, the first indigenous South African opera and the first with a libretto in the Zulu language. Steve hosted, and the opera was heard by more than four million listeners throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Steve created Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin in 2003, a daily series heard by more than 400,000 listeners a week, and he also instituted a comprehensive subscription website. Other popular WFMT series and programs created during Steve’s tenure include include Impromptu, a daytime showcase for local and visiting artists; Introductions, a unique weekly series that features promising young pre-college musician; and the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, which was launched in 2015 in partnership with Chicago History Museum. Last year, at Steve’s direction, the Network began exporting classical music radio concerts by American ensembles for broadcast in China and importing Chinese music performances for broadcast in the West, marking the first time a cultural exchange of this kind had happened between America and China.
In 2007, the Chicago Tribune named Steve a “Chicagoan of the Year” in the arts. His many other honors include two Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism; the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award; two Westbury Awards from the Red Cross of Greater Chicago for coordinating fundraising efforts among the city’s television and radio stations in the wake of the 2004 tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake; an Award of Excellence from the Chicago Sinfonietta; a special award from the Illinois Philharmonic; the first Champion Award from the Merit School of Music; and, with Bill McGlaughlin, Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago– previous winners have included Sir George Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Placido Domingo, Yo Yo Ma, Midori, Leon Fleischer, Sir Andrew Davis, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Steve currently serves on the boards of Cedille Records, the Merit School of Music, the Chicago College of Performing Arts and the Rush Hour Concerts. His past board service includes the Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Children’s Choir, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and Music in the Loft.
Previously, Steve worked at WBUR, WGBH, WCRB, KPFA, WVPR, WBGO, and Nebraska Public Radio.
Charles Dutoit, who has been conducting the Sydney Symphony for 40 years, has convinced his ex-wife Martha Argerich to join him on next year’s long-haul flight. It’s her first time Down Under.
Sydney’s other piano stars next season include Daniil Trifonov and Hélène Grimaud. Looking good.
press release: TUESDAY 9 AUGUST 2016: The Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson have today announced their 2017 season, with offerings for every concert-goer, from classical music aficionados to lovers of new Australian music and those looking forward to their first orchestral experience.
David Robertson has again invited some of the world’s greatest conductors and soloists to perform with your SSO, including Argentinean pianist Martha Argerich – who is set to make her Australian debut – and Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit in a celebration of his 40-year relationship with the SSO. Pianists Hélène Grimaud and Daniil Trifonov, violinists Baiba Skride and Janine Jansen, singers John Relyea and Susan Graham, and conductors Simone Young and Vladimir Ashkenazy will also appear in the 2017 season.
From 2014/15 Deutsche Bühnenverein statistics, just released:
1 La Traviata (Verdi) 31 productions, 286 performances
2 Die Zauberflöte (Mozart) 30 productions, 285 performances
3 Carmen (Bizet) 26 productions, 247 performances
4 Hansel und Gretel (Humperdinck) 207 performances
Magic Flute and H&G are targeted at children and Christmas audiences. So, no surprises here.
Among more recent works, Peter Grimes (Britten) had 35 performances and The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky) 30.
Dejan Mihailovic has died in Belgrade at the age of 84.
A graduate of David Oistrakh’s class in Moscow, he returned home to teach first at Novi Sad and later in the capital.
His star pupils include Nemanja Radulovic, Robert Lakatos, Mateja Marinkovic, Vesna Stankovic and more.
Another revealing statement from the diva, this time at today’s Salzburg press conference. From the official report:
Her husband Yusif Eyvazov is currently singing the role of Renato Des Grieux at her side.
“I am very proud of him. He mastered his Salzburg debut with bravura,” Anna Netrebko says. “I still remember hearing him for the first time in Rome two and a half years ago. I was impressed by his talent, but he had to learn to use it the right way. He is working hard on himself and on his voice.”
Peter Gelb: I don’t travel nearly as much as I used to in my previous jobs. I can’t really. I have to be here on the scene, since I wear multiple hats. I have overall artistic and business responsibility, this is a very big company, its a living breathing organism. We’re our own little village. We have over 3,200 full-time and part-time employees, and something is always happening here.
So my traveling during the season is always limited to a quick 24-hour trip to Europe or to London to check something out. For example, in a couple of weeks, I’m flying to Baden-Baden just for literally a 24-hour trip to be at the premier of our co-production of the new Tristan that will open our season this year in September, but that has its out-of-town premier in Baden-Baden. So I make trips like that, but I fly back the next day. So I’m missing from The Met for literally, 24 or 36 hours.
Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Simon Russell Beale has withdrawn from next Monday’s performance of Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw.
No reason has been given.
He will be substituted by the veteran operatic baritone David Wilson-Johnson.
The Library of Congress has announced plans to raise $1.5 million to acquire the David Bromberg collection of US-made violins.
Bromberg, a guitarist who once worked by Bob Dylan and George Harrison, developed a hobby on the road of buying pedigree American violins in antique and junk stores. He knew what to buy because he had acquired training as a young man in the craft of violin making.
The Library of Congress will utilise his collection as the basis for a new centre for the study of the American violin.
photo: Jon Kalish/NPR
In a notable reverse of current trends, the city has doubled its force of itinerant music teachers.
According to the Post-Gazette:Four additional instrumental music instructors will bring to eight those who will rotate once every six days in all schools that have fourth through eighth grades. Last school year, four instructors rotated among 23 schools once every seven days.
Let 1,000 flowers bloom.
About Turn Theatre’s production this week of Grigory Frid’s opera on the diary of Anne frank has drawn such a volume of holocaust denial posts that the company’s artistic director, Dan Hyde, has issued the following statement:
About Turn Theatre’s staging of Russian Composer Grigori Frid’s opera ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ has been met with a barrage of online abuse. The company’s Facebook page has been subjected to messages denying the holocaust and suggesting that Anne Frank’s diary is a fake.
The company has attempted to refute the claims, writing: “We have to state that any suggestion that the diary is inauthentic has been thoroughly debunked. The diary is real. The holocaust was real. People’s suffering was, and is real. This is the company’s final word on this matter.
Frid’s opera, premiered in 1968, has been staged in many countries. It is a wretched, dehumanising sign of our times that an opera about a child in hiding should become a magnet for anti-semites and Holocaust deniers.
photo: Anne Frank House
From the press release:
The BBC has produced a mini version of Bizet’s famous opera Carmen as part of the Get Playing music making campaign.
The short video condenses the doomed love story into a playful 120 seconds narrated by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Breakfast Show presenter, Shaun Keaveny.
