Friends of Mark Allen McCoy have announced his death last night. The cause was colon cancer.

Mark became music director of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra, Virginia, in 1998 as the age of 33. He also directed the Heights Chamber Orchestra, and the Baltimore String Orchestra Camp.

In a short life, he influenced musicians at every level of proficiency.

The following ad has appeared on Craigslist.

It is not an equal opportunity vacancy, being limited to female applicants.

It is also musically illiterate (anyone know a concerto by a beatified Irishman?). And possibly a sign of our times.

Image: The celebrated modernist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991)

Seeking a naked female cellist for wedding 

The season stats have been released at the Mariinsky in St Petersburg.

Attendance is high across all seven stages: the main Mariinsky Theatre for opera and ballet, the Concert Hall, Mariinsky-2 and four chamber music halls.

US Head Coach Bob Bowman and team captain Elizabeth Beisel play a duet at boot camp.

Bob, who studied music composition at Florida State, is an avid concertgoer.

Elizabeth, 23, is a double Olympic medallist.

Any other musical Olympians?

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung is taking its Olympic coverage into Rio’s unseen slums – where organised crime and musical talent flourish side by side.

Watch a beautiful video here.

The Rochester Philharmonic in upstate New York has been through turbulent times, but no-one has ever doubted the fidelity of its fond supporters.

Now a group of them have clubbed together tom pledge that every new $ given to the orchestra will be matched by an equal $ from present supporters.

This, so far as we know, is a first. And it seems to be unlimited: give $10m and they’ll put in $10m.

Composed.com, a joint streaming venture between Classic FM and Universal Music, is shutting down at the end of the month.

The site allowed subscribers access to a portion of the Universal classical catalogue, but its uptake never fulfilled the initial hopes after an expensive launch and a decision was taken in the past couple of weeks to pull the plug.

The abrupt closure announcement appeared today.

Some analysts reckon the fit was wrong. ClassicFM users tend to be passive. Streaming seekers are active and highly selective. There is room in the market for a service of this sort, but not from this source.

Friends are reporting the death of Christopher Jääskeläinen, lead tenor of the Church of St. Timothy in Toronto from 2004-2011, and a member of The Nathaniel Dett Chorale since 2004.

Originally from Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Christopher was a vocalist, violinist, and recording engineer.

He will be widely missed.

The death has been announced of the bass-baritone Günter von Kannen, a powerful and convincing Alberich at Bayreuth. He was 76.

Günter von Kannen was given his Bayreuth breakthrough by Daniel Barenboim in 1982, in the Harry Kupfer Ring cycle. A member of the Karlsruhe and Zurich companies, he appeared many times at Bayreuth and on other major stages.

Players in the Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria have sent us a list of reasons why they are going on strike unless their manager, Juan Mendoza, is fired within weeks.

Here are the grievances, some of them quite grievous:

 
In general there has been a long list of problems with Mr. Mendoza, which include:

Totally ignoring our “convenio”, or pay and conditions document:

Planning our work schedule late and incorrectly, not respecting our established rest periods, and generally ignoring the established rules, particularly with regard to hiring new staff.

Abuse of various members of staff and musicians including:

Insulting the librarian accusing him of carrying out work for our principal conductor on repertoire we are working on with him at the time.

Lack of air conditioning in our place of work(important when working in a hot climate)

Obstructing students and members of the orchestras when they try to practise in our orchestra centre (a building with some 20 practise rooms).

Cancelling positions in the orchestra and office unilaterally without consultation (the job of principal concertmaster disappeared)

General insults, threats, screaming at the committee when trying to uphold our rules and protocol.

Practically destroying our academy, sacking the conductor of the Gran Canaria Youth Orchestra (there has recently been a court ruling that he has to rehire this musician and compensate him).

Our ex principal conductor, Pedro Halffter,  is suing the manager personally for abuse after terminating his contract unlawfully.

In a more specific sense there have been severe problems with recruitment. This is largely due to the fact that our manager is closely allied with our existing concertmaster and has resulted in a two year long saga of manipulation and machination in order to squeeze her daughter into the orchestra as a tutti violinist at the cost of two candidates who rightly won their positions and have received the backing and approval of our musicians.

For those who like intellectual substance on stage, Balduin Sulzer has made a one-woman opera of the one-man mind-mountain.

Read here.

The widely-reported drugs case against David Roy Huckaby, a former cellist in the St Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony, has been dismissed after a judge ruled the police had no right to search his car.

Police said there were 113lb of marijuana in his car.

His attorney notifies us:

8/3/2016

CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST CELLIST

All charges against Cellist David Huckaby were dropped by the Klamath County Oregon Circuit Court. The Court granted a motion to suppress evidence which consisted of over one hundred pounds of marijuana. The motion was filed by Huckaby’s attorney, Phil Studenberg of Klamath Falls, Oregon. The motion argued that there was no probable cause for the search Huckaby’s vehicle and it violated the Oregon and U. S. Constitution prohibitions against unlawful search and seizure. The arresting officer cited several reasons for the search, none of which were sufficient, according to the Court.

The Oregon Attorney General declined to appeal the matter.

“David’s case is a perfect example of what is wrong with the War on Drugs,” Studenberg stated. “It ruins the lives of talented young people and stigmatizes them for life. I’m just glad we prevailed in David’s case and he can carry on with his career.”