Jean-Louis LeRoux started out as principal oboe of the San Francisco.
He went on to become conductor of the San Francisco Ballet.
The he founded a contemporary music ensemble and a chamber orchestra.
Jean-Louis has died, aged 89. Obit here.
This is him, sharing a programme of Webern and Varese with the eclectic Mr Zappa.
The hard-pressed former industrial city is increasing its cultural offer with a decision to increase spending on music in the next three years.
The Leipzig Opera’s subsidy will increase from the present 47 million Euro to almost 52 mllion in 2020 (that’s about four times what English National Opera gets).
The Gewandhaus gets a more modest increase, from 19 million Euros now to 20.6 million in 2020.
More here.
Deeply moving New Yorker mini-doc.
Watch the trailer for Kahane Cooperman’s film.
Then the full 24-minute film.
Our artsjournal.com pal Doug McLennan thinks they might be.
There’s been a change in the news coming out of symphony orchestras over the past summer. Usually there’s a background drumbeat of struggle as orchestras fight to stay alive. But for months now, the beat has shifted, and we’re hearing about orchestras that are not only surviving but thriving.
Read his analysis here.
The Brazilian classical guitar site, Guitar Co-op, has a remarkably frank and comprehensive interview with the last of the guitar lions, the accomplished John Williams.
Much of the conversation, with Stephen Goss and Marcelo Kayath will be of invaluable technical interest to guitar players.. But John is an astute observer of musical habits and there is much to enjoy in the four lengthy segments of their chat.
You should bookmark the site if you love the guitar. There is nothing like it online.
Watch here.
The orchestra has posted news of the death of Meinhart Niedermayr, who inherited his father’s seat as principal flute. Meinhart played in the orchestra from 1962 until his retirement in 2003. His father had held the seat since 1921.
Meinhart was 75 at the time of his death.
Michael Vincent pops the question other Canadian critics have fluffed.
Roy Thomson Hall has just about the worst sound of any modern concert venue.
Now, at last, a Toronto writer tells it as it is: Famed soprano displayed vocal magic and extraordinary humanity at TSO opener, but hall’s acoustics swallowed her voice.
Read the full review here.
Photo: Dale Wilcox
This is apparently the first time a Stockhausen opera has been streamed.
It is also the first staging of Donnerstag in 30 years.
Press release:
On Saturday 1st October from 16:00 to 21:30 CET Sonostream.tv again affirms its imaginative and enterprising approach to arts broadcasting by carrying the first-ever livestream of a performance from Theater Basel, one of Switzerland’s leading opera theatres. The sense of occasion is heightened by the work chosen for the webcast: Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht.
An ambitious, visionary piece which utilizes various elements of opera, ballet, oratorio and absolute music, Donnerstag is one of the seven music dramas that form Stockhausen’s cycle Licht, composed between 1977 and 2003. Donnerstag was premiered at La Scala, Milan in 1981, but this staging at Theater Basel – first seen in June this year – is not only the Swiss premiere of the work, but its first production anywhere in more than 30 years.
The livestream is available free of charge to viewers around the world and will be available on demand, also free of charge for two weeks after the live broadcast.
The stage director is the young American Lydia Steier, who takes a fresh, highly theatrical approach to the piece. Titus Engel, especially renowned in modern music, is the conductor, while Kathinka Pasveer, a long-time collaborator of Stockhausen (who died in 2007) takes charge of the sound-mixing, having been closely involved with the musical preparation. The central role of Michael, a modern Orpheus, is taken by no fewer than four performers: the tenors Peter Tantsits and Rolf Romei, the trumpeter Paul Hübner and the dancer Emmanuelle Grach. The video production and direction is by Bernhard Fleischer.
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
I am not the right person to be reviewing this album, but then I’m not sure the right person actually exists. This is a Sony crossover project that falls smack between the tracks. How does one rate it on a scale of one to five?
Obviously five stars for production.
And here.
We have just been informed that the German tenor has pulled out of the Meistersinger revival in Munich (September 30, Oct. 3 and 8) and from a Budapest concert Sept. 25, dedicated to an idol of his, the Hungarian tenor József Simándy.
Last week he cancelled the opening concerts of the Staatsoper in Berlin.
Something must be seriously wrong.
UPDATE: He will be repalced in Munich by Burkhard Fritz.
‘We have a moral imperative to provide an opportunity for reflection and community. Music cares beyond pain,’ says music director Christopher Warren-Green.
The outdoor concert will open with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.
Report here.
Riots continue.
The musicians in Philadelphia are out of contract. If they can’t get a new deal soon, the orchestra will be back where it was five years ago – shut down and bankrupt. The atmosphere is souring.
Read what the musicians have to say:
It has been more than five years since the Board of the Philadelphia Orchestra voted to file for bankruptcy, becoming the first major American orchestra to do so. At the time, the Orchestra had a $140 million endowment, owned the Academy of Music, and had no debts, according to an NPR article from April 18, 2011.
Although the filing in April, 2011 was opposed by the musicians, the public was told that it was a necessary step, and that when the Orchestra emerged from bankruptcy, things would be much better.
When the court approved the bankruptcy, the Association made wholesale changes to our pension plan. The Plan was frozen and its administration was transferred to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, a U. S. government entity. Some musicians may receive lower pensions than they would have earned under the frozen Plan. The retirement benefits which were substituted for the Plan do not guarantee the benefit level specified in the Plan. In addition, the orchestra musicians, who had voluntarily taken a wage freeze the year before, and who had donated a significant amount of money to the Association, saw their salaries reduced by more than 14 percent. The size of the orchestra was also reduced, from 106 full-time positions to 95.
The Association, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Dobrin, spent “almost $10 million in professional fees and expenses” on the bankruptcy, and paid settlements of $1.75 million to the American Federation of Musicians Pension Plan, and $1.25 million to the Philly Pops in the process.
More than five years later, Musicians hoped that the Association would view the bankruptcy as a temporary means to regroup and ultimately restore the kind of budget that is necessary to fund a major symphony orchestra, rather than as a way to downgrade the musicians’ contract permanently. More than five years later, we are still waiting….
The regressive contracts under which we have worked since the bankruptcy have saved the Association millions of dollars. We have patiently endured cuts to our salary, pension, and health care. It is time to move forward and restore us to our proper place in the pantheon of orchestras.
