Fans of the Italian crooner are expressing displeasure at his reported decision to sing at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Tabloid rumours are spreading of a Boycott Bocelli movement.

The American soprano Aprile Millo has posted:

He has no idea what he is endorsing. Remember he’s from a country that put up with Berlusconi. One freak show to another. I don’t buy his music I appreciate that he’s a nice man but I will absolutely boycott any Bocelli. How about an American tenor? Outsourcing already because there seems to be no American that wants to sing for him. #BoycottBocelli.

Hundreds more are sharing the hashtag #BoycottBocelli.

Bocelli has yet to provide personal confirmation that that he will appear at the White House, though his team have leaked that it’s a done deal.

 

The Toronto Symphony has cleared out almost half its board, including the chairman Richard Philips and vice-chair Blake Goldring. In all eight board members have gone out of 19, and they include Sonia Baxendale, who acted as CEO after the abrupt departure of the high-spending Jeff Melanson. Philips was chair for six years.

The new chair is Catherine Beck, who joined the board just months ago. She is a successful industrialist and the daughter of H. Thomas Beck, who chaired the TSO in 1981-83.

The press release of the changes was issued at 1630 local on Friday in an attempt to bury the news.

Local media are struggling with the story. Our information is that it’s an overdue reckoning for the reckless choice of the discredited Melanson and the huge bills he ran up. Beck knows the TSO inside out and is considered a smart appointment, a chair who will support CEO Gary Hanson in his efforts to get the Symphony back onto an even keel.

 

The Chilean soprano Claudia Parada, a favourite at La Scala for two decades, died this week in Cagliari of bronchitis. She was 89.

After early Verdi ovations at 24, she explored a broad span of roles, from Monteverdi to Wozzeck’s Marie.

 

Soprano: Natalia Ushakova,
Mezzo: Vesselina Kasarova,
Tenor: Dmitry Korchak
Baritone: Sebastian Huppman

 

Pina Napolitano is touring a reduced version of Arnold Schoenberg’s piano concerto for 14 players.

It’s well within the tradition of Schoenberg shrinking other composers’ works for private performance.

No tattoos as far as we can see, but a bristling pair of biceps.

This is Dylan Naylor, Vorspieler of the First Violins of the Gürzenich Orchester of Cologne.

He doesn’t always look like this, but he loves to take his violin out clubbing.

So how’s your concertmaster looking these days?

See also: Not your regular orchestral player.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Amid the seasonal rock fall of weird-shaped box sets and unopenable record turkeys, one project stands out as indispensable in both musical and moral dimensions….

So who are we talking about?

…  resisting celebrity, Communism and the temptations of the music world, taught the next three generations of leading harpsichordists from her home …

Any closer?

Read on here.

Or here.

 

Joshua Brown from Gurnee, Illinois, has been handed a 1679 Pietro Guarneri violin on long-term loan by a patron of Chicago’s Stradivari Society, a division of the instrument dealers Bein & Fushi.

A somewhat stunned Josh said: ‘Playing such a high caliber instrument really opens up so many more ways for me to express myself as a musician.’

It’s… David Cooper.

He’s from Michigan, presently principal horn of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

He likes dogs.

 

photo ©markkitaoka.com

This is the second principal horn position. It was last held by Radek Baborak who left the orchestra in 2009.

The search to replace him has taken seven years.

Stefan Dohr is the first principal horn.

 

This is what it’s like to sit in the middle of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with music director Daniel Harding in a 360-degree video from yesterday’s rehearsal of Stravinskys “the firebird”.

Daniel says: ‘Absolutely terrifying video of how it is to sit in the orchestra and attempt to decipher the wild gyrations of a conductor…’

press release:

Violinist Michael Barenboim releases his debut solo album in January 2017 featuring the unusual juxtaposition of Bach, Bartók and Boulez. Three works demanding huge technical capabilities and pushing the boundaries of the violin’s playability, the album includes J.S. Bach’s Sonata in C Major BWV1005, Bartók’s Sonata Sz.117 and Boulez’s Anthèmes I & II. The latter, which Michael Barenboim recorded at IRCAM, is a celebration of a long history of collaboration between the late composer and the soloist, who worked on Anthèmes together….

Michael Barenboim was brought up in a multicultural environment between Berlin and Paris, is fluent in several languages and studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne.

photo: © Chris Christodoulou/Lebrecht Music&Arts

 

Menahem Pressler is back today in Madgeburg, where he was born, giving two concerts with the town orchestra.

The town has announced that from 2017 it will award an annual Menahem Pressler prize.

Happy birthday, Menahem, and many, many more.