ANN ARBOR, MI, UNITED STATES December 11, 2016: David Daniels deeply regrets he must cancel his role as Bertarido in the Bolshoi Theatre’s December 2016 production of Rodelinda due to illness. He hopes to find the earliest opportunity to participate in another production at the Bolshoi Theatre. David sends his sincere thanks for the understanding of his colleagues and cast-mates, and the kind understanding of the audiences at the Bolshoi Theatre. David’s friend and colleague, Gerald Thompson, will step into the role of Bertarido, and David wishes him great success!
…Out in the villages and small towns of Hungary the story is much starker. Jewish communities were all but wiped out in the Auschwitz deportations of 1944 (about 500,000 of a population of 800,000). Two years ago, Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he founded (with the late Zoltán Kocsis) in 1983, decided to act. The plan was to play in all the places in Hungary where Jews no longer live but where a synagogue still stands, “bringing music and life to them and recalling the memory of the annihilated Jewish communities”. They have embarked on a tour of these often derelict buildings. One is now a table-tennis hall, another a furniture warehouse. A third has been ransacked, all the windows broken, birds flying in and out during the concert. In many cases the locals had never seen inside. The doors of one had not been unlocked since last closing, during the German occupation.
Last week’s concert in Budapest was a fundraiser for this project….
The Boston-based South Korean Taeguk Mun, 22, has been chosen for the Janos Starker Foundation award.
Winner of the 2014 Pablo Casals competition, Mun receives $25,000 and a sheaf of dates.
The Symphony Orchestra of Galicia is in mourning for the death of David Ethève, one of its founder members and former director of its youth orchestra. David, who turned 50 in September, was suffering from brain cancer.
He was also cellist of the Kapelle Piano Trio.
Originally from Neuilly-sur-Seine in France, he made an immense contribution to the musical life of Spain.
A correspondent reports:
Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, has been at the heart of American choral music for 90 years. Our choirs sang on Disney’s “Fantasia”, and with virtually every major conductor and orchestra. It appears regularly with the New York Phil and Philly Orchestra, and many touring orchestras such as Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Phil &c.
The school was purchased by Rider University (in nearby Lawrenceville) in the 1990’s after falling on hard times. Rider promised to always allow us to keep our individual identity, our own campus, and our mission of furthering choral music, sacred music, music education, vocal/organ/piano performance in the USA and beyond.
Unfortunately, the new president of Rider, Gregory Dell’omo, is now proposing to sell the Princeton campus, absorbing Westminster onto the main Lawrenceville campus. This would likely be a death sentence for the school. Our identity is based upon us operating as a independent institution. Moving us to the other campus would make enrolment take a dive, upset many donors that continue to fund the school, and reduce the education quality.
The most upsetting part of this is that Westminster is very healthy in both enrolment and fundraising. We have been meeting and exceeding both goals in recent years. Rider University, however, is in such horrible financial shape that it needs a massive injection of cash, or will face bankruptcy in 2018 or 2019.
A Save Westminster petition has opened here. Spread the word.
Memphis police have held two men over the death of a musician, Christopher Waters, who was found shot in his home on Friday. Waters, 30, had recently moved into the property. He was a teacher at Amro Music and a busy string player and conductor.
David Caines Burnett adds:
This is absolutely heartbreaking! Christopher Waters (30 years old) was a wonderful violist and good teacher. A few years ago, while in New York, he heard I was a contractor, contacted and played for me. He wasn’t just a talented violist, he was a very good teacher. We spoke about various techniques to motivate students and what repertoire to teach them.
Christopher Waters was shot during a home invasion in Memphis on Friday, December 9th. He had just recently purchased his home. The 2 individuals (both 22 years old), were caught riding around in his car.
The monthly magazine Record Geijutsu, Japan’s equivalent of Gramophone, has sacked its four long-serving foreign critics: Peter Cossé, Michel Parouty, Theodore Libby Jnr (a contributor since 1986) and Graeme Kay.
They received this sweet note from Editor-in-Chief Toshiyuki Nakazawa:
Thank you very much for your continued support for “The Record Geijutsu”. We are very grateful to you for your contributions to each issue. Much as it pains me to make this announcement, we will be updating the magazine effective the January 2017 issue. Pursuant to that change, the Critics’ Reports section will be concluding with the December 2016 issue. We are deeply grateful to you for your long-term contributions to Critics’ Reports. We would appreciate your understanding of this matter and of our plans to change. Once again, many thanks for your many years of support of “The Record Geijutsu”.
A few weeks ago, with over two thousand others, I was shuffling towards the exit of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, slightly dazed, the sounds of Mahler 1 still going through my whole being. Mirga Gražinyté-Tyla had just conducted the CBSO in another fabulous concert. They brought the roof down!
We pass by my painting The Mahler Experience – Symphony Hall. “Look”, a woman in front of me says to her group, “I think that may be Mahler 2, with Simon Rattle”. “That’s right”, I mutter. “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I painted it”. The crowd comes to a standstill. “You painted it! Hey, he painted it!” Handshakes all round. I find this reaction rather amusing, but it happens every time I’m in Birmingham. A group of teenagers is hanging around. I try not to feel prejudiced about their demeanour. One of them eventually approaches me and says: “Sir, I just have to tell you: that painting changed my life. I now love classical music”. A novelist wants to include the painting as the sublime emotional experience of her main character. Could we do a photo in front of the painting? And so on….
We have received the following request from the violinist Svetlana Makarova:
The Gianbatista Guadagnini of my husband, Pavel Vernikov, was stolen almost from his hands on Thursday at 17.30 in a train in Geneva. If you could help spreading this information we would be very appreciated.
The violin, a 1747 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini made at Piacenza, was stolen in the railway station of Geneva.
Vernikov is Professor at Vienna University and HEMu de Lausanne, Artistic Director of Sion Music Festival.
Please contact Svetlana or Pavel via Facebook if you have information.
UPDATE: New details are emerging of the incident. Pavel Vernikov was preparing to change trains at Geneva. The train was crowded, with many passengers entering and leaving. As Pavel got up to retrieve his violin case, he was blocked by a very large man. While he tried to reach around him, a wallet and documents were stolen from his pocket. By the time the man moved, the violin was gone.
In addition to the precious Guadagnini, Pavel lost four bows.
In our orchestra, diversity is lived on a daily basis and no single musician can exist without a fundamental understanding and appreciation of the other, however different he or she may be.
The sovereign independent republic of the West-Eastern Divan, as I like to call it, began as an unpredictable experiment in 1999. Over the years, it has grown into an example of how society could function under the best of circumstances. Our musicians have gone through the painful process of learning to express themselves while simultaneously listening to the narrative of their counterparts. I cannot imagine a better way of implementing the first and most fundamental article of the UN Declaration of Human Rights: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, that they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
From the outset, our approach in the orchestra’s workshops and seminars has been to focus on understanding what it means to listen to each other – both as musicians and as human beings. Learning to listen in that way sensitises us both for ourselves and the world around us.
It was almost 50 years ago that I started work on this reference book, which ultimately went into 5 editions. I’ve enjoyed the work and I’m proud of what has been accomplished, and of its place as a standard reference book in the orchestral world. Much of its success has been thanks to suggestions, comments, and corrections from its users.
But now I’m 83, and it’s time to pass custody of this rather large database on to a younger generation. Not that I had to look far for a capable and willing team to carry it forward. David Alexander Rahbee has been sending me corrections and additions for a couple of decades, and I admire his intense devotion to getting all the details exactly right. He is one of the very few people I have trusted enough to adopt his submissions without a lot of checking on my part.
I have known another David, David Oertel, since the 1980s and have reconnected with him perhaps half a dozen times over the years. Nine months ago I got a note from him praising the 5th edition of my book, and I remembered how smart he was about technical things of all sorts. I asked him if he was good at computers and databases, and whether he would be interested in this ongoing project.
Voilà! The new team was born! Both men are conductors, and their skills and talents will perfectly complement each other. You conductors, librarians and administrators out there can rest assured that the Orchestral Music project is in good hands, and that Rowman & Littlefield is already planning a 6th edition for 2022 (the 50th anniversary of the 1st edition!). This will be part of the Music Finders series, edited by Jo Nardolillo, which includes many other important books for our great profession.
In fact, the two Davids have already started working together on the new and improved website www.daniels-orchestral.com, which is now under the auspices of the Danish software firm ASIMUT. This website is a searchable database that is updated every single month! That means it will often have the most current information.
Incidentally, we now, as always, are eager to receive your suggestions, complaints, corrections—whatever. Please use this email address: David@daniels-orchestral.com, which will connect you directly to all three Davids simultaneously.
I will keep my hand in the database during the transition, but in diminishing proportions over the next few years.
Thanks for your support all these years!
David Daniels
We hear that Philippe Jordan, music director of the Wiener Symphoniker has chosen a former principal clarinet Pierre Pichler as his assistant conductor.
An announcement is expected in the coming week.
Piere Pichler was Philippe Jordan’s principal clarinet at the Opera House in Graz. It was Philippe Jordan’s first chief position and his first position as a principal clarinet player.
