The former choir conductor at Christchurch Priory Church, David Everett has been jailed for six indecent assaults on a boy aged under 16.

Everett, 57, received a sentence of six years and eight months.

More here.

 

Citing a desire to move the company in different directions financially and artistically, board chairman Mike Martinez said FWO terminated (Darren) Woods’ position with the company and is seeking to hire a new general director immediately.

More here.

Woods is an innovator. Fort Worth is not.

Larry Richards studied music at the University of North Texas and went to Japan to research pre-1939 jazz history and play gigs. ‘I realised where I was in the pyramid, and if I were to pursue a career as a performer, I would be doing Bar Mitzvahs and weddings for $100 a night for the rest of my life,’ he told Bloomberg.

So Larry took an online course on equity derivatives, set up a trading software company and sold it a couple of months ago to Gammon Capital, staying on as chief technology officer. He still lives in Japan.

Lesson here, somewhere?

Eva Herrmannová, reforming intendant of Czech National Opera in the five years after Communism, died yesterday in Prague, aged 87.

A survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, she worked through the dark years as a critic and historian. Once installed at the theatre, she succeeded in bringing home Czech émigré musicians to perform in their native tongue.

Bulgarian radio is in dispute with the national copyright agency.

So it is restricted to playing music written before 1945.

The ratings are just in for January.

Listening is up by 20 percent.

Is there a lesson in this, somewhere?

Nonesuch have announced the release in April of a set of Bach trio sonatas.

The players are:

Chris Thile, a recent chart-topper.

Yo Yo Ma, a perennial favourite.

And Edgar Meyer, the go-to bassist.

Should be a smash. But in today’s market, who knows?

The New Jersey music director has jumped in for Semyon Bychkov.

[Monday, February 13, 2017] The Cleveland Orchestra has announced a conductor update for the February 16, 17, and 18 performances at Severance Hall. Semyon Bychkov, upon the advice of his physician, cannot travel at this time due to the stomach flu and has regretfully cancelled his engagement to lead the Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat major for Two Pianos and Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. Conductor Xian Zhang has graciously agreed to perform in Mr. Bychkov’s place.

Larry Johnson takes a scalpel to Chicago’s new Carmen, directed by a Broadway song-and-dance man:

You knew it was going to be a long night at the Civic Opera House when the undulating shirtless male dancer with a bull’s head mask appeared during the opening Prelude to menace a group of fellow dancers dressed as toreadors.

That pretty much set the sophomoric tone for Lyric Opera’s hapless new production of Bizet’s Carmen, which opened Saturday night.

Read on here.

photo: Todd Rosenberg

Believe it or not, the Musicians Union (MU), representing 30,000 professionals across the UK and affiliated to the Labour Party and all left-on orgs, has never elected a female leader. Since 1893, it has been one bloke after another.

That may be about to change.

This morning, Kathy Dyson threw her hat into the ring in the contest to succeed John Smith as general secretary this summer.

Smith is retiring after 15 years of cautious moderation.

His deputy Horace Trubridge has put in for the job.

Kathy Dyson will challenge him at the ballot next month.

Kathy says: ‘I’m standing for a more feminist, inclusive and collaborative approach to working together, and for a decentralised union that fights more strongly for funding, musical work, and instrumental music education in all the regions. We need to create a long-term policy and strategy for every area of music we cover as a guide for action. We must also involve members more fully in our collective endeavour.

From her c.v.: Kathy Dyson is a jazz guitarist, composer, educator and researcher living and working in Manchester. She studied at Leeds College of Music in the early 80s, then worked throughout the UK as a jazz guitarist with husband, saxophonist John Dyson.

Let the best person win.

The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) in Wiesbaden has issued the latest statistics on musical activity.

According to the 2015 survey, some 3.1 million Germans – 38 percent of the population – make music in organised groups, such as orchestras, choirs and church groups.

There are 64,000 professional singers and musicians registered in Germany, of whom instrumental players account, remarkably, for 82%.

Across 130 public funded orchestras – there are 22 in North Rhine-Westphalia alone – there is employment for 9,900 musicians.

The full report can be downloaded here.

 

More signs of humanitarian shutdown. The Finns, hitherto hospitable, are restricting entry.

Among thousands of refugees that arrived in 2015 was a viola player in the Iraq National Symphony Orchestra. Members of the orchestra have been threatened for playing Western music. But the Finns have now designated Iraq a safe country and refused the player’s asylum request.

An outcry has been raised by major music groups:

In October 2016, The Finnish Migration Office (Migri) denied asylum from an Iraqi viola player. In the decision, it was accepted as a fact that in Iraq, the person in question had been threatened and assaulted because of his musicianship. Yet according to Migri, it would be safe for him to return to Iraq, if he changed his occupation. The underlying argument here was that ”a musician’s occupation is not a distinctive characteristic that is inherent, immutable or in some other way essential for a person’s conscience or realisation of human rights.”

The Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology together with the undersigned organisations and institutions object the decision. The justifications presented by Migri are not only simplified but also indifferent to both general human rights and the requirement to assess the case as individual and unique, as stipulated by the legislation of Finland….

Read on here.

The statement is signed by:

Antti-Ville Kärjä
Chair of the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology

Undersigned by

The Finnish Musicological Society
Music Archive JAPA
Global Music Centre
Finnish Folk Music Association
The Finnish Society for Music Education – FiSME
The Promotion Centre of Folk Music and Folk Dance
The University of Eastern Finland, Ethnomusicology
The University of Tampere, Music Research
Tampere Academic Symphony Orchestra TASO

 

Leonard Cohen’s anthem has gone truly universal.