Robert Cinnante was named Executive Director at the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra today. He starts work in May.

Robert has previously been general manager of Music for Food, a hunger-relief initiative founded by Kim Kashkashian. He presently works for Virginia Opera.

Andrei Feher, a Canadian of Romanian birth, is to be music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, it was announced today. He’s an early riser who has worked as assistant to Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Paavo Järvi.

He succeeds Edwin Outwater in August 2018.

The Lebrecht Album of the Week is self-recommending.

I have seldom sat among a more rapt London audience, not a cough in eighty minutes. Every individual in the orchestra displayed ferocious concentration. And, best of all, the quartet of soloists … were chosen for colour and character rather than name recognition…

Read on here.

And here.

And here.

The Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has not appeared on stage since December, taking time out for further treatment of his brain cancer.

Today, his agent told the state news agency Tass that Hvorostovsky will return for two recitals next month – in Toronto (April 25) and Dublin – partnered by his friends Anna Netrebko and her husband Yusif Evyazov.

Lovely gesture.

More here.

photo from 2014 Elena Obraztsova Gala in Moscow 

From the Daily Telegraph:

The university struggles to fill its undergraduate organ scholarships: while 50 are on offer at any one time, only around 30 are filled and colleges have to bring in professionals to fill the gaps.

Dr Daffern said: “Playing the organ might not be the first thing people think of doing on a Sunday morning. Children have other things to do on Sundays – football and sport and stuff.

“Also, there is still an organist stereotype in people’s minds. There might be an image of them as smartly dressed older chaps. But those days are long gone. They can be fashionable and fun.”

Full story here.

 

photo: Oxford Academic Programmes

Carol Slater, a London violinist, had her 1700 Gofriller, in a dark red case, taken from a Gatwick Express train at 0630 last Friday.

British Transport Police today issued this picture of a woman they want to interview in connection with the theft.

They have also issued this image of the stolen violin.

 

Anyone with information, please call the police on 0800 40 50 40 or text 61016, quoting ref. no. 116 24/03/2017.

New York’s Dutchman is cutting his flying this year.

See here.

Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco has issued a proclamation that March 31 2017 is to be known as Brent Assink Day, in honour of the retiring executive director of the San Francisco Symphony.

 

 

An Ontario judge has criticised Eleanor McCain, heiress ex-wife of the former Toronto Symphony boss Jeff Melanson, of deliberately delaying the divorce in an attritional strategy.

McCain’s lawyers have said she is too busy to meet a June deadline because she is recording an album.

Ontario Justice Carolyn Horkins ruled that she ‘has pursued a vindictive, time-consuming and costly approach.’

Melanson, she added, ‘has had to borrow money from friends and family, use his line of credit and sell his condominium … He is unemployed and cannot find a new job. (McCain) does not deny that she has embarked on a vindictive path . . . and she will stop at nothing to ruin (Melanson) professionally and financially.’

Melanson is seeking a $5 million settlement.

Report here.

 

I thought I knew them all, but last night Vasily Petrenko conducted the Royal Liverpool Phil in Mahler’s arrangement of Hugo Wolf’s prelude to his opera, Der Corregidor. I had never heard it played live before.

The back story is tragic. As fellow-students in Vienna the two composers shared a bed for several weeks, unable to afford a single. When Mahler became director of the opera, Wolf offered him Der Corregidor but was too unbalanced by mental illness to have a meaningful discussion. Mahler later staged the work after Wolf’s death.

The prelude is more Wolf than Mahler, and more Wagner than the two of them put together. A wave of Flying Dutchman comes out of a sea of Hispanic pastiche. There is plenty of colour in the prelude but it is bright and unyielding. Eight minutes takes a long time to pass.

The Phil followed up with a terrific Mahler 5. You can hear the concert Monday on Radio 3.

 

This is the new campaign for Go Visit Denmark.

The cellist is Peet Morrison, a musician with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

 

From Duke University:

Dear Duke Performances Ticket Holder,

I’m writing now to let you know that Daniil Trifonov has CANCELLED his recital at Duke Performances on Friday, March 31. Mr. Trifonov is laid up at home with a 102 degree fever — he has regretfully cancelled all engagements for this week.

While we don’t have a reschedule date set currently, we will do all within our power to bring Mr. Trifonov to Durham for a recital whenever his extremely busy concert schedule permits.