Denis Bouriakov went to Dudamel’s Los Angeles Philharmonic and Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson to Muti’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
A year ago, the Met hired two stand-ins on a one-year contract: Demarre McGill, principal flute of Dallas, and Erik Gratton, principal of Nashville.
Due to the delays involving tenure, auditions were not held to replace them until last week.
On Friday, Gratton won the first place and Chelsea Knox the second.
That means Demarre McGill, hugely gifted and popular, is left without a seat in this cruel game of musical chairs.
He won’t go long without one.
However…. and here’s the twist in the tale … we hear that Erik Gratton is telling friends he’s undecided whether to take the Met job or to return to Nashville, where his wife is assistant concertmaster.
Nothing’s easy in this musical world.
He was named Antonin Dvorak and was the third in line to bear that name.
The Czech Philharmonic have announced that he died yesterday.
The Paris-based Polish harpsichordist Elisabeth Chojnacka has died, aged 78.
After graduation from the Chopin academy in 1962, she moved to Paris where she established a niche at the heart of the modernist movement. More than 80 composers wrote for her instrument, among them Ligeti, Xenakis, Nyman and Gorecki.
She was phenomenal.
A friend of the Siberian baritone has informed Tass, the Russian news agency, that weekend reports of Hvorostovsky’s hospitalisation in Moscow are completely false.
The reports had been circulated on some Russian and music websites, despite a specific request from Hvorostovsky’s family not to speculate about his health.
The singer is undergoing outpatient treatment for a brain tumour. He has been completely frank about his condition.
The Van Cliburn competition has moved to its quarter finals. Thirty have been reduced to 20. Top of the survivor list is Martin James Bartlett.
QUARTERFINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2017 CLIBURN COMPETITION
Leonard Slatkin, chairman of the Jury for the Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (taking place May 25-June 10, 2017, at Bass Performance Hall) announced the 20 pianists advancing to the Quarterfinal Round.
The quarterfinalists are:
Martin James Bartlett, United Kingdom, 20
Sergey Belyavskiy, Russia, 23
Kenneth Broberg, United States, 23
Luigi Carroccia, Italy, 25
Han Chen, Taiwan, 25
Rachel Cheung, Hong Kong, 25
Yury Favorin, Russia, 30
Daniel Hsu, United States, 19
Alyosha Jurinic, Croatia, 28
Dasol Kim, South Korea, 28
Honggi Kim, South Korea, 25
Su Yeon Kim, South Korea, 23
Rachel Kudo, United States, 30
Leonardo Pierdomenico, Italy, 24
Ilya Shmukler, Russia, 22
Yutong Sun, China, 21
Yekwon Sunwoo, South Korea, 28
Georgy Tchaidze, Russia, 29
Tristan Teo, Canada, 20
Tony Yike Yang, Canada, 18
Dmitri Levkovich, a Canadian-Ukrainian pianist, won the Cleveland, Jose Iturbi, Gina Bachauer, and other international competitions and received top prizes in many more.
His career is on the upswing, with a highly praised Rachmaninov recording, despite a struggle with crippling tendonitis.
Daniel, uncommonly composed, talks philosophically about coping with whatever adversities life brings his way. ‘All my life, I play with my eyes closed,’ he says.
Watch Zsolt Bognar’s sensitive interview here:
The eminent Czech conductor Jirí Belohlávek, 72, has withdrawn from performances of Smetana’s Ma Vlast in Dresden and Prague, due to ill health.
His replacement is Petr Altrichter.
Claudia Hellman, who died in Eichwalde on May 24, was a member of the Bayreuth cast from 1958 to 1961. At the Salzburg Festival, she was a regular concert soloist for more than a decade, with several recordings to her credit.
She spent most of her career, from 1958 to 1983 as a star of the Stuttgart Opera, with a nine-year interlude at Nuremberg.
Word is racing round the flute world that Chelsea Knox has won the coveted vacancy at the Met.
Chelsea is assistant principal flute of the Baltimore Symphony.
The Met has yet to confirm.
Rhythmically, it’s one of those tricky scores that needs a clear beat.
An a capella group popped up at the film composer’s doctoral award ceremony.
How many film themes can you name in this medley?
The students, who were meant to be flying to Salzburg, spent an extra day in London as a result of British Airways shutting down all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick for 24 hours. The closure was blamed on an IT failure.
