Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who is friendly with Trump Jr., told The Washington Post that he had arranged the meeting at the request of a Russian client and had attended it along with Veselnitskaya.
Goldstone has been active with the Miss Universe pageant and works as a manager for Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star whose father is a wealthy Moscow developer who sponsored the pageant in the Russian capital in 2013.
Goldstone would not name the client. He said Veselnitskaya wanted to discuss ways that Trump could be helpful about the Russian government’s adoption issue should he be elected president.
Goldstone, originally from Manchester, worked in marketing for HMV Records until 1998, when he started his own company, Oui 2 Entertainment.
Who guessed a music PR might be involved in the Trump-Russia swamp?
Victoria Yellop, a Trinity-trained violinist, was in court today charged with helping to burgle a house she was looking after for a friend, resulting in the theft of £25,000 worth of goods.
Yellop, 34, admitted theft and perverting the course of justice. She was given a suspended sentence after the judge accepted that she had been bullied into crime by a violent boyfriend.
By the time the public see Tosca at the Met on New Year’s Eve not much will be left of the original team.
First, Jonas Kaufman quit as Cavaradossi, saying he didn’t want to be away that long from his family in Europe. Then, Kristine Opolais declined the title role ‘for personal reasons’, causing international ructions in the search for a replacement.
Now her husband, Andris Nelsons has told the Met he ‘has withdrawn’. No reason given.
So here’s the second line up:
Tenor: Grigolo
Soprano: Yoncheva
Conductor: Levine.
Who knew Tosca could be such a farce?
Bryn Terfel is still hanging on as Scarpia.
Press release from the Manchester Camerata:
Manchester Camerata is delivering a 30 week Music in Mind programme on the wards of the Royal Bolton Hospital, supported by £11,000 funding from the People’s Postcode Trust. Many of the patients are living with dementia, and whilst they are in the hospital to receive treatment for a different medical or surgical need, they can find being in hospital disorientating. Music can have a calming effect.
Lucy Geddes, Camerata in the Community Manager, said that this project is not about playing music to patients, rather it is about playing music with patients. She said: “Rather than being music for people, this is music with people. It gives patients living with dementia the chance to contribute to the music-making. This could be by tapping a drum or playing the bells – any contribution is valid. The result is that they feel empowered and in control of what they are doing, and their mood therefore often improves. People who are not able to communicate verbally can often communicate through music.”
Herbert Blomstedt will be 90 tomorrow.
A Seventh Day Adventist, he does not work Saturdays.
But for the rest of the week he has rarely an idle moment.
Last week he toured Bruckner’s 5th symphony with the NDR Elbphilharmonie in Lübeck, Rendsburg and Neubrandenburg. Next week he’s with the Bamberg Symphony in Bamberg, Würzburg, St. Stephan Dom in Passau and Bruckner’s old church St. Florian in Linz.
Between August and Christmas he will conduct 36 concerts with the Gewandhaus, Danish National Symphony, NHK, Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Swedish Radio and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Happy birthday, Maestro B!
Fort Worth Opera last month fired Darren K. Woods, the artistic director who put the company on the world map over the past 16 years.
Now it has chosen to replace him with an advisory council, chaired by Placido Domingo, an ‘extraordinary ensemble of creative minds and operatic entrepreneurs’ who are supposed to keep the FWO up to speed with the world’s best.
Oh, yeah?
Domingo is 76 years old, general director of Los Angeles Opera and still managing a busy singing and conducting career. He will give Fort Worth about a nanosecond of his flickering attention span every other month or so.
What kind of leadership is that? FWO comes out of the deal looking like hicks, Domingo like a greedy hack.
Shameful.
The Paris Chamber Orchestra is trying out a new work by Pierre Sauvageot on a massive housing estate.
Male nudity, homosexuality and clashes with the stage director Kirill Serebrennikov are behind the Bolshoi’s cancellation of its big-draw summer ballet on the life of the great defector.
This was to have been the first new Bolshoi ballet with western brand sponsorship – reportedly € 100,000 from jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels.
Three days before its scheduled opening, the show has been sent for revision.
UPDATE: Bolshoi boss Vladimir Urin says it has been rescheduled for May 2018.
Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic and director of Cleveland ChamberFest, married pianist Roman Rabinovich in Cleveland yesterday.
Among the players at the ceremony was Noah Bendix-Balgley, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Diana’s dad, Franklin, is former principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra.
