The untrained musician Dennis Prager, who is due to conduct the Santa Monica Symphony in Haydn’s 51st symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall next week, has accused his critics of distorting the case.

‘I think there are 70 musicians (in the orchestra) and seven object to me conducting,’ Prager told The Hollywood Reporter. ‘The media has reported only the one-tenth of the orchestra that objects, while the other 90 percent is quite excited to play for me in Walt Disney Hall. But they’re never quoted. The New York Times didn’t quote one of the 90 percent. It’s a phenomenon. The entire focus is on the disgruntled and the angry, and it’s typical of the Times. There are people from the L.A. Philharmonic who have volunteered to play. Is that reported anywhere?’

(The NY Times and the LA Times picked up the story from Slipped Disc.)

Prager, however, deliberately misses the point: he’s a non-musician standing before an orchestra of professionals. Does he expect to be showered in love?

The jazz and cabaret singer Janet Seidel died on Tuesday. She received the diagnosis nine months ago, on returning from tour. She continued touring until her last weeks.

Janet was hugely popular in Japan. In London, she sold out Ronnie Scott’s three nights running.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (2006) called her ‘Australia’s first lady of jazz singing’. She released 18 records.

Our Berlin-based diarist Anthea Kreston has spent the summer with her family back in the USA.

Our vacation in the States is coming to an end, and it has been lovely. I have a bit of a reverse culture shock – there are so many things I miss about Berlin, and am looking forward to returning next week – settling back in, and returning to our new lives. But here are some of the funny things I missed about America. 

46 things I missed about America:

1 Stores open, always

2 Ridiculous breakfasts

3 Peanut butter

4 Air conditioning

5 Jaywalking

6 Mexican food

7 Trader Joe’s

8 Panera

9 Huge grocery stores

10 (That are always open)

11 (And have everything you could ever dream of, always)

12 Luxuriously spacious parking spaces

13 Being nerdy

14 People bagging my groceries at the supermarket 

15 Laughing loudly in public

16 County fairs

17 Laser tag

18 Bagels

19 Bowling

20 Wearing a “fanny pack”

21 Thrift stores

22 Peanut butter crackers

23 Peanut butter pretzels

24 Wall of peanut butter at the grocery stores (which are always open)

25 Kick-boxing

26 YMCA

27 Target

28 Fries with that

29 Smoothies

30 Drive-through everything

31 Over-the-counter medication

32 Maple syrup and brown sugar

33 Random people asking how I am doing

34 Very few rules

35 Out of season foods available always

36 Mohawks 

37 Epically large portions 

38 No cash

39 How big the country is 

40 Nature, lots of it

41 Relentless optimism 

42 Ice, in everything

43 Going to the grocery store in my pajamas and flip flops 

44 Bizarre appliances

45 To go coffee, to go everything

46 Public drinking fountains

47 Did I say peanut butter?

 

The Welsh baritone Karl Daymond collapsed just as he was about to speak in a heated debate over the future of the Drill Hall in his Chepstow, Monmouthshire. He died soon after, aged 52.

Karl sang roles with English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, the Royal Opera House, Opera North and Glyndebourne. He also guested at Minnesota Opera, Royal Flemish Opera, Dutch National Opera and Garsington.

UPDATE: National Opera Studio writes: In recent years, Karl embraced his passion for community singing, music education and helping people “find their voice”, directing several community choirs in the Chepstow area.

UPDATE: BBC Wales outlines Karl’s career, here.

As one does in Montreal.

 

Costa Pilavachi, the former Universal classical honcho, has guest-edited the current issue of Classical Music magazine. He leads off with an essay on the state of major labels as they face the next wave of technology: the streaming wave.

Costa writes:

Today the classical industry is on the verge of another period of growth as we enter the ‘Age of Streaming’. Unlike the immediate success of the CD, kickstarted by the classical music community, the rapid expansion of the streaming business has been driven by pop fans. Growth in classical streaming has been rather slow – until recently.

We now find ourselves in a transitional era in which the classical industry is set to experience a streaming sales bump, like our pop brethren, but at the same time the decline of CD sales of recent years has slowed and we have even seen the emergence of a new ‘mini’ market for the venerable vinyl LP! The rate of change and consumer behaviour varies wildly between countries and nations, with the growth of streaming (and decline of the CD) mainly noted in the United States and the United Kingdom, while other European nations and the great classical music markets of Japan, Korea and Greater China are consuming music in all formats, whether physical or digital.

Technological innovation is a wondrous thing but for me the magic of the business to which I devoted my career is the music and the artists who bring this great art form to life, whether ‘live’ or through the medium of recordings. ‘Artists and Repertoire’ or simply ‘A+R’, is at the heart of the recording industry and the key to success – or failure…

Read on here.

photo: Daniele Venturelli

The Cleveland Orchestra has just published the name of Franklin Cohen’s successor as principal clarinet.

His name is Afendi Yusuf and this is his first principal position.

From his bio: Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, clarinetist Afendi Yusuf has appeared as guest principal with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, and the Toronto and Cincinnati symphony orchestras.  He is an alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Brott Music Festival, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the National Arts Centre’s Young Artists Program. Since the summer of 2016, he has been a participant of the Marlboro Music Festival.

A Super Orchestra made up of players from top London orchestras will perform at a Cadogan Hall benefit for Grenfell Towers victims on September 17.

Organised by the soprano Nazan Fikret (pictured), the concert will feature Stuart Skelton, Christine Rice, Alan Opie, Ailish Tynan, Janis Kelly and Natalya Romaniw.

Book here.

 

 

The composer Pēteris Plakidis, who was named music director of the national theatre while still at college and later composed many works for national institutions, died this week at 70.

He was married to the opera singer, Maija Krīgena.

You can sample his music here.

Michael Gove, a fanatical Brexit member of the British government, and his Tory pal George Osborne have been snapped on their Wagner holiday at Bayreuth, blithely inhabiting Wagner’s imaginary world. See here for pic.

The pair are regular Wagner-goers back home, both at Covent Garden and at Longborough.

They are publicly divided over Brexit and Osborne now edits an anti-May freesheet. But it was Osborne’s negative Remain campaign that prompted the country to embrace isolationism and both men must take responsbility for the position in which we find ourselves. Perhaps they find some justification in Wagner’s convoluted ideas.

Rather than being encouraged that senior UK politicians actually enjoy opera, the picture fills me with dismay at the Tory collusion that prevails at the political summit – oblivious to the vital issues of the day.

In his prolonged break from the piano – you can see his left hand still encased in a surgical sleeve – the Chinese pianist dropped in on the United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, this week for an informal chat about world affairs.

Looks like they solved the North Korea problem.