We have drawn your attention before to the eclectic performing talents of Nora Fischer, daughter of the conductor Ivan Fischer.

Today she got signed up by Intermusica, the London-based classical agency.

The death is reported in a Glasgow hospital of John Maxwell Geddes, composer of three well-received symphonies and many other orchestral works, including several film scores.

He taught at the Royal Conservatoires in Glasgow and Copenhagen and was performed internationally.

 

Adrian Higginson, a cellist and euphonium player, was jailed today for six months for stealing instruments from the Royal Marines band store rooms in Plymouth and Portsmouth.

Higginson, 29, admitted stealing 13 instruments and an amplifier to pay off debts.

 

 

The Athens State Orchestra (KOA) has begun disciplinary proceedings against  Panayiotis Drakos, a flute player who was arrested this week on charges of abusing three girls aged nine to eleven.

In a statement, the orchestra said the Greek music community was shocked by the ‘abhorrent’ nature of the alleged offences. Panayiotis Drakos, 60, is a full-time flute player and teacher.

He has been referred to as ‘the most important flute soloist in the country’.

 

The criminal history of Barrett Wissman, co-owner of IMG Artists, is well-known to Slipped Disc readers.

Wissman pleaded guilty in 2009 to defrauding a pension fund of the state of New York. He stayed out of jail by paying a $12 million fine and blowing the whistle on his associates. He got to keep the ranch in Montana

Now, he is trying to whitewash his past by turning the ranch into a summer refuge for artists and musicians, according to a release from his PRs.

Turns out you can fool all of the people all of the time.

Read the sanctuary news here.

 

According to ‘172 of the world’s leading opera singers’ polled by BBC Music magazine, the all time greats are:

1 Marriage of Figaro

2 La Boheme

3 Rosenkavalier

4 Wozzeck

5 Peter Grimes.

Well, the sample is rather small and anyway, professional singers stand too close to the flame to judge the heat.

A list of greats in which Verdi and Wagner figure first at 9 and 10 cannot be representative.

 

The orchestra’s chief executive, Heung-sik Choe, has abruptly resigned.

Local reports indicated that Choe, 65, is about to be named head of the national Financial Supervisory Service, in a breach with tradition that gives the key clean-hands job to a veteran public servant.

Choe, a former university professor linked to the disgraced Park regime, was an unsatisfactory chief of the orchestra. He undermined the return of its former music director Myung Whun Chung and threatened players with demotion or dismissal if they joined Chung’s new One Korea orchestra.

Few will weep to see him go.

The first final of this year’s ARD competition was a washout.

All three finalists played Prokofiev’s first violin concerto with Michael Francis conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The jury chaired by Mauricio Fuks of Canada decided to withhold the first prize. Sarah Christian and Andrea Obsio shared second. Kristine Balanas (pictured) came third. Sarah Christian won the audience prize. Obiso won a prize for best interpretation of the commissioned work. No-one went home happy.

 

We have been informed by local campaigners that the highly valued Performing Arts Library in Surrey is under threat of closure.

In brief: Surrey County Council, faced with a £100m deficit, will close Surrey’s PAL early next year unless the library can make cuts of £180,000 or find another organisation that is prepared to take it over.

Mark Welling, Chairman of  the campaign group FOSPAL, says: The Surrey Performing Arts Library is unique. It is not the same as other borrowing libraries. It has one of the best collections in the country of orchestral, choir and drama sets as well as CDs, DVDs, scores and books related to all the performing arts.  It is at the centre of an eco-system of choirs, orchestras, bands, drama groups, opera groups, music teachers, professional musicians and singers as well as individual users.  Thousands of Surrey residents participate in groups which rely on PAL, and many more thousands benefit indirectly as members of audiences of such groups.

The Library houses a unique collection of material and artefacts relating to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams who lived in Dorking and established the local Leith Hill music festival.

 

The Royal Opera House is planning to make some of its best seats available for the price of a large pizza.

The catch?

You’ll have to sit on the floor.

Oliver Mears, the RO’s director, is intent on reviving the old Midland Bank Proms, where rows of stalls seats were removed to make way for young operagoers, sitting on cushions and blankets.

Brilliant initiative, long overdue.

The Telegraph has an interview with Oliver this morning.

 

The president has flown off to New York and two principal players have mysteriously disappeared.

The indefatigable CK Dexter Haven attempts to get some clarity on the swing-door orchestra which ‘never comments on personnel issues’.

Sample:

The biggest buzz of the past few months happened immediately after the Walt Disney Concert Hall season ended when the orchestra roster no longer included two principal players:  Carrie Dennis (viola) and Ariana Ghez (oboe).

There was no official press release regarding their departure, but the news spread like wildfire nonetheless.  In fact, I’ve never received so many questions about LA Phil personnel as I have over the past few months.

Read on here.

The Burgtheater’s new production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, due to open tonight, has been postponed.

‘For the final presentation of his directorial concept, Leander Haussmann and the ensemble need further rehearsals,’ a statement said.