This is Il Pomo d’Oro orchestra rehearsing with their leader, Federico Guglielmo.


We think it’s meant to be a joke.

The French contralto singer Nathalie Stutzmann has been named chief conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra in Norway.

A conducting protégée of Seiji Ozawa, Stutzmann, 52, succeeds Giordano Bellincampi next September.

This is her first job as chief conductor. She is principal guest with the RTE in Dublin.

 

 

 

The Philadelphia Orchestra announced last night that its search for a successor to President and Chief Executive Officer Allison Vulgamore, who leaves at the end of the year, had failed.

Instead, it will share responsibilities between Executive Vice Presidents Ryan Fleur and Matthew Loden as Interim Co-Presidents for the time being while the headhunters ontinue to practise their dark arts.

The failure is not Philly’s alone.

There is a vacuum of top talent in US orchestras. The New York Philharmonic was forced to go on bended knee to its former prez Deborah Borda when it was unable to identify a replacement for Matthew Van Besien. The Los Angeles Phil has yet to fill Borda’s office and other groups have stuck with unsatisfactory chiefs for want of anything better on the horizon. This situation has all the ingredients of a crisis.

The UK Department for International Trade has offered a grant to composer Matthew Herbert and his Brexit Big Band. He will share £181,944 with 11 other artists.

The Department is headed by arch-Brexiteer Liam Fox.

Herbert says:  ‘The message from parts of the Brexit campaign were that as a nation we are better off alone. I refute that idea entirely and wanted to create a project that embodies the idea of collaboration from start to finish.’

The conductor Michael Schmidt, co-artistic director of Symphony in the Barn, has been jailed in Canada for 60 days his cmmitment to producing raw milk, in contravention of government regulations. He is known locally as the Raw Milk Hero.

His co-director Carol Gimbel writes to Slipped Disc:

‘At 6:00 pm Friday November 10, 2017 raw milk farmer, food rights advocate and social activist Michael Schmidt entered the Central North Correctional Centre, a maximum security prison in Penetanguishene, Ontario. It is both a remand facility and one where time is served for a range of minor offenses and serious crimes. For Michael, it was the first of a 60 day “rehabilitation and deterrence” sentence to be served on weekends.’

An informative contribution from Robert Fitzpatrick to one of our discussions:

It depends on the city in the USA. In NYC, many teachers (especially of voice) command at least $200/hour with some studios considerably higher (perhaps approaching and exceeding $500/hour) Those who teach in a conservatory actually make a bit less per hour but their reputation inflates the rate they can command from external private students. Some are actually worth it. An hour with an inspirational master teacher is always priceless.

Contrary to what most folks assume, teachers at Curtis and Juilliard on hourly contracts usually make less at the school than their external rate. Full-time contract salaried teachers are expected to teach18 hour per week (but most do a lot more voluntarily).

Josef Hofmann’s hourly rate for teaching piano at Curtis was $100/hour in the 1920s*. Hofmann hired Auer and offered him a bit more than he made for teaching.

I know of one important NYC teacher whose rate decreases for the most talented (to the point of not charging at all).

*Equivalent to $1,300/hour today

 

The composer’s birthplace has chosen the US mezzo-soprano to receive the Händel-Preis der Stadt Halle.

Presentation next May.

 

The Dutch label Pentatone has signed the Berlin-based Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená for what is described as ‘a long-term partnership.’

She will record several albums, from Baroque opera to contemporary art song, from Rameau to Berio.

from the press release:

 

 

The Czech mezzo-soprano spent time in the recording studio this past summer and documented a selection of heart-wrenchingly beautiful songs from her homeland by Dvořák and Janáček, coupled with some of the repertoire’s most famous melodies, including Strauss’ eternal Morgen!, Chausson’s poetic Chanson perpétuelle and Brahms’ Two Songs, Op. 91 – some of them in new arrangements. Joining her were her husband, Sir Simon Rattle, in his first-ever appearance as a pianist on record, and six of their closest colleagues: Wolfram Brandl and Rahel Rilling on violin, Yulia Deyneka on viola, Dávid Adorján on cello, Andrew Marriner on clarinet and Kaspar Zehnder on flute.

 

 

The independent and often quirky event has been folded into the center’s general programming under artistic director Jane Moss (pictured).

Official version here.

 

Media release:

Professor Susan McCulloch, the international soprano and senior voice professor at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, is retiring early after more than 35 years at GSMD (recently also at RAM) after suffering a stroke in the summer.

She has made a superb recovery but feels she needs to take things a little easier now. She says that her work at GSMD has been a source of absolute joy and fulfilment and that leaving her students and the college early is ‘heartbreaking. She will carry on with some private teaching and is moving to southern Scotland with her partner Sam.

 

From the Queensland Daily Review:

Twenty-seven  full-time and part-time staff have left Queensland Symphony Orchestra in just 21 months, an unusually high turnover rate for the company which currently lists 26 people on its staff. …

Orchestra insiders claim that morale at the QSO is “toxic” and an external consultant has been contracted to improve morale and company cohesiveness.

Former staff describe scenes of “backstabbing, gossip and shouting matches” among administrative staff and management leading to the staff turnover….

The orchestra’s CEO, David Pratt, and its music director, Alondra de la Parra (pictured above), both joined the company in the second half of 2016….

We couldn’t possibly comment, says the QSO.

Read on here.