The French composer Philippe Manoury had his suitcase was stolen on November 6 on a train between Strasbourg and Mannheim. Inside were 40 pages of drafts for a new work for string quartet as well as copies of the fourth movement of Pierre Boulez’s String Quartet “Livre pour Quatuor”.
He’d like the thief to know that he can do what he likes with whatever else was in the suitcase, but the scores, which have no value to anyone else, are invaluable to the compose. The loss is a great blow for Manoury.
He appeals to the thief to leave the scores in a public place where they can be found.
The Salzburg-born violinist Byol Kang passed her probation year and was confirmed today as concertmaster of the Deutsche Sinfonie Orchester.
She made her first appearance on the Philharmonie stage at 12 years old.
More than 300 violinists from 51 countries have applied for the next competition, to be held in Geneva in April 2018.
The youngest is just seven years old.
We trust the organisers will exercise discretion.
Michael Dervan in the Irish Times believes the national broadcaster is trying to merge its two orchestras. Twenty posts have gone already.
Developments in RTÉ over the last few years have been eating away at the national broadcaster’s employment of musicians. The station has been using a form of atrophy, by not filling posts as they are vacated, as well as a more active strategy of allowing its orchestral musicians to avail of voluntary redundancy schemes.
More than 20 jobs have already disappeared in this way, and one highly placed source in RTÉ has said that by next June about one in five of the total of positions in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra will have been vacated…
Henze also features in a Welser-Möst oncert with the Vienna Philharmonic.
The Romanian diva has given an interview to Opéra magazine in which she talks fondly, for once, about her ex-husband and asks him to get in touch. There are some specific recordings she wants to make with him.
‘I knew that blessed time when records were still selling and I could leave a trace of myself, my roles, on audio and video,’ she says. She goes on to say: ‘I’m not done yet.’
Alagna is now married to the Polish soprano, Alexandra Kurzak.
The tombstone of the late conductor was consecrated yesterday in Leipzig.
The former Gewandhaus Kapellmeister died on December 15, 2015.
We had The Exterminating Angel, by Thomas Ades, after the film by Luis Bunuel. An evening-length meander by a huge cast of characters, none of them defined. All the hype in the New York Times can’t get audiences excited about it.
In London, we’re about to see Marnie by Nico Muhly, after Hitchcock, at English National Opera.
Sophie’s Choice was a dire opera at Covent Garden. Dire, dire, dire.
What ever became of Brokeback Mountain, the movie composed by Charles Wuorinen? It premiered in Madrid, was seen once in Germany (at Aachen) and then faded from sight.
Now here’s another one: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, composed by Keeril Makan, is showing at LA Opera.
Has opera lost all creative invention?
Do we have to cannibalise movies?
Can no-one think of any new stories?
Oh, here’s another: Houston Grand Opera presents, The House without a Christmas Tree, based on a 1972 TV film.
The cellist Yoram Halperin has retired after 46 years.
He was hired by Zubin Mehta in 1971 even though he had never played in an adult orchestra before. ‘The risk’s on me,’ said Zubin.
His father was concertmaster of the Israel Opera. His son is a viola player in the Israel Camerata.
We wish Yoram a happy retirement.
Message to the monoglots at Sony Classical from violinist Renaud Capucon:
‘Olivier MESSIAEN was a Major French composer. His name should be written:”MESSIAEN”,not “MESSAIEN”‘. Rc
