From the violinist Rita Manning:
Yesterday I was attempting to fly from London Gatwick to play the Four Seasons in Jersey with the Locrian Ensemble at the Jersey Opera House.
We got to check-in early, three violinists and one viola player. I had deliberately taken the smallest shaped violin case possible to be on safe side, but I got a flat refusal from the BA check-in team.
She said BA had recently changed its policy (which we know is not true) and told us we had twp options – to put the instruments in the hold or buy seats for them.We had no option but to buy the seats for £240 each to ensure we got to Jersey on time to do the concert.
We were also told that our return flight back to Gatwick this morning was full so we wouldn’t even have the option of buying extra seats again. We ended up buying new tickets with Easy Jet later in the day.
We’ll leave some space below for British Airways to explain itself.
José Antonio Abreu, revered founder of Venezuela’s El Sistema, has a PhD in petroleum economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
That’s what it says in Sistema’s official biography, Venezuela en el cielo de los escenarios (2010), published in English in 2011 as Venezuela, The Miracle of Music. Its author, Chefi Borzacchini, dedicated the book to Abreu and thanked him for his support in creating it. Abreu’s academic credentials are also mentioned on the Sistema website, and on in his Wikipedia entry, stating 1961 as the year he received his PhD.
Two researchers have checked independently with the University of Pennsylvania archives. On the UPenn master alumni roster, which lists all students who attended between 1753 and 1977, Abreu’s name is nowhere to be found.
The PhD has vanished overnight from the Sistema website (we have a screenshot of the previous version).
Looks like the doctorate joins a lengthening roster of Sistema myths.
Abreu (r) with protégé Dudamel and Venezuela president Maduro
We hear that Eoin Andersen is leaving the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra after two years.
The Wiconsin violinist, formerly principal second violin of Zurich Opera, maintains a second home in Berlin.
His departure was reported on classical radio.
We hear from insiders that Leipzig Opera is planning to replace Katharina Wagner’s Tannhäuser, called off last night, with the 2015 Antwerp production directed by the iconoclastic Spaniard Calixto Bieito.
Be careful with the air-kisses.
VAN magazine has a thoughtful piece from a writer, Ben Miller, whose father was a cellist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra when James Levine was music director.
The artcle is titled ‘On Knowing and not Knowing about James Levine’.
Sample:
When I was 12 years old and James Levine began his tenure as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, my parents sat me down and told me that there were serious rumors swirling around him. They told me they had heard he had been inappropriate with young boys. At that time, I was often backstage at the BSO and Tanglewood, hanging out with friends who were also the children of BSO players, listening to rehearsals. They told me never to be alone in a room with James Levine. They told me to walk the other way if I saw him coming.
Over the next four years, at BSO concerts I attended (seated in empty second-balcony seats or on the sides of the Tanglewood Shed by friendly ushers), James Levine gave me an introduction to and education in the orchestral repertoire. My thinking about orchestral music—the way that it sounds right, when I hear it in my head—was profoundly shaped by his programming and his interpretive stance. There is a wide swath of music that I cannot think about without thinking about James Levine….
Read on here.
Backtrack: How the Levine story unfolded.
The Italian pianist Alberto Ferro was named winner of the International Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn.
Ferro, 21, takes home 30,000 Euros.
Second was Tomoki Kitamura (Japan). Third was the Korean Ho Jeong Lee,
The chamber music prize was awarded to Ashok Gupta of the UK.
In contrast to past competitions, none of the winners appear, on first sight, to be students of the competition’s founder and jury chairman, Pavel Gililov.
The opera soprano Julie Fuchs sang Ave Maria, accompanied by the pianist Yvan Cassar and the cellist Gautier Capuçon, at yesterday’s obsequies for the French rock star Johnny Hallyday.
They also played an arrangement of Edith Piaf’s torch-song l’Hymne à l’amour and the Médiation from Massenet’s Thaïs.
A million people turned out on the streets of Paris.
Watch.
The opera soprano Julie Fuchs sang Ave Maria, accompanied by the pianist Yvan Cassar and the cellist Gautier Capuçon, at yesterday’s obsequies for the French rock star Johnny Hallyday.
They also played an arrangement of Edith Piaf’s torch-song l’Hymne à l’amour and the Médiation from Massenet’s Thaïs.
A million people turned out on the streets of Paris.
Watch.
Thomas Hengelbrock, music director of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, says he’s leaving the job a year early in protest at the tremendous fuss made by the organisation over Alan Gilbert’s arrival.
‘It was extremely unpleasant of the NDR to announce my successor in a week when I had ten concerts to conduct,’ Hengelbrock complained to local media.
He will leave in summer 2018, instead of 2019.
Tonight’s prize-winning press release:
STATEMENT ZUR NEUEN TANNHÄUSER-INSZENIERUNG DER OPER LEIPZIG (PREMIERE: 17. MÄRZ 2018)
Aufgrund organisatorischer Schwierigkeiten war es leider nicht möglich, die Produktion Tannhäuser unter der Regie von Frau Professor Wagner zum angekündigten Zeitpunkt zu realisieren. Die Oper Leipzig und Frau Professor Wagner bedauern dies sehr, freuen sich jedoch auf eine künftige gemeinsame Zusammenarbeit bei der Oper Lohengrin von Richard Wagner, welche voraussichtlich im November 2020 Premiere haben wird.
// Oper Leipzig Media Information, 8 December 2017
STATEMENT REGARDING THE OPER LEIPZIG’S NEW TANNHÄUSER PRODUCTION (PREMIERE: 17 MARCH 2018)
Due to logistical challenges, it is unfortunately not possible to realize the production of Tannhäuser under the direction of Professor Katharina Wagner as initially scheduled. The Oper Leipzig and Professor Wagner deeply regret this, but all involved look forward to a future collaboration: Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, which is expected to premiere in November 2020.
Lovely gesture from a departing music director. Press release:
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) today announced that its Music Director Leonard Slatkin and his wife, composer Cindy McTee, have committed $100,000 to the DSO’s endowment to showcase an emerging artist each season. Mr. Slatkin is currently in the middle of his 10th and final season as DSO Music Director before transitioning to the role of Music Director Laureate.
The new initiative, titled the Cindy and Leonard Slatkin Emerging Artists Fund, will provide support for one up-and-coming artist to perform with the DSO each season. The featured artist may be a solo musician (including singers), a conductor, or a composer. The Slatkins’ contribution is a challenge gift: the DSO will seek additional support, and the annual draw from the total of $200,000 will support one guest artist’s performance each season.
“I was thinking about what I could do that was special in my final season as Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,” said Mr. Slatkin. “I’d like to believe I’ve had some impact on the musicians, listeners, and community here in Detroit. But what else would there be after my time has concluded? Cindy and I are proud to be inaugurating this new initiative, and we hope as the years progress that the musicians are major discoveries by the DSO who make a big impression on the music world.”
DSO President and CEO Anne Parsons said, “We are so very grateful to Leonard and Cindy for this incredible gift. We are excited to be honoring Leonard’s personal and artistic impact on our orchestra and in our community throughout this season, and this new leadership gift to our endowment is the perfect way to celebrate Leonard’s legacy. We invite all those who are interested in joining this important vision to support future talent to contact us to learn more about participating in the Cindy and Leonard Slatkin Emerging Artists Fund. Thank you, Leonard and Cindy, for once again taking critical steps to secure a vibrant future for this community we all love to serve.”
Peter Martins, artistic director of New York City Ballet has gone on leave of his own accord while the company looks into two anonymous allegations of sexual harassment that have been published by the NY Times and Washington Post. Here’s the restrained statement he sent internally to the company’s musicians:
For the Orchestra:
I know you are all aware that an anonymous letter sent to the School of American Ballet resulted in an independent investigation, and an article in the New York Times. An article in the Washington Post has just appeared on line, and will be in the paper tomorrow, with a further allegation against me. I have vehemently denied this allegation, but I am painfully aware that all of this negative publicity is taking a toll on each of you. And because of my great respect for you, and for the two exceptional institutions it has been my pleasure to serve for more than 47 years, I have asked for, and been granted, permission by the Boards of the Company and the School to take a temporary leave of absence until the investigation is completed, and a stable environment can be restored. My priority is to do what is best for the Company and the School, and I very much hope you will understand. Please know that my pride and appreciation for all you do remains undiminished, and you will be constantly in my thoughts and in my heart. Darci and I send our love to you all.
