Contributors to the Mandolin Cafe website are reporting that amazon.com is selling amazon is selling counterfeit D’Addario Strings, which are made in China.

D’Addario, which is based in New York, makes guitar, mandolin, banjo and violin family strings.

D’Addario have complained to amazon.com about the fakes but have received no resolution. Meantime, people buying strings on Amazon are received duds.

Here’s a sample complaints:

I had ordered a 3 pack of EJ16 guitar strings, and unlike the packaging from my last string order, this time it was three sets of EJ16s in three cardboard packages, within a shrink-wrapped envelope. And proudly on the front of the shrink wrap is a sticker proclaiming the strings as “Made In China.” And, in the lower right hand of the cardboard packaging, it states “USA MADE.” 

Called Amazon, they’re sending replacements. Spoke with George at D’Addario, and he was apologetic and frustrated. I am not the first person to have had this problem with Amazon selling counterfeit strings. 

Here’s the thread.

That’s the reason given by the venue for the cancellation of his concert in Miami on Sunday with Pinhas Zukerman and Rohan de Silva.

We wish Itzhak a speedy recovery and will update as soon as we receive more information.

UPDATE: We understand it’s a small procedure, requiring a couple of days rest.

 

One of the world’s most travelled chamber ensembles has informed us that they will not fly BA again to concerts in the UK and Europe after being denied boarding for two violins and a viola at Abu Dhabi.

The Quartet adds: ‘We will also recommend our collaborators not fly on your airline as well.’

BA’s first response: ‘Hi, I’m sorry you weren’t able to to take your violins/violas in the cabin on this occasion. While our airport staff will make every effort to find space in the cabin for musical instruments that are within the dimensions of 80 x 30 x 25cm, I’m afraid this can’t be guaranteed. ^B’

Kronos say: ‘Our cases are well w/in the dimensions (they fly w/ us 60x a year and have for over 40 years). There was room, the flight was not overbooked. We were told we would have to book extra seats (like we do for the cello), but when we said we’d do that, we were told we couldn’t.’

It’s a perpetual shambles at BA.

UPDATE: British Airways offers an apology.

The amazing Patricia Petibon:

The pianist, who retired at 50 with performance anxiety, says that even Vladimir Horowitz suffered from it.

The subject of a documentary by Ethan Hawke, Seymour –  now 90 – talks it out with Zsolt Bognar. ‘Usually, musicians are ashamed of it,’ he says.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

I’m uncomfortable with the title of this release. Rather than being ‘the other Mendelssohn’, Fanny was the heart of the Mendelssohn family and a fine composer in her own right – despite patriarchal suppression by her father and angry resentment from her brother, Felix. 

Fanny, married to a Berlin artist, kept her works in a drawer until her late 30s, when she went out and got them published, to Felix’s amazement ….

Read on here.

And here.

He has scheduled a  concert at the Elysée Palace next Thursday where he gets to recite the role of Peter.

Or maybe the wolf.

The concert will be attended by school children, sick children and Palace staff, we read.

 

The  Tonhalle Düsseldorf has given this year’s human rights award to the controversial Hungarian-born investor George Soros.

Music director Adam Fischer, likewise Hungarian born, said he wanted ‘to draw attention to the growing danger of xenophobia, racism and restrictions of freedom in Europe.’

The last comment appears to be aimed at certain central and east European regimes.

The US- based Ukrainian pianist, who jeopardised her career with outspoken approval of Putin’s invasion of her homeland, is now working with the American composer Stephen Limbaugh.

Ring any bells?

Limbaugh, who bills himself ‘the greatest pianist in the world’, is a cousin of the rightwing radio shlock-jock Rush Limbaugh. He gets plugs on the Rush show.

His music is simplistic, nationalist, static, background bar-room stuff. Try half an hour of it here. Almost 19,000 listeners have done so already and many find it uplifting.

Even more disturbing is how easily Putinist aggression now sits with Trumpist braggardry.

 

 

 

Our string quartet diarist Anthea Kreston is in Israel this week:

 

Walking in the old market in the port town of Jaffa, a 4,000 year old city abutting bustling, cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, I took a deep breath in. The stands of roasting nuts, the men huddled in conversation over cups of steaming tea, the buildings, with wires sticking out, crumbling facades and large cracks running jaggedly across sagging balconies, the carpet merchants with their eyes an inch from their old, battered wares, needles going up, coming down. I first took a walk around the perimeter (this is of course a loose perimeter – the Jaffa Market spills over, slides down alleyways), took a few forays into one stall, then the next. You have to duck to enter, the clothing or bells or lamps hang low, the walls lined with rough shelves, stacks of textiles from the ground to the ceiling, the air is thick with the smells of food, cigarettes, mouldering cloth. Then, I turned the corner, and peered into the heart of the market. A skinny little walkway, filled with men bantering, just a hint of light coming through the open roof. Taking a deep breath, I entered. I knew what I was getting into – haggling, compliments, questions, and this was going to be fun. The entire row of merchants turned my way, waving me towards their stalls. The first man said “what are you, a model?  So tall and beautiful!”, and it went from there.

I was a little overwhelmed, and decided to see if I could keep a steady but slow pace and make it to the end of this alley. Beautiful things hung everywhere – parts of old chandeliers, Bedouin clothing, scarves, jewelry, inlayed chess sets. I made it, then took one more loop around before sucking in and going in with a purpose – to find memorable things to bring back to my family from my magical week in Israel.

I was attracted by the small metal purses, silver studded with rough-cut stones inlaid. As I reached forward, the seller came out, taking the purse off and hooking it over my finger. 200 shekels. “How many daughters? I feel close to you – you have a big spirit – for you – 2 purses for 300”. We were laughing and enjoying ourselves – and for some reason, he though he could clinch the sale by showing me something on his phone. I assumed a photo of his seven kids, but up popped a video of his wife giving birth – head coming out and wife in full out bloodcurdling scream. An interesting sales technique, I must say. As he held this very closely to my face, I quickly thanked him – he noticed my reticence somehow, deftly turning the conversation around – “you have the face of a wise woman – are you a doctor? What are the names of your children?”

I did make it through – some belly dancing accoutrements, two old rings, and matching silver perfume bottle necklaces tucked into my backpack.

We are in a huge traffic jam, in the van being driven back to Tel Aviv from our Jerusalem concert. Being on tour in Israel is an absolute treat. We are based in the same boutique hotel just off the beach in Tel Aviv for five days, and we are driven back and forth to Jerusalem and Haifa. The audiences are funny – involved, a mix of ages, and they clearly show their preferences of the pieces – clapping wildly, in rhythm, and a funny thing – many people wave at us while we are bowing. Tonight, in Jerusalem, I was told that there numbered over 100 Holocaust survivors in the audience.

Tomorrow we have the day off, and I will meet a local architect at the old clock tower in Jaffa, an hour’s walk from the hotel. I met her through an organization which has local volunteer guides who will show you around town. I gave her tickets to Tel Aviv, and she came back stage after – a middle-aged woman with wild hair (my hair here in Israel feels like it is having some sort of homecoming – it seems like every second person I see has exactly my same hairdo – crazy and out of control) and a vintage knee-length jacket retrofitted with an impressive array of odd buttons – I think we will get along handsomely.

This past Sunday, I was home for one of my 14 hour quick-fix visits – help with dinner, clean, grocery shop, practice with the girls, do laundry, when I woke up at 2 am. Jason found me in the bathroom, in bad shape with a nasty stomach virus. After a couple of rounds, I go back into the other room, and drag a blanket and pillow into the bathroom. By 5 am I texted Quartet, and by noon it became abundantly clear that the concert that evening in Dortmund would have to find another solution. The wonderful Armeda Quartet stepped in for us, ending their program with the Schubert Cello Quintet, the second cellist being our very own Artemis cellist.

I recovered sufficiently to get my 5 am cab to the airport for the flight to Israel, and am nearly back to full strength. The Tel Aviv concert was a stretch, because I hadn’t had anything solid to eat for 4 days, but it went without hitch and I really really really hope I can eat some of the amazing locals foods tomorrow.

We are almost back to the hotel – out driver is driving like a absolute maniac and the boys are drinking beer in the back seats. Fun times.

Message received:
At the time it was scandalous: the 1963 world premiere of György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes) in Hilversum Town Hall. The audience – which included the Mayor and the Aldermen, the Spanish ambassador and Willem Marinus Dudok, the architect who designed the Town Hall– had little liking for this work. They found it far too conceptual. The NOS therefore decided not to broadcast the recorded footage. During the Ligeti Festival – in Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, from 5 to 8 April – that footage can now be seen for the first time in more than fifty years. Also on the programme is the screening of a unique music lecture Ligeti gave for German television in Berlin in 1963.

The composer at the premiere

Until recently the footage of the world première of Poème symphonique was believed to have been lost forever. With the aid of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, the Muziekgebouw managed to find that missing footage and is now able to screen it in a more modern context. The other film on the programme is a unique music lecture Ligeti gave for German television in Berlin in 1963, as part of a series of live lectures by major composers such as John Cage and Luigi Nono. In this lecture Ligeti talks in detail for more than an hour about his vision of composing and his way of working, something he seldom did, as evidenced by his statement: ‘I think music is a bit like love. You do it, but you don’t talk about it.’

The JSQ, just back from Europe tour, has let it be known that Joseph Lin will be stepping down as first violin in the summer. He will remain on the Juilliard faculty and his seat will be taken by Areta Zhulla.

Lin has led the quartet for just seven years.

The quartet changed its violist in 2013 and its cellist in 2016.

It’s looking like a game of musical chairs.

JSQ – new lineup