March 2018 - Page 8 of 24

Two of this month’s classical covers.

Someone’s not taking their medication…

The Catholic University of America, in Washington DC, is proposing to merge its music department with media and visual arts in order to save $3.5 million in academic salaries. Some 35 jobs will go.

Read here.

We hear that Chad Smith, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the man in charge of its adventurous programming, is about to be named head of the Ojai Music Festival from next year.

He will succeed the veteran Tom Morris.

Chad, 45, was the internal favourite to succeed Deborah Borda when she left for the NY Phil, but the board brought in Simon Woods from Seattle.

He is the latest of the Borda team to look beyond LA, although we hear he is staying put at the Phil for the time being.

The streaming service Idagio is featuring key Vienna Phil players talking about their alltime #1 recording.

First up is concertmaster Volkhard Steude.

The VPhil has signed a new deal with Idagio to livestream some of its concerts.

The violinist, 38, keeps a counter on her website.

Can you remember them all? a German journalist asks her.

Das sieht vielleicht viel aus, aber es ist ja mein Beruf und ich habe mein erstes Konzert mit zehn Jahren gegeben. Zählen Sie doch einmal die Menge der Mahlzeiten, die Sie in Ihrem Leben gegessen haben: Das ist so ähnlich und ergibt sicher auch eine erstaunliche Zahl. So gesehen gebe relativ wenig Konzerte.

No more than I remember all the meals I’ve eaten, she says.

The fortepianist Robert Levin, 70, will receive the lifetime Bachievement award.

In a Guardian interview, the ROH director Oliver Mears admits he has rowed back on some of his predecessor’s more quackpot plans.

In 2013, (Kasper) Holten had announced to great fanfare four new commissions “inspired by the writings of philosopher Slavoj Žižek”. These new operas – by Kaija Saariaho, Jörg Widmann, Luca Francesconi and Mark-Anthony Turnage – were supposed to “challenge opera writers to write about their fears and hopes for the world now”, and the outgoing ROH chief executive Tony Hall said they would be staged by 2020. Oddly, they have never been heard of again, and there is no sign of them being programmed. I ask Mears what happened. “Two have fallen by the wayside for different reasons,” he says. “The other two – by Turnage and Saariaho – are still in our long-term schedules.”

And here we were queuing up, all ready with our pocket Zizeks.

Mears goes on to say the company cannot afford more than one new opera a year.

The Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais has moved her management from Konzertdirektion Schmid in Hanover to Askonas Holt in London.

Ms Opolais is married to the Boston and Leipzig conductor Andris Nelsons, who is also managed by Schmid.

Clearly, one of them felt uncomfortable with having all their eggs in a Hanover basket.

UPDATE: KD Schmid will continuen to represent her concerts. Askonas Holt will handle all her operatic engagements.

The inexhaustible mezzo, 73, says two of her aunts died of the disease.

She’s looking forward to play one of two dementia ladies in Lembit Beecher’s Sky on Swings, opening at Opera Philadelphia in September.

‘I really didn’t figure out exactly how to sing until I was 55,’ she tells AP. ‘Then I had to extend that to 60, and then I had to extend it to 65, and then I extended it to 70 and now I’m going for 75. And then maybe I’ll figure it out.’

Marietta Simpson and Frederica von Stade. Photo: Dominic Mercier/Opera Philadelphia

Many musicians have stayed away, for one reason or other, from the Trump Administration.

But the veteran flute virtuoso and his wife Jeanne turned up for the annual St Patrick’s Day shamrock presentation by the Irish prime minister and played a spot of Mozart and Danny Boy.

You can watch their performance here.

It may have exhausted the presidential attention span.

When the last owners of Finchcocks retired two years ago, it was assumed that one of the world’s great piano collections would be dispersed.

Not so.

The new owners have fallen in love with the music.

Here’s what’s happening:
In 2016, Finchcocks was bought by Neil and Harriet Nichols, with the intention of using it both as a family home and finding a way to continue the music at Finchcocks. Following the renovation of the Coach House and the Old Dairy, Finchcocks will welcome up to eight visitors at a time through a series of regular residential piano courses, aimed at all ability ranges. David Hall has been appointed Musical Director with Dr Alastair Laurence (Chairman of John Broadwood and Sons Ltd) assisting with the selection and maintenance of the instruments.