Yes, you read it right. A real-life classical conductor is going on prime US network television at the start of the New Year. He might even get to talk about music (perhaps not at symphonic length). When, since Leonard Bernstein in 1943, has any young conductor received such national exposure?

It’s a huge step-up for Gustavo Dudamel to the next celebrity rung. I reckon he can handle it.
Here’s the press release, hot off the email:

 

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC MUSIC DIRECTOR

GUSTAVO DUDAMEL TO APPEAR ON NBC’S

“THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO”

 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2011, AT 11:35 PM

 

 

WHAT:              LA Phil Music Director Gustavo Dudamel guests on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Tuesday, January 4, 2011, at 11:35 p.m. In his first appearance on the national late-night program, Dudamel discusses, among other topics, LA Phil LIVE, which sends full-concert performances of him leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall to more than 450 movie theaters across the U.S. and Canada.

 

Dudamel is currently in the middle of his second season leading the LA Phil. The LA Phil’s 2010/11 season presents a vast spectrum of imaginative concerts – welcoming back old friends, while continuing the tradition of introducing rising artists and composers – a European tour and expansion of YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), Dudamel’s signature music education program.

 

“The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” is from Big Dog Productions in association with Universal Media Studios.  Debbie Vickers is the executive producer.

 

For artwork from “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” please visit the NBC press website at www.nbcumv.com or contact julie.true@nbcuni.com.  For embed codes from “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” please visit http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/.

 

Please visit www.LAPhil.com for complete programming information.

An orchestral manager has directed me to an article on alcohol in the performing arts, published a year ago by the UK Medical Council on Alcohol. It contains some shocking statistics, among them an international survey showing that 70 percent of orchestral musicians suffer from levels of anxiety that lead to medication, alcohol and drug use.

I don’t remember the report being discussed much among musicians when it was published. As usual in the classical music world, it was swept under the carpet.

Meanwhile, private respondents to my previous post cite the case of a London viola player seen urinating on the concert hall steps in full concert dress as the audience was leaving, and report that two British orchestras have now banned alcohol use on their premises.
Here’s the link to the M-C-A report: http://www.m-c-a.org.uk/documents/Dec_09
photo credit: http://thehitman-cthemusic.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-10-drunk-songs.html

An orchestral manager has directed me to an article on alcohol in the performing arts, published a year ago by the UK Medical Council on Alcohol. It contains some shocking statistics, among them an international survey showing that 70 percent of orchestral musicians suffer from levels of anxiety that lead to medication, alcohol and drug use.

I don’t remember the report being discussed much among musicians when it was published. As usual in the classical music world, it was swept under the carpet.

Meanwhile, private respondents to my previous post cite the case of a London viola player seen urinating on the concert hall steps in full concert dress as the audience was leaving, and report that two British orchestras have now banned alcohol use on their premises.
Here’s the link to the M-C-A report: http://www.m-c-a.org.uk/documents/Dec_09
photo credit: http://thehitman-cthemusic.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-10-drunk-songs.html

Free classical downoad #4 is the Dream of Solomon from the Onyx recording of Respighi’s Queen of Sheba. It is played by the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and, unless you were specifically looking for the piece, you would never know it existed.

To say it has an eastern flavour is like questioning the Pope’s Catholicism. Seldom has an orchestra sounded more attuned to the work in hand.
Here’s the link:
http://www.onyxclassics.com/normanlebrecht/ONYX4048-1.mp3.zip

Respighi: Belkis, Queen of Sheba – I The Dream of Solomon
Borusan
Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, Sascha Goetzel




The next music director of the Czech Philharmonic will be a conductor first appointed under communism, thrown out by the players in an act of free market madness and standing ever since as a living reproach to the orchestra’s collective misbehaviour.

It has been announced in Prague that Jiri Belohlavek will resume his duties in September 2012 at the helm of the only Czech cultural institution of international standing. He will succeed the Israeli, Eliahu Inbal, the last of a long run of fix-it conductors who fixed nothing.
Belohlavek, meanwhile, founded a rival Prague Philharmonic and earned worldwide acclaim as the foremost living Czech conductor. He presently heads the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 

His return is outstandingly good news for music in the Czech Republic. He is clean of all political connections and corruption, past or present, and he ought to raise the Czech Phil from deepening demoralisation. Earlier this year the orchestra launched legal action against the country’s culture minister, its own former manager, alleging criminal misuse of funds.
It speaks volumes for Belohlavek’s integrity that he is prepared to stake his reputation on so murky an enterprise. Czech reports say he will quit the BBC after the 2012 Proms to devote the greater part of his work to rebuilding the national orchestra. The BBC has not confirmed his departure.
Here’s the local report. 
Photo credit: C Christodoulou/Lebrecht Music & Arts

The next music director of the Czech Philharmonic will be a conductor first appointed under communism, thrown out by the players in an act of free market madness and standing ever since as a living reproach to the orchestra’s collective misbehaviour.

It has been announced in Prague that Jiri Belohlavek will resume his duties in September 2012 at the helm of the only Czech cultural institution of international standing. He will succeed the Israeli, Eliahu Inbal, the last of a long run of fix-it conductors who fixed nothing.
Belohlavek, meanwhile, founded a rival Prague Philharmonic and earned worldwide acclaim as the foremost living Czech conductor. He presently heads the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 

His return is outstandingly good news for music in the Czech Republic. He is clean of all political connections and corruption, past or present, and he ought to raise the Czech Phil from deepening demoralisation. Earlier this year the orchestra launched legal action against the country’s culture minister, its own former manager, alleging criminal misuse of funds.
It speaks volumes for Belohlavek’s integrity that he is prepared to stake his reputation on so murky an enterprise. Czech reports say he will quit the BBC after the 2012 Proms to devote the greater part of his work to rebuilding the national orchestra. The BBC has not confirmed his departure.
Here’s the local report. 
Photo credit: C Christodoulou/Lebrecht Music & Arts