January 28, 2011 - Slippedisc

Henry Meyer, second violin of the La Salle Quartet and a survivor of Auschwitz, is the subject of a new play to be staged in Cincinnati, where he spent the second half of his life.

I met Henry at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in the late 1990s and we became firm friends. He was charming, knowledgeable and receptive to most things, except contestants’ wrong notes – which drove him vertically up the wall with rage.

Here’s a page with his Holocaust history.

And here’s the news from Cincinnati. Thanks to Janelle Gelfand for the heads up.

The Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative is presenting a new play by Kalman Kivkovich and directed by Ed Cohen on the life of Henry Meyer, the late Holocaust survivor, violinist and founding member of the LaSalle Quartet, on April 26 at the Aronoff Center. Meyer’s harrowing escape from the Nazis and his survival of four Nazi death camps after losing his entire family is an amazing true story of courage. He went on to forge an international career with the LaSalle Quartet and as a distinguished professor of violin at CCM. Click here to read more.

Henry Meyer, second violin of the La Salle Quartet and a survivor of Auschwitz, is the subject of a new play to be staged in Cincinnati, where he spent the second half of his life.

Here’s a page with his Holocaust history.

And here’s the news from Cincinnati. Thanks to Janelle Gelfand for the heads up.

In the February issue of The Strad, I discuss the declining status of the orchestral concertmaster – once as important a figure as the maestro but now increasingly invisible. Why is that?

Here’s a sampler:

There was a time when, woken in the middle of the night, I
could rattle off the names of concertmasters in great orchestras the way a
schoolboy recites his football team or a whisky priest his catechism.

At Karajan’s left knee in Berlin sat Michel Schwalbé, the
expressionless Holocaust survivor. In Vienna, it was Rainer Küchl, young before
his time. Hermann Krebbers personified the Concertgebouw. Michael Davis led the
flash-Andre mob of the LSO. Rodney Friend kept the New York Phil in tune for
Boulez and Mehta. Samuel Magad ruled the line in Solti’s Chicago.

And it was not just world leaders who gripped the
imagination. Malcolm Stewart two-timed in Liverpool and Toulouse. Haim Taub was
a national institution in Israel. Steven Staryk held sway in Toronto. Christopher
Warren-Green at the Philharmonia was always poised for a maestro to stumble so
he could take over. The concertmaster, 30 years ago, was almost as much the
public face of an orchestra as its chief conductor and generally more
responsible than him for maintaining morale and tone….

And who’s this on the cover?

In the February issue of The Strad, I discuss the declining status of the orchestral concertmaster – once as important a figure as the maestro but now increasingly invisible. Why is that?

Here’s a sampler:

And who’s this on the cover?

Question from the Member for Clarity (S.) to the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt.

Sir: Could the Rt. Hon. Member explain why the chief executive of Arts Council England, Alan Davey, cannot find the time to meet with the Head of Arts at Britain’s second largest city? Apparently, the arts boss at Birmingham City Council cannot get a date.

Is this because

(a) the ACE is anti-Midlands?

(b) Mr Davey has a rare complaint of the right hand that prevents him from picking up a telephone receiver?

(c) the ACE is now inundated with 1,340 applications, a bureaucratic exercise of Mr Davey’s making that has paralysed the organisation and prevented it from doing an honest day’s work?

photo: ACE