According to the New York Post page six – the wannabe Walter Winchell – America’s darling Renée Fleming is thinking of heading up the altar with her long-term companion, the corporate lawyer, Tim Jessell.

The footnote is that the pair were first set up on a blind date by author Ann Patchett.
Now why would a good writer bother to do that?

The Mayor of London’s office has opened a website where organisers can post cultural events, great and small, that are taking place around the 2012 Olympics.

Here’s where you register: www.theculturediary.com.  It’s a pretty cool idea.
There is a separate site for non-cultural events – www.london.gov.uk/eventsin2012 – though what they may include I leave to your imagination. Tea in the park? French cricket for beginners? Spanking in Surbiton?
The five rings have gone up at St Pancras Station and London is ready for anything.

I have posted both sides of the dispute that has prompted many musicians, in Brazil and around the world, to black out their Facebook pictures in protest against the enforced re-audition of musicians in the national orchestra.

The musicians fear this procedure will cost many, perhaps most of them, their jobs. The conductor, Roberto Minczuk, insists that no jobs are at risk. On the contrary, the players who pass the audition will be paid more.
Clearly, neither side trusts or understands the other. 
Why else would an orchestra hold auditions except to select and reject musicians? One of the international musicians named for the jury says she was unaware of any such role; another has withdrawn. 
What happens now? Are the members of the Brazil Symphony Orchestra expected to play before the three remaining judges, one of who is contemplating resignation?
And how will the orchestra ever regain trust in a conductor and management who have such little faith in their own players? It would seem that many jobs are now at risk, including maestro and manager. 
How soon? Your guess is as good as mine. But I cannot recall an orchestral dispute in recent years when the two sides were so far apart and good will was so low.
Samba School Drummers section
Here’s a letter just received from the musicians’ committee, disputing some of Minczuk’s arguments:

Dear Mr. Lebrecht,


The OSB Musicians Commission considers important to make the following remarks about the letter by Maestro Minczuk, published on this blog:

 

1.  The period of commotion we are experiencing for about two months, is the result of hasty disclosure of a document calling on all the orchestral body (including leaders) to participate in a misguided “performance evaluation”, limited to a single individual presentation of 30 minutes long. Undoubtedly, it has never been done during the 70 years of existence of the orchestra, not stated on the employment contracts of the OSB musicians and certainly not adopted in any of the major orchestras of the world, as it is usually exposed by Maestro Minczuk. This document, received by the musicians on January 6th, 2011 made no mention of any layoffs, but the strangeness of the call at the beginning of summer holiday as well as the uniqueness of the proposal caused great commotion among the musicians. This type of audition is usually applied in order to enter the orchestra, not as a “performance evaluation”.

 

2.  The impression that the mass dismissal would occur was reinforced during the release of the 2011 season, about three weeks ago, when it was officially announced that all programming scheduled for March, April, May, June and July would be in charge of Brazilian Youth Symphony Orchestra, a music students ensemble, with no working contract with the OSB Foundation and which should actually be submitted to an educational program consistent with the goals of a real Youth Orchestra, and therefore, not able to replace the professional orchestra. If there is no intention to dismiss, what would justify this huge period without any schedule for the musicians of the professional OSB immediately after those auditions?

This impression of a massive dismissals, was also reinforced by the unexpectedly announcement of a Voluntary Retirement Plan, for which only three players signed up. A young musician who plays the English-horn in an exceptional manner, an oboist with extensive experience in international orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic and Berlin Opera and a violinist wit
h over thirty years devoted
to OSB.

 

3.  This salary 6500.00 U.S. refers to a few positions in the orchestra. The base salary will be 3529,00 U.S. , plus extras for concerts and total assignment of image and audio rights. With this “wage increase” the orchestra nearly doubles the number of functions, and compels all musicians to exclusivity in addition to removing the bonus for years of service earned by the musicians after tough negotiations.

 

4.  The musicians certainly would agree to a well-structured program of “performance evaluation”, since it included the same criteria used in serious institutions, as demonstrated to the President of the OSB Foundation, Dr. Eleazar de Carvalho Filho, in a meeting with members of the OSB Musicians Commission, on February 12th, 2011. In this case, the evaluation would be subject necessarily to the analysis of the musician performance in the course of a given period (i.e. annual) and obligatorily subject to review by the sections principals and the Maestro. It could never be limited to a single individual presentation, which can be negatively influenced by uncountable factors.

 

5.  Maestro Minczuk has been the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of OSB for the last five and a half years. He had more than enough time to evaluate the members of the orchestra which he has worked with for hundreds of rehearsals and performances.

 

6.  It is noteworthy that the “ritual” for admission to the orchestra is in its statutes and was always observed. He inferred in his letter that the musicians have been admitted in the orchestra without the necessary rite of the auditions. The personnel and accounting departments have the records of every musician’s admission and their history within the institution. However, there have never existed any official documents of the auditions with the notes of the judges. He did hire some musicians without auditioning them. He can veto any candidate.

 

7.  We are convinced that the orchestra and its management would not be subject to the current constraint if the musicians had participated in the drafting of the evaluation program, a possibility predicted in the Statute of OSB Foundation.

 Sincerely,

Luzer Machtyngier

President of the OSB Musicians Commission

No sooner had word broken yesterday of the contestants in Valery Gergiev’s new-look Tchaikovsky Competition this summer than low rumblings were heard from the cello section all over the world.

Several high-calibre contestants who did not make the cut pointed out that no fewer than six of the cello finalists are past or recent pupils of David Geringas, who forcefully chaired the jury.
The six are: Janina Ruh, Norbert Anger, Valentin Radutiu (Germany), Edgar Moreau (France), Seung Min Kang (Korea) and Umberto Clerici (Italy).
This is not quite the jury-rigging scandal of old times but it does suggest that, in Moscow, past habits die hard.

                                       Seung Min Kang. photo: cellist.nl
And Jessica Duchen has just pointed out that there are no British contestants in any category – odd, given the past successes of John Ogdon, Peter Donohoe and Barry Douglas.
Very odd.