It’s all laid out here, on the Drew McManus blog Adaptrisation.

Do not pass out on seeing the New York Philharmonic salary – it’s still Lorin Maazel, not Alan Gilbert.

Next highest earner is… no surprise, James Levine, at Boston.

And while you’re on the site, take a look at concertmaster earnings, also quite an eye-opener. New York’s Glenn Dicterow leads the field on half a million. Not bad for a 20-hour week.

Esa-Pekka Salonen is the first conductor to sign onto a scheme to shame the Dutch goverment into softening its culture cuts. Salonen and the Philharmonia orchestra yesterday recorded a segment of a Dutch resistance anthem that will be blared out in The Hague while Parliament is debating the cuts. You can see the recording here on Youtube, with Salonen’s appeal to the Dutch.

Another section has been recorded by the WD orchestra in Cologne. So who’s going to be next next?

Here’s the plan, described by Gijs Kramers, artistic director of the Ricciotti ensemble, Amsterdam.

The American soprano Patricia Racette was cast as Madama Butterfly in tomorrow’s performance at Covent Garden, but she fell sick.

The conductor, Andris Nelsons, would have received the news with dismay. Then he called home.

Step in the Maestro’s fiancee, the Latvian soprano Krist?ne Opolais, whom he first got to know as a chorus singer in the opera at Riga. The first two performances (June 25, 29) will mark her ROH debut. The rest of the run will be sung by Liping Zhang and Amarilli Nizza.

NEWS EXTRA: I hear from Birmingham, where Andris is music director of the CBSO, that he told the audience that he and Krist?ne got married in Latvia on April 29. They are now genuinely Mr & rs Maestro. We wish them well.

What’s more, Andriss is the third CBSO music director in a row to have a soprano wife. His predecessor Sakari Oramo is married to Anu Komsi and Simon Rattle was married to Elise Ross and is now with Magdalena Kozena. Must be something in the Birmingham water.

This time it’s Ecuador.

Apparently, they have been reading about the shenanigans in Brazil and are telling the musicians is Guayaquil to re-audition for their jobs. Here’s a letter I’ve received from an American member of the orchestra:

Dear Mr. Lebrecht,

I am a professional violinist, currently living in Ecuador and
playing in the Guayaquil Symphony. I was a member of Local 71 in the
states before moving here. There seems to be a real
problem with a dictatorial mindset of conductors in Latin/South
America. Under the guise of “personal evaluations,” mandatory for all
government employees every six months, the orchestra administration of
all the Ecuadorian orchestras is calling for mandatory re-auditions.

(All the same lingo as Mr. Minczuk and the Brazilian orchestra, except
we make 1/4th their salary and have no union.) I think one musician in
Quito tried to start or join an international union when they were
required to do their re-auditions last year, but he was the first to
be fired.
The musicians here have basically no rights, and I was wondering
where I could find information regarding the internationally accepted
policies regarding auditions and re-auditions. Those who do not submit
will be terminated. Quito lost their last conductor, five months of
work, several of their weaker players, all of their “insubordinate
players,” and the last cultural minister.
I’m a stronger player and the auditions are not really a problem for
me, but I know my job could be at risk just for contacting you.

The professional orchestra in Guayaquil is scheduled to start these

re-auditions in September, although the project has not yet been

formally approved by the new cultural minister, Mgs. Erika Sylva

Charvet (who is also about to resign). I think that with the proper
information and influence much could be done right now to help protect
the rights of professional musicians in this country. Any help you
could give me would be greatly appreciated.

I am still waiting to read an obituary of Professor Raphael Loewe that tells the world how he won the Military Cross in Italy during the Second World War. Those of us who knew Raphael late in life – he died on May 27, aged 92 – knew him as a formidable authority on Hebrew and related languages, an inexhaustible concordance of Aramaic sources and semantic lore. He wrote an important biography of Ibn Gabirol, was professor at University College London and Fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge.

He limped heavily, you could see that, but he never said why.

Then, one day, the composer Robert Saxton mentioned to me that his father had known Raphael in Cambridge as a boy and fought beside him in the Suffolk regiment in the Second World War, in North Africa and later in Italy. Under fire at (he thinks) Monte Cassino, the unit strayed into a minefield. A call went out for volunteers to fetch in the wounded. Raphael went out and carried the wounded colonel in over his shoulder. He then went back again and again under sniper fire, carrying one man after another until the last of the wounded was brought in.

Back in the dugout, he was asked if there was anything he’d like. ‘A cup of tea would be nice,’ said Raphael.

Ian Saxton told his son that he had never seen a more perfect example of religious faith.

The Russian premiere of John Corigliano’s concerto from the movie The Red Violin went ahead last night – or at least one movement did.

After two days of wrestling with an under-prepared orchestra and conductor in St Petersburg (not Moscow, as previously reported), there was just enough time for Michael Ludwig to rehearse the first movement of the concerto to his, and the composer’s, satisfaction. Here’s what Michael tells me:

Hi Norman…

The show went on, albeit only the 1st movement of the concerto. Although I looked forward to sharing John Corigliano’s entire concerto with the St Petersburg public, I was very grateful that John was able to help save the concert, working with the orchestra and conductor for 3 and a half hours before the concert this evening ensuring that his 2nd symphony and Chaconne would be performed. It was a great pleasure to perform in the presence of John as always. I am especially looking forward to my upcoming performances of his concerto with JoAnn Falletta and the Korean Broadcast Orchestra later this summer. Count on a full concert!!!

I guess Korea’s the big winner here.

The annual wages survey across US orchestras that Drew McManus compiles in Adaptrisation shows no great change in the thick of recession.

Across the board, executive directors pay themselves, in general, six times as much as the average orchestral wage. At the Boston Symphony, for instance, Mark Volpe pulled down $606, 725, while the player average was $128,180.

There were notable exceptions. In Cleveland and Chicago, the ratio was 1:4, while at the philharmonic orchestras of Los Angeles and New York the chief executive earned exactly ten times as much as the players.

New Mexico, which went bust, paid its boss fourfold. Syracuse, also bankrupt, less than three times as much.

What, I wonder, justifies the correlation? The gap, at any rate, is much narrower in Europe.

Here’s Drew’s full chart. It makes fascinating reading.

The board says it has raised $27.5 million in pledges and donations in the bid to stave off bankruptcy.

But most of the money – $16.3  million – comes as challenge grants, which usually means others must be found to match the amounts before a penny is put in. The orchestra needs to find another $17m by the end of the year if it is to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

From the information released today, it does not look to me that they are anywhere near out of the tub.

I’m hearing few leaks from the violin section in Moscow, except the unsettling assertion that the dialogue is more amicable than in the piano room – which always makes one suspect a fix. But they are down to the last eight without provoking any riots:

Nigel Armstrong (USA),

Andrey Baranov (Russia),

Sergey Dogadin (Russia),

Jehye Lee (South Korea),

Aylen Pritchin (Russia),

Eric Silberger (USA),

Yu-Chien Tseng (Taiwan) and

Itamar Zorman (Israel).

Armstrong and Zorman seem to be the star attractions. As in the piano section, an early front-runner was eliminated for poor performance in contemporary music.

I have been sworn to silence. I am not allowed to divulge anything that went on at this morning’s general rehearsal of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at English National Opera – not even which blouse Nico was wearing (you can guess) or which understudy was practising his part in my box.

But – they may ban me for this, I don’t care – I must tell you that Two Boys takes opera where it has never been before, not just in subject matter so much as in the lifestyle issues that it explores and cannily exploits. It is a truly thought-provoking show and if you haven’t booked tickets yet, do not delay – the more so if you happen to be reading this post on facebook, twitter or other social media, whose dangers it alerts.

Here‘s Nico’s trailer video. It’s nothing like the show. See the show. First performance Friday.

The Met’s due to stage it in 2013.

Tonight’s Russian premiere of John Corigliano’s Red Violin concerto, due tonight, is hanging in the balance and may well be called off.

The pick-up orchestra were hopeless at rehearsal, leaving soloist Michael Ludwig – the Buffalo Philharmonic concertmaster – high and dry.

Corigiliano, who’s judging the Tchaikovsky competition, is vociferously unhappy. Great disappointment all round.

It is abundantly clear that the 14th Tchaikovsky competition differs from its predecessors in one significant respect – its transparency. Every round can be watched live online, viewers are encouraged to cast their votes and several judges are using their cellphones and notebooks to tweet and email their emotions as the contest progresses.

This is not just a necessary and healthy process: it is the perfect antidote to Russia’s Got Talent.

Here’s a personal report from one of the piano judges, who last night reduced the field to eight.

Hi Norman –

I am incredibly sad for the four who were eliminated. Despite all the mudslinging that is going on on the competition’s own Facebook page – about us as usual going for ‘respectable mediocrity’ – what we went for was a group of all-round musicians, each with a good chance of a great future. That is, at least, what I went for, and as I was almost 100% happy with the result, as was everyone of the jury, I think we can assume that everyone had the same goal. The ‘almost’ is important, because we were all undecided about one, and there was much genuine and extremely well intentioned honest discussion about that one. It has to be remembered that to have put one in to the next round who has not been, another would have to be eliminated

This is what one small-minded self opinionated individual has written – ‘Politics aside, competitors must all walk a kind of narrow tightrope to satisfy the majority of the judges, so we shouldn’t be surprised that real individuality usually goes out the window and we are often left with only respectable mediocrity. Don’t forget that Martha Argerich once resigned from a jury when Pogorelich wasn’t passed……… ‘

The bottom line is that it was hugely difficult to come to a decision for all of us, and in the end it was the concept that the composer rather than the pianist being central to the performance is what should decide it, and we all felt the same way. Many of the Facebook set, although by no means all of them, obviously view things differently. I can say that the people on this jury are wonderfully genuine in their approach, and it is an honour to be working along side them. I can also say that I am learning quite a lot about piano playing from the competitors – so we are by no means setting ourselves up as tin gods. It is a very humbling experience to hear such a phenomenal range of approaches and character from so many great pianists. I wish I could even come near to saying that about most competitions.

Van is here I believe, but I haven’t yet seen him. I am so glad he is here – apparently for the first time since his own triumph in 1958 – as I predict that the end of this competition is going to be and emotional high – or maybe crisis – that will rock the music world in the same way as in his day.

Make of this what you will. I applaud the openness of the event and avidly read incoming tweets from another piano judge, Barry Douglas. Today’s a day off. Some of the judges are going for a tour of the Kremlin. Barry tweets that he’s practising.

The eight piano finalists are: Chernov, Cho, Daneshpour, Kapachevsky, Lubantsyev, Romanovsky, Son and Trifanov.