That was my advice to struggling Dutch music organisations in a keynote speech a couple of weeks ago.

And it looks like conductor Alan Pierson has got in first. He’s taking the Brooklyn Philharmonic to Brighton Beach to play Soviet-era cartoon music.

Great idea – a million miles from the snoots of Carnegie Hall, and covered in the blue-collar Daily News, not the preppy Times.

Someone’s doing something right in Brooklyn. I love dose qartunes…

‘Vinni-Puh Goes Visiting'” (Soyuzmultfilm)

James Yannatos has died at 82.

He conducted the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra since 1964.

Here’s the college obit.

at the Bolshoi reopening production of Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmilla.

In the end, all the snapper shot was puppets.

Bloody puppets.

Maybe that’s all there was.

The Swingle singer Christiane Legard died yesterday, the same day as composer André Hodeir. She was the sister of film composer Michel Legrand and was the lead singer of the group 1962-72.

Her niece, Victoria, is a member of the US indie band, Beach house.

Here’s video of Christiane singing with her bro in one of his greatest hits.

I’m off to search out the lemons of Tel Aviv.

The death has just been announced on Radio France of André Hodeir, a French jazz composer who had his greatest hit with Bitter Ending, a setting of the finale of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, recorded by the Swingles.

Hodeir founded the Jazz Groupe de Paris in 1954 and wrote scores for many films, among them Autour d’un récif (Jean-Yves Cousteau, 1949), Saint-Tropez. Devoirs de vacances (Paul Paviot, 1953), Une Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957) and Les Tripes au Soleil (Claude Bernard-Aubert, 1958).

He was also a close associate of Pierre Boulez and the serialist avant-garde.  Here‘s the Radio France obit.

Anthony Hewitt is rehearsing for next year’s Olympics.

He plans to cycle the length of Britain in May 2012, from John O’Groats to Land’s End, stopping in town squares and market places to give piano recitals by way of relief and light refreshment.

The piano is being being trundled behind his bike in the aptly named Beethoven Van.

Here’s Anthony explaining the scheme on youtube.

In 2009, Dallas Opera received an anonymous gift of $10 million – conditional on it rasing a matching amount.

That aim has finally been reached, but what might once have taken ten phone calls has now taken two years.

Which does not stop the press office proclaiming it a triumph.

The Sydney Opera – one of the world’s iconic buildings – has announced a plan  to attract more school visits without getting muddy footprints on its marbled floors.

The idea is to use video conferencing to sample both stage performances and educational programs. In a country the size of Australia, that makes great sense. Read more here.