The town of Aachen has announced a new general music director.

He’s American, 32, and about to step into the post which, in 1935, catapulted Herbert von Karajan to mass adulation and notoriety.

Kazem Abdullah was previously an assistant at the Metropolitan Opera from 2006-09; he has since conducted in Sao Paolo, Brazil. More about him here.

Karajan, who was 27 when he came to Aachen, had previously resigned from a dead-end job at Ulm.

 (photo: emil-berlinerstudios.com)

Karajan willingly served a racialist regime. Abdullah represents cultural change in a multicultural Germany. Odd, how the world turns.

 

I have been reading the Cleveland Orchestra’s financial results with deepening dismay. Cleveland is an orchestra that does most things right. It has a highly committed chief conductor, Franz Welser-Möst, and a highly capable president, Gary Hanson.

Faced with a shrinking and aging middle-class audience in a rustbelt city, it has established prestigious and profitable residencies in Miami, Vienna, Lucerne and, soon, Paris. Its sound tradition is the strongest in America.

Yet the going is incredibly tough. In 2009 the orchestra reported a $2 million shortfall. Last year it was $2.3  million. Now, it’s $2.7 million. Somehow or other that leak will have to be plugged, but how? The loss amounts to 5 percent of turnover, every year.

There is an endowment of $130 million, and that increased last year by $24 million, a sign of donor confidence. But the losses are persistent. They do not augur well.

Here’s the full statement:

The Musical Arts Association (MAA), governing body of The Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, and Blossom Music Center, released its 2010-11 results at its Annual Meeting Friday, November 18.  For the 2010-11 fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2011, operating results netted a deficit of $2.7 million, on total operating revenues of $44.8 million and operating expenses of $47.5 million.  The Orchestra achieved a record in fundraising commitments, and ticket sales at Severance Hall increased from the previous year.

In 2010-11, The Cleveland Orchestra appeared in Europe and Asia on two international tours and performed in three national residencies. The Orchestra expanded its commitment to Northeast Ohio with the announcement of the Center for Future Audiences.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTIC PREEMINENCE

“Their reputation as one of the world’s great ensembles is richly deserved.”

– The GuardianAugust 2010

 

At the Annual Meeting, MAA President Dennis LaBarre said, “This season, The Cleveland Orchestra has proudly carried the name of Cleveland, in partnership with its brand of excellence, across the country and literally around the world.”  Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra appeared on a European summer festivals tour, and an Asian tour and four-concert residency at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.  In 2011, the Orchestra celebrated its fifth annual Miami Residency, launched a new partnership with a residency at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, completed the third installment of fully-staged Mozart operas at Severance Hall, and debuted in the first of three biennial residencies at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York.

 

NORTHEAST OHIO COMMITMENT AND CHANGE

The Orchestra expanded its commitment to the Northeast Ohio community and continued to innovate in 2010-11.  The Center for Future Audiences endowed by the Maltz Family Foundation was announced in October 2010.  The work of the Center for Future Audiences focuses on eliminating economic, geographic, and cultural barriers to attending the Orchestra’s performances, with a goal of having the youngest audience anywhere for a symphony orchestra by the time of The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial in 2018.

 

New and ongoing collaborations resulting in projects with partner institutions included:  Tri-C JazzFest, GroundWorks DanceTheater, Cleveland Play House, Case Western Reserve University, Oberlin College, Cleveland Clinic, the Cleveland Municipal School Disctrict, and Cleveland Institute of Music.  The Orchestra performed twice at the Cleveland Museum of Art supported by the new Keithley Fund for Artistic Collaboration.

 

The Orchestra continued its annual participation in Orchestras Feeding America, a national food drive held by America’s symphony orchestras, collecting 3,260 pounds of food for the Cleveland Foodbank.   Musicians, staff, and volunteers collected food donations from patrons at Severance Hall, as well the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, and Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus in January and February 2011.

 

In March 2011, Orchestra musicians organized several benefits in Cleveland, as well as in Miami, for the Red Cross and the Japanese Association of Northeast Ohio to raise funds for those who suffered in the Japanese earthquakes.

 

RECORD FUNDRAISING, SEVERANCE HALL TICKET SALES INCREASED

Total gift commitments to the Orchestra reached a record high of $44.2 million in 2010-11, including $24.8 million in annual fundraising, project underwriting, and gifts to the endowment, $4.4 million in pledged commitments, and $15 million in legacy giving.  More people purchased tickets to concerts at Severance Hall last season.  Paid admissions for performances at Severance Hall increased by 3.5% over the previous year with 7 fewer performances.  In 2010-11, the total tickets purchased for 94 performances were 133,600.

 

ENDOWMENT

On June 20,2011, the endowment stood at $130 million, increased $24 million from the previous year.  Executive Director Gary Hanson said, “To maintain an orchestra of the scope, scale and quality of The Cleveland Orchestra, we must continue to raise the funds needed to ensure endowment growth.”

 

TRUSTEE ELECTION

Officers of the Board of Trustees re-elected at the annual meeting included Dennis W. LaBarre, President; Richard J. Bogomolny, Chairman; The Honorable John D. Ong, Vice President; Norma Lerner, Honorary Chair; Raymond T. Sawyer, Secretary; and Beth E. Mooney, Treasurer.  Elizabeth Juliano and Iris Harvie have been elected as new Resident Trustees, and Dr. Wolfgang Berndt has been elected a new Non-Resident Trustee.

Trustees elected in the 2010-11 fiscal year included Paul G. Clark, Hiroyuki Fujita, David P. Hunt, and Paul A. Rose.

 

Argument has been raging on this site for almost a week as to whether it is legitimate for a listener to walk out in mid-symphony, shouting abuse, because he or she disagrees with the interpretation or is otherwise disappointed with the performance.

Well, a kind soul has n0w offered us the opportunity to hear the performance in question and decide for ourselves.

Listen up, listen here. Interestingly, no-one from the orchestra, the hall, or the conductor’s management, has uttered a peep.

Oh, and the Daily Telegraph has just taken up the story… attracting, amid some commonsense, the usual unmediated wittering of green-ink comments.

The young Israeli conductor Yoel Gamzou has made a good attempt to freshen up the performing version of Mahler’s last score. He takes it on tour across Germany this week.


Gustav Mahler Symphony Nr.10 (Gamzou Version)
International Mahler Orchestra
Yoel Gamzou, conductor

General rehearsal for the public.
»Große Halle« University Witten-Herdecke. 20.11.2011
Tickets available at the box office /6 p.m.

21.11.2011 Wiesbaden | Kurhaus
22.11.2011 Köln | Philharmonie
25.11.2011 Berlin | Philharmonie
28.11.2011 Hamburg | St. Michaelis
29.11.2011 Leipzig | Centraltheater
01.12.2011 Stuttgart | Liederhalle

 

Full details here.

The celebrated violinist has been awarded the Gustav-Adolf Prize, one of the oldest honours of the Protestant Church in Germany, dating back to 1832.

It is named after the Swedish King Gustav II and recognises Anne Sophie’s work among needy children in Eastern Europe. More here.

photo: brigitte.de

 

 

I’ve just received the following shock letter from the proud owner of a Steinway grand.

Note the well-tuned use of the 2011 term ‘moving forward’. It means someone has been laid off or something shut down.

Steinway ‘moved forward’ from its chief executive a couple of weeks back. I wonder if these ‘flexibility’ cutbacks are connected to his departure.

They should keep us informed.

Last month in Amsterdam I showed a clip of Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne to demonstrate how, with a little ingenuity, classical music can change both its image and its audience without sacrificing standards or principles.

In that series Gareth Malone, former chorusmaster of the LSO, rounds up some rough kids from country estates and cajoles them into singing in a new opera at the black-tie opera festival.

Last night, his new series on army wives came to an end with everyone in tears (as usual) on BBC2.

A little later last night, Gareth tweeted me that G goes to Glyndebourne had won an International Emmy for best arts program.

Can we change? Oh yes we can….

Well done that man.

Here’s Variety’s report. And here’s a clip of the show.

First, it was Michael Hastings of ‘Tom and Viv.

Now Shelagh Delaney has died, aged 71. She made her mark at 18 with A Taste of Honey and never lost it.

Lovely lady. I once tried to get her to write a memorial tribute to a famous actor. She demurred, saying ‘I don’t want to take from his glory.’

 

In a signal demonstration of hope over experience, Leonard Slatkin has simultaneously signed a new contract in Detroit and a new wife, Cindy McTee, his fourth.

(photo: cindymctee.com)

 

He may be approaching a record for the profession. Felix Weingartner married five times. Can anyone top that?

First, we all go nude for Ai Weiwei, who is being persecuted for his art.

Now we’re being asked to get kit off for an Egyptian who likes to take the air on Facebook. Read here and here. Needless to say, the Daily Mail website has since milked the story for sleaze and CNN will direct you to Ms Mahdi’s raw material, titled A Rebel’s Diary (warning: explicit content).

I’m not sure what point it is she’s trying to make at the very moment when people are being killed in Cairo for demanding political reform. It does seem a bit peripheral and self-indulgent, but not to the sisterhood across the Sinai border.

You see what I meant in the Ai Weiwei protest about the disinhibiting impact of social media? We don’t begin to understand the mass psychology. Back to Canetti.

Israeli women have stripped off in support of an Egyptian blogger who posed naked

A piece of thematic programming, announced this morning by Garsington Festival Opera.

The opera will run  2 June to 3 July 2012. They’d better be careful, though. Lawyers for London 2012 are coming down like a ton of ordure on anyone who freeloads on their brand. My favourite Olympianist has been getting letters with menaces.

GARS main logo for Word v2a (3)

Reuters reports a wave of nudity protests on Chinese-based websites after the embattled artist Ai Weiwei was questioned by police over disseminating nude photographs of himself, seated with four women (see Guardian report this weekend).

The above image comes from the Shanghaist daily, www.shanghaist.com

and there are several more on site here.

The response is remarkable inasmuch as it violates a deep-seated Chinese prudishness about the naked body. But it serves as further evidence of the disinhibiting power of social websites and online communications in a time of social ferment – as witnessed in Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising and other upheavals. Canetti had something to say about this in Crowds and Power.

Or perhaps it all goes back to this.