William Osborne, who has monitored discrimination in orchestras for several years, today published a new report on the most exclusivist ensemble of them all. He concludes that, contrary to the orchestra’s claims of diversity, it is actually becoming more imbalanced. This morning, at the New Year’s Day concert, there were only two women on stage.

Read William’s original report and the 2011 instalment here.

(see any women? me, neither)

You couldn’t make it up.

The Vienna Philharmonic permitted just two women on stage in today’s New Year’s Concert, but the person giving the orders backstage was Karina Fibich, one of Austria’s leading television directors.

Myself, I could have done without the whirling birds’eye view from a camera in the roof, and the pair of kitsch dancers who were clearly never going to get it on, but Karina says she workled it all out very carefully with Mariss Jansons and he was very pleased with her work.

I wonder if he let her put him into that terrible hotel receptionists’ suit. (Mariss, next time I’ll take you to a London tailor).

Read what Karina has to say here.

The last of the founding singers of Israeli popular song died today in Tel Aviv, aged 86. She had been suffering from Alzheimers for several years.

photo: Saar Ya’akov

Yafa came to prominence in the 1948 war of Independence with ‘Green Eyes’  and Bab el-Wad.

She was identified ever after as a muse the nation turned to in times of war. She lost her first husband in the Jewish Brigade in Italy in 1945.

Her chief rival as vocal icon was Shoshana Damari, who died in 2006. Both had  low voices, Yarkoni baritonal, Damari genuinely deep.

Here she is, in her prime, singing Dona, Dona.

The 11 year-old Talent star who topped the US classical charts last year has trended heavily on Slipped Disc, with readers swaying one way or the other and one of America’s big music institutions stepping to deny its involvement in her nurturing for stardom.

Now my pal Tim Page has issued a solemn warning from his southern California eyrie about the bad things that can happen to young talents who are pushed too far, too fast. Read Tim here. I hope Jackie does.

It’s…. for the second time in three years …. Franzi.

Read on here.

Alex Klein, former principal oboe of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has been appointed music director of the Paraiba Symphony Orchestra in his native Brazil with a mandate to put the state – bigger than Switzerland – back on the musical map.

First up, he will be establishing a Venezuela-like sistema. Here’s what he tells Slipped Disc:

Plans call for about 20 youth orchestras to span the state by the end of 2013 – some of those are already in existence and will be reigned into the System with a unified curriculum and approach, as well as a clever interaction of young soloists contests, conferences and opportunities for conductors.

The example of the Venezuelan Sistema is obvious, as it has demonstrated 
to be a superb tool in using music as a driving force in teaching 
citizenship in risky areas. But the Paraiba Sistema will take that in 
a new direction, it will also apply to the dozens of Symphonic Bands 
and Fanfares in the state, as well as choirs. The state’s immense 
musical heritage will be valued into the symphonic world through 
competitions for your composers and young arrangers who will help us 
establish the main musical bread-and-butter of our Sistema. We will 
also expand the Sistema idea into the universities, leading young 
musicians all the way from their childhood beginnings all the way to 
professional life (whether or not they will end up as musicians).

Alex, who helped raise world outcry when Roberto Minczuk sought to replace old players for new in the Brazil Symphony Orchestra, pledges that none of his musicians in Paraiba will be required to reaudition for their jobs.

We wish him, and them, well.

Omus Hirshbein, who died yesterday aged 77, was an impresario who turned the 92nd Street Y into a musical powerhouse and talent nursery.

Among the names he launched there were Dawn Upshaw and Yo Yo Ma. He co-founded the New York Chamber Symphony and ran one of the city’s busiest jazz programs – all on a shoestring, often on impulse.

Several of today’s leading arts administrators owe him their careers. After the Y, he worked for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Never one for self-promotion, Omus was last mentioned in the village rag in 1994. Will the Times cuttings file yield enough material for an obituary? Doesn’t look like it. Some poor intern is going to have to phone around.

The funeral is tomorrow. Here’s a memorial page.