It’s on the orders of his opthalmologist. Report here.

Wish him better.

Doesn’t show up to receive the award.

Too busy with Mahler in Venezuela.

More here.

It’s for the Divo/Diva album, and it couldn’t happen to a mopre straightforward, less diva-like artist.

Let’s hear it for the Kansas mezzo!

Report here.

 “There’s a war on in our country against the arts right now … We need more Whitney Houstons,” said Joyce DiDonato.

Wooed, that is, in a rather direct way. Watch the video here. It’s a television first.

Whitney Houston and Serge Gainsbourg

Noel Kelehan won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland five times, from the pit. No conductor in half a century comes close.

A jazz pianist by vocation, Noel has died, aged 76.

Irish conductor Noel Kelehan has died at 76

His winners were: What’s Another Year? in 1980, Hold Me Now in 1987, Why Me? in 1992, In Your Eyes in 1993 and The Voice in 1996.

Imre Kertész has given a searching interview to Florence Noiville in Le Monde about the rising fascist tendencies in his country. It is helpfully translated in the Guardian. Kertész, a Holocaust survivor, says there is fear in his country and no free speech:

I have a few rightwing friends in Budapest, whom I can only contact in secret. There is a sort of embarrassment between us; I put them at risk. It is not well seen for them to be friendly with me. Remember the unleashing of violence when I won the Nobel prize – people were angry to see me become the only Hungarian Nobel when I was not glorifying “Hungarian-ness”.

Information has emerged about a house-clearing policy put in place by NEC president Tony Woodcock, before he fired popular conductor Benjamin Zander in dubious circumstances.

First, Woodcock got rid of two Zander protégés: YPO assistant conductor and clarinetist Jonathan Cohler, and the well liked young Irish conductor John Page, who was NEC’s resident conductor.

Also shot through the door was Dean and Executive Director, Mark Churchill, the man who set up NEC’s connection to Venezuela’s El Sistema, as well as NEC at Walnut Hill School, the NEC Lab Charter School and more.

Mark Churchill

Mark Churchill was forced into retirement with the  words: “You will be missed and we will remain grateful for all your contributions.” At Woodcock’s present rate of progress, few of Mark’s contributions will survive.

If you care for the future of NEC and for natural justice in the music profession, get out today and demonstrate.

The song, barely audible, is Yes, Jesus Loves Me.

She sang it, according to reports, at the Kelly Price & Friends pre-Grammy concert on February 10.

One of the brightest voices in Scotland has warned she will leave the country if it chooses independece from the United Kingdom in a 2014 referendum.

Karen Cargill, who makes her Met debut in April as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, told Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman that independence would kill the arts in her country.

“I think we’re stronger together, she said. ” People know I’m Scottish, I don’t really require an independent parliament.” If the worst comes to pass, the mezzo-soprano will emigrate with her Canadian husband to his country.

Karen Cargill

photo: Ken Dundas

 

It was a one-off… but what a one-off.

 

The pop diva, ever to be remembered for I Will Always Love You’, was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room, shortly before a pre-Grammys party. She was 48 and had a history of addiction and decline.


The late-1980s were her heyday. Her 1991 Superbowl rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner was a standout, hitting the top effortlessly and then upping it half a falsetto octave.

She was married for 14 years to the turbulent soul singer, Bobby Brown. She was two sizes larger than life.

The National Anthem:

We have been sent a press release, slightly delayed, announcing that work will commence as scheduled in the coming weeks on the $790 million Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Athens, which will include a new national opera and national library. The Foundation has committed an extra $130 million to help alleviate the effects of the economic crisis in Greece. But I wonder whether going ahead with an ostentatious cultural project is altogether in the country’s best interest, internal or external, at the moment.

Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center