Big claims are made on this site. Feel free to dissent.
Here’s the latest statement from City of London Police:
For immediate release
Man arrested for historic sexual offences
Detectives investigating historic allegations of sexual assault yesterday (Thursday 14 November) arrested a 62 year old man on suspicion of attempted rape and three counts of indecent assault.
The arrest relates to alleged offences against four women when they were aged between 17 and 23, some of which are said to have taken place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama between 1974 and 1988.
The man was first arrested on 23rd August this year on suspicion of separate offences of rape and indecent assault of a 16 year old girl in 1978. He was then later arrested on 3rd October on suspicion of further alleged offences of rape and indecent assault of a girl between 1988 and 2003 and the indecent assault of a girl between 1977 and 1982.
The man was interviewed by police and bailed to return in December.
Anyone with information that may assist with this investigation is encouraged to contact City of London Police on 0207 601 2222 or via the 101 non emergency number, you can also email: investigation@
The winner of the state-sponsored, somewhat irregular Prokofiev piano competition is Sergei Redkin, a fourth-year student at the Rimsky Conservatoire in St Petersburg.
Second was the Indian-American Pallavi Mahidhara, a Curtis graduate now studying with Dmitry Bashkirov in Madrid.
Third was a Spaniard, Enrique Lapaz.
MOSCOW — A St. Petersburg court has fined the organizers of last year’s local show by Lady Gaga for “propaganda of alcohol consumption and homosexuality.”
The city’s court #122 responded to a complaint by Nadezhda Petrova, a local resident, who claimed that during the show, her 13-year-old daughter was exposed to an imitation of sexual intercourse between women and advocacy of alcohol consumption. Full report here.
I was not expecting to be thrilled by an opera star singing movie tunes. But the new Dessay album has a personal coherence that altogether justifies the musical tourism. It’s my Album of the Week on Sinfini. Read why here. They’ve booked a UK tour next year.
SWR chief Peter Boudgoust has responded to an open letter by 160 maestros calling for a halt to his plan to merge two orchestras. I’m not changing anything, says Boudgoust. You can wave your arms as much as you like, but I’m standing firm. His response is remarkable for its failure to address any of the issues raised by the conductors in their letter. Read it in German here and in our translation by Simon Morgan below:
Dear Sir/Madam,
it is understandable that you raise your voices against the merger of two orchestras. Because you’re right: from 2016, Germany will have one orchestra less. There’s no way of sugar-coating it and I won’t even try. But as much as I’d like it to be, it is not the duty as Intendant for South German Radio to maintain the numbers of the German orchestral landscape.
Licence-fee payers in Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate expect their broadcaster and its chief to use their licence fees to finance good programming, for reliable news broadcasting, for investigative journalism in both TV and radio, for up-to-date and informative background information on its online pages, for moving and touching TV films and exciting series, for gripping documentaries and for informative and topical cultural reporting. It is this which the legislative requires of us when it states in the SWR broadcasting and media law that a broadaster’s range of offerings must serve to inform, eductate, advise and entertain. In particular, it must make a contribution to culture. There’s no talk anywhere of a broadcaster having to keep and maintain orchestras.
Nevertheless, this is something that SWR does, in contrast to other public broadcasters, a fact which no-one takes them to task over. And the SWR does so willingly and with complete conviction: it maintains and keeps two symphony orchestras in Baden-Württemberg, a vocal ensemble, a Big Band and an experimental studio. It is also contributes to a symphony orchestra in the Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland. Without the SWR, there would be no Donaueschinger Musiktage, no Schwetzinger Festspiele, and no RheinVokal Music Festival.
For me, too, the decision to merge the two orchestras was not an easy one.
But it is imperative. As Intendant, I can’t ignore the prevailing financial conditions if the entire fabric of what we offer is not to disintegrate completely. Against this background, we’ve been implementing cost-cutting and restructuring measures for the past four years at the SWR. Nearly all divisions face 25-percent cuts. That is the only way we can continue to offer programming for all licence-fee payers, both young and old. Only then can we be in a position to afford and produce award-winning programmes. Only if everyone within the SWR contributes and participates in the restructuring process can we extend accessibility and equip our regional studios with a multi-media presence, not least so that they can continue to report about cultural events in future.
Culture will continue to play a major role in our programming, maybe even a bigger one than before. As part of the proposed realignment of SWR television, we’re planning to relaunch our cultural magazine and cultural topics will be even more important in our extended news programmes. This means that we’re placing culture in the focus of our programming and want to reach even more people than before.
This holistic approach means, however, that the orchestras and ensembles must participate and be involved in the restructuring process. That is the driving factor behind the process of evolution that has been intensively debated within the SWR and its decision-making bodies. In the end, it was this that led to the broadcasting council’s decision to merge the two orchestras.
It was not a decision that was taken lightly. But even after a year, I am convinced that it was the right decision, however painful it might be. Shutting our eyes to the economic realities would effectively have meant having less and less money each year for two orchestras, for good musicians, high-calibre conductors and sufficient rehearsal time. In the end, we would have had to accept the slow death of two orchestras.
Yes, we would then still have the two SWR orchestras in 2016. And instead of your open letter, you would have written to me, applauding me for being a staunch campaigner against the overall decline of culture. But I doubt whether the audiences would have continued to applaud these two orchestras as they slowly bled to death. Yes, we will have one orchestra less in Germany in 2016. But with the new SWR-Symphony Orchestra we will at least have one more orchestra whose future is secured.
Respectfully yours
The deprived Paraguay kids who make their own instruments out of trash were featured on CBS 60 Minutes this Sunday. Press release below.
Scottsdale, Ariz. (November 14, 2013) – Landfill Harmonic, a documentary that sheds light on the transformative power of music, will be featured on 60 Minutes on November 17. Landfill Harmonic tells the story of “The Recycled Orchestra,” which consists of a group of children from a shantytown called Cateura in Paraguay, who play musical instruments made from trash.
This project, founded and executive produced by Alejandra Amarilla, began in 2009 and is planned for release in 2014. Working alongside her is Phoenix-based producer Juliana Peñaranda-Loftus, and executive producing partner Rodolfo Madero.
“Being born in Asuncion, Paraguay, I dreamt of the opportunity to help my country and bring awareness to issues that revolve around children and women,” said Amarilla. “The documentary is a major step to garner support for The Recycled Orchestra and inspire general audiences to recycle objects, restore their livelihoods and provide hope for younger generations.”
The documentary tells the story of a humble garbage picker and shows his ingenuity to create instruments out of recycled materials. The documentary also follows a few children, the music teacher and the luthier who creates the instruments. This story gives the audience insights into not just the history of how The Recycled Orchestra came to be, but the incredible and unexpected journey the orchestra has experienced. The film takes the audience on a three-year journey which includes the orchestra’s first concert abroad in Brazil.
The project expanded in early 2013 when Amarilla and her team launched a Kickstarter Campaign to secure funds to complete the film. The campaign garnered nearly 5,000 backers and more than $200,000 in less than two months.
Landfill Harmonic strives to educate audiences on recycling and sustainability topics through social media and partnerships with environmental organizations.
For more information on the Landfill Harmonic and executive producer, Amarilla be sure to check out 60 minutes Overtime, dubbed as the web show that picks up where the television show leaves off.
It is being reported from Berlin that Aleksandrs Antonenko has dropped out of Il Trovatore, leaving Trebs to mark the role without a tenor and only ten days days to opening. Of course, there is an ex-tenor lower down the cast, but he’s a baritone these days. Any chance of a comeback?
Gary Graffman, former head of Curtis and a very remarkable pianist in his own right, has been getting his head around some of the negative reviews his protégé has lately received. Too courteous and reasonable to take issue with individual criticisms, Gary places them in the broader context of the extraordinary ascent of a unique talent. (I do wonder, though, what he makes of the recent Prokofiev 3rd.)
Gary has given a wide-ranging interview to Elijah Ho. Here’s a brief extract:
Graffman: When Lang Lang was thirteen, he sent me a recording of his playing of the Chopin Second Concerto, with which he had won the Tchaikovsky competition for young artists in Asia. I thought the playing was beautiful, he was very talented, but of course, many, many people send me these sort of things. So I thanked him for the video, told him I enjoyed it, but said it had nothing to do with entering Curtis. I told him he had to come and audition and play the repertoire that was required of everybody else. He responded, saying he had already applied, and included a video of his playing the 24 Chopin Etudes. Now these were quite unbelievable (laughs)!
Some things were unformed then, and some things have developed over time, but nevertheless, this was a super, major talent. You know, when he came to Curtis, within six months, he played a student recital that included the Schumann Fantasy. Now usually, as you know, this is a piece for older folks, and I remember he had some technical problems – it’s incredibly difficult to have a good in-concert batting average with those leaps in the second movement (laughs) – but everything was impeccable and beautiful.
Yes, people can have a difference of opinion. People forget that at the time, when he was simply a very talented kid who may have had a chance at a career, that he had no box-office! Nobody had heard of him, and nobody would have known to attend any his concerts. And yet, every conductor that he played for – from the most flamboyant to the strictest, and everybody else in between – said, ‘My God, this is one of the biggest talents we’ve heard in years!’.
The way it’s been done for years, when conductors hear a young talent they like, they’ll say, ‘I would like to hear them again in a year’ or ‘I’ll put them in a youth-concert’. But that wasn’t the case with Lang Lang. Every one of these people changed their major programs for the following season to get him in. I had never seen a thing like that in my life! Everybody naturally criticized him for this and for that, but in the end, these people could see through it all; they saw what was really there.
It has been quite a week for Alexandra Dariescu, the Romanian-born UK pianist.
At one end, she won a Woman of the Future award. At the other, she had her phone nicked while playing a recital. Here’s what she tells us:
Absolutely outraged- my phone was stolen from my dressing room while on stage, during the second half of my recital in the United Reformed Church in Guildford this afternoon. I suppose you win some, you lose some… A heck of a week!
