Ten men who played in the Stowmarket Schools Concert Band between 1964 and 1984 are to share £210,000 in compensation from the local authority. The band was founded and directed by a teacher, Derek Cable, who was jailed for paedophile offences in 2003.
Read here.
The frozen-out musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra are auctioning their alternative professional skills in a bid to raise cash for their self-funded concert series. It’s a resourceful response to a conscienceless employer.
Here’s what’s coming up for auction. Click here to bid and support.
Random
Celine Leathead – Childcare or infant care
William Schrickel – Portrait photo
TaiChi Chen – Chess game
Quilting lesson with Marni Hougham
Celine Leathead – Coffee or lunch with French conversation
Sports
Chris Marshall – Swim, or run
Individual or group watch Herb Winslow coach a power wheelchair soccer team practice on a Saturday afternoon – maybe even try playing
yourself!
Tennis lesson with Tony Ross
“Walk & talk around Lake of the Isles w/ Kate Nettleman
Manny Laureano – Martial arts workout
Adam Kuenzel – cross country ski lesson
Peter Kogan – walk in local park
Music
Jean DeVere – Coach adult chamber group
Ellen D. Smith – Experiment with the Alphorn
Talk on how to take an audition “The Five Minutes that can Change Your Life!” with Wendy Williams
Peter Kogan – My “Cornucopia” CD as gift
House Concert with Tony Ross and Beth Rapier
An evening of chamber music with Catherine Shaefer at her home. Experiences
Food
2 Dozen of Milan Reiche’s famous homemade cupcakes
Pam Arnstein – 2 doz or her original Zesty Lemon Cookies
Dave Williamson – homemade beer making lesson/brew session
Dave Williamson – Beer & Pizza at Pizza Luce
Jason Arkis will take you out to lunch – your choice
This is the first current picture of the Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa instrument played by Mozart which has been donated to the Salzburg Foundation. It was played last night in recital with the composer’s fortepiano in the Wiener Saal of the Mozarteum by the Swiss violinist Esther Hoppe.
More on the history and provenance:
Experts are of the opinion that the violin made by Dalla Costa is original and complete in all essential parts, and that it is in a good and playable condition. As was true of almost all Italian violins made by a master craftsman in the 17th and 18th centuries, the neck and the fingerboard were extended later so that it could also be used for the violin repertoire of the Romantic period.
It is not known exactly when Dalla Costa was born and when he died, but between 1733 and 1768 he was active as a violin maker in Treviso, 30 kilometres north of Venice. He took his orientation from instruments made by the Amati Family but evolved his own individual style. Dalla Costa violins have a powerful and sustained sound and are therefore still much in demand as concert instruments.
Mozart’s instrument from his time in Vienna
Mozart (1756-1791) was an accomplished violinist. He lived in Vienna from 1781 and although as a performing musician he concentrated then on playing the fortepiano, in private circles he still continued to play string instruments. Mozart must have bought this violin soon after he settled in Vienna as at that time he composed several sonatas for violin and piano which were explicitly intended for himself and his wife Constanze. The Costa Violin, in those days a relatively new and thus not exceptionally precious instrument was perfectly suited to meeting Mozart’s professional demands.
Fully traceable provenience
In 1909 the Costa Violin was bought by the company W. E. Hill & Sons in London. The previous owner, the violinist Karl Henkel, explained that his father Heinrich Henkel had bought the violin around 1840 from the music publisher Johann Anton André in Offenbach. André always described the instrument, which he had acquired from Mozart’s widow in 1799 as part of the composer’s musical estate, as “Mozart’s violin.” During the 1940s and 1950s the instrument was discussed and photographically documented in some specialist journals, but before the dissolution of the company Hill and Sons in the 1980s the violin was never played in public or scientifically studied. The violin was then acquired by a businessman and amateur musician in southern Germany.
We returned from the interval of Magic Flute to find the chorus milling on stage and the orchestra musicians, in a raised pit, chatting among themselves. Since this was a Simon McBurney production, we assumed this was part of the show.
After about ten minutes, someone in the top-priced seats started a slow handclap. Few joined in. A house manager came on stage with a microphone. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that there has been a medical emergency with a patron in the upper balconies,’ he said. ‘An ambulance crew has arrived and the person is being made comfortable before being taken to hospital. Thank you for your understanding.’
A small murmur ran through the house. Five minutes later, the show resumed. All very English, professional and low-key, as you’d expect at English National Opera.
As for the show, I need to mull on it a bit.
The Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation have just informed us with some excitement that a violin played by the composer has been given to them by a supporter:
A violin made by Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa in 1764 has been donated to the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. It is believed that Mozart owned and played the violin during the years he lived in Vienna. The world’s largest collection of original instruments, portraits, letters and other private objects belonging to the Mozart Family is thus enriched by another important instrument.
The Costa Violin was purchased privately by Dr. Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, chief executive officer of the TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG based in Ditzingen near Stuttgart, and donated to the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. According to the label stuck inside the violin the instrument was made in 1764 by Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa. Experts are of the opinion that the violin is an authentic instrument made by this highly respected member of the so-called Venetian school of violin makers. The complete history of the instrument can be traced from the time when it was made to the present. The benefactress and representatives of the Mozarteum Foundation are in agreement that this wonderful violin should be exhibited in the Mozart museums in Salzburg and regularly played together with the other original instruments.
The generous donation means that Mozart’s Costa Violin is re-united with his fortepiano (Anton Walter, Vienna, ca. 1781, given to the Foundation in 1856) and his viola (anonymous, northern Italy, ca. 1700; owned by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation since 1966). For the first time ever the violin Mozart used in Vienna can be directly compared with the concert violin he used in Salzburg (Mittenwald, made perhaps by a member of the Klotz Family, ca. 1700; purchased in 1956).
Full press release here (auf Deutsch).
Sony has pulled a soprano from this month’s Rigoletto and announced her exclusivity. Business as usual. Or maybe they thought her name already had Sony branding. (Small question: Why has publicity gone monochrome this season?) Press release below.
Sony Classical is delighted to announce an exclusive long-term agreement with Sonya Yoncheva, the young Bulgarian soprano who has recently won enthusiastic acclaim for a triumphant performance of the title role in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in Paris. The New York Times wrote of Sonya’s performance that “… her high notes are so easily produced that they can be colored and shaped for nuance at the singer’s will, thereby making crucial moments … truly memorable.” To her impressive voice she adds a remarkable stage presence which moved the critic of Le Monde to predict that “She was a star, she’ll be a diva”.
New York audiences will have an opportunity to experience Sonya Yoncheva on stage in late November 2013, when she plays Gilda in Rigoletto at the MET.
Born in 1981, Sonya Yoncheva graduated in piano and voice in her home town of Plovdiv in Bulgaria. She obtained her master’s diploma in classical singing at the Conservatory of Geneva in the professional class of Danielle Borst. She has won numerous awards, most prominently the first prize in the 2010 edition of the world’s most important singing competition, Operalia, conducted and organised by Plácido Domingo at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. “The biggest dream of opera singers today”, in Sonya Yoncheva’s own words.
Her first album on Sony Classical, to be released in fall 2014, will focus on repertoire from 19th century Paris as an homage to the ‘Belle Époque’ era, and to the city where her career began and where she has already celebrated big success. A decisive step in her early progress was the selection by William Christie for his academy for young singers, Jardin de la Voix. She made her successful debut in 2012 at the famous Salle Pleyel in Offenbach’s Contes d’Hoffmann with Les Musiciens du Louvre under the baton of Marc Minkowski. In 2013 she took part in the Concert de France in front of the Eiffel Tower in the company of such illustrious classical performers as Lang Lang, Vittorio Grigòlo, Philippe Jaroussky and the Orchestre National de Radio France under Daniele Gatti.
Participation in the Jardin des Voix academy in 2007 paved the way for appearances at venues such as Glyndebourne, the Théâtre du Châtelet, and at The Proms in London. She was later engaged to sing in productions and concerts in the Teatro Real Madrid, the National Opera of Prague, the Tonhalle Zurich, Cité de la Musique Paris, the Lincoln Center New York, London’s Barbican Center, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, to name only a selection. Sonya Yoncheva has collaborated with many artists from the world of the opera, and also cross genres: with names from the rock and pop world such as Sting and Elvis Costello, as well as with outstanding classical musicians like Plácido Domingo and Jonas Kaufmann.
Sonya Yoncheva said: “Recorded music was always especially important for me. In the cold and poor Bulgaria of my childhood, recordings, be they from Queen or Pink Floyd or Maria Callas, were my most important window to the world, to all the dreams. I feel so honored to now join Sony Classical, the strongest and most faithful family for musicians. It’s the beginning of an exciting adventure, which I know will be full of beautiful and true music.”
Bogdan Roscic, President of Sony Classical, said: “Sonya Yoncheva embodies all the beauty, emotion and glamour that opera is capable of. No wonder she is making her name on the world’s most important stages with such unbelievable speed. But she is also an opera singer with an unusually strong focus on making her mark in the recording studio. We all look forward to working with Sonya to write the first chapter of her discography.”
Sonya Yoncheva is represented worldwide by Ariosi Management.
A reader, Sinead Hayes, has directed us to a resource of which we were unaware: a German database for around 80 women conductors. It is run by an archive in Frankfurt and does not appears to be comprehensive. We’re sure they would welcome more submissions. Send details to: info
Britain’s champion chorus builder is coming down your way…
Gareth Malone, the UK’s Favourite Choirmaster, will embark on a 14 date UK tour in May and June 2014 and will be joined by his new choir Gareth Malone’s Voices.
Following a nationwide search earlier this year for accomplished young singers, Gareth Malone has assembled the country’s finest young talent and their debut album “Voices” will be released on November 18, 2013.
This live tour, and his new album, follow a period of personal and professional triumph for Malone which saw him topping the album and single charts with the Military Wives, and a Christmas No.1 hit, as well as receiving royal recognition in the form of an OBE. His popular BBC shows “The Choir” and “Sing While You Work” (now in its second series on BBC2) have seen him take total first-timers to levels of extraordinary success and have led to a nationwide revival in community singing.
Come, have fun and be inspired!
GARETH MALONE: THE LIVE TOUR
21.05.14 London, Eventim Apollo
23.05.14 Blackpool, Opera House
24.05.14 Oxford, New Theatre
25.05.14 Birmingham, Symphony Hall
27.05.14 Manchester, The Bridgewater Hall
28.05.14 Sheffield, City Hall
30.05.14 Newcastle, City Hall
31.05.14 Edinburgh, Usher Hall
01.06.14 Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
04.06.14 Cardiff, St.David’s Hall
05.06.14 Bristol, Colston Hall
07.06.14 Bournemouth, International Centre
08.06.14 Plymouth, Pavilions
10.06.14 Portsmouth, Guildhall
The vastly respected German conductor has launched an extraordinary personal onslaught in the Faz on the director of the SWR, Peter Boudgoust, who is seeking to merge two orchestras. Translated excerpts:
Q: Why are you and 159 of your colleagues only now calling for the decision to overturn the merger decision?
Gielen: I’m 86 but I’m no prophet. It’s dreadful, at the end of my long life, to have to watch this orchestra disappear. A sort of fatalism had set in after no progress was made, our arguments went unheard and politicians turned their back on us for so long. But I feel that people are interested in this scandalous affair after all and that may have something to do with a symposium on “the future of symphony orchestras” held in Freiburg last week. It was under the patronage of UNESCO. It became clear that it’s not only about saving this particular orchestra. The SWR South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra will set a precedent. If this cultural destruction goes ahead as planned, it will have drastic effects for all symphony orchestras.
Q: The orchestra itself is fighting to become a foundation. What do you think of this idea?
Gielen: That can function very well, as can be seen in the cases of the Bamberg Symphony or the Berlin Philharmonic. But a foundation must have huge amounts of capital at its disposal and it would have to have the backing of the local regional governments, as in Bamberg and Berlin. That isn’t the case in Baden-Württemberg. So it wouldn’t work, I’m afraid.
Q: Why are the names of some conductors missing who have previously spoken out publicly against the merger, say Simon Rattle or Daniel Barenboim?
Gielen: All conductors were asked who have ever worked with the SWR orchestra in the past. There are some whom even I don’t know! But if someone has worked with the orchestra and knows its capabilities, they know what’s at stake. That was the idea.
Q: Are your demands realistic?
Gielen: What we’re asking for is sensible. SWR intendant Peter Boudgoust has publicly stated that the splitting up of the orchestra — which he has been pushing for for years — is a measure on which he is staking his own personal fate. If the decision is revised, he would lose face. That is why he will never agree, no matter how fickle politicians can be. But what I cannot understand from a democratic point of view is how a single individual is able to make a decision that affects the fate of hundreds of people. And the decision is made without any substantial public discussion. Not to mention what the disbandment of the orchestra will mean in cultural terms for the region and the population. It will leave a vacuum, a massive hole.
Q: Why will it set a precedent?
Gielen: The public broadcasters have several radio symphony orchestras, and very good ones at that. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is top class, as is the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. North German Radio also has a wonderful symphony orchestra. But none of these take their mission for contemporary music so seriously as we do. But that’s the Achilles’ Heel. Someone could say: “who actually listens to this contemporary music? And why should I have to pay for something that I don’t like?” If that is your argument, then you have to be honest and call everything else into question, too. Why do we finance state theatre, the big museums, the opera houses? Culture in general isn’t really necessary! Unless of course you have understood that society cannot function without culture. The people who took this decision a year ago clearly don’t agree. That is the crux of the matter.
Q: Will the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra be rescued, what is your personal opinion?
Gielen: That would be my wish for everyone. If you’re asking me to make a personal prediction, I’d say that now it’s only a matter of the Intendant losing face if he has to back down. From that point of view, it doesn’t look good (laughs). And other orchestras have simply disappeared in the past, too. But if people are seriously interested in this case, then it should be the duty of an Intendant of a public broadcaster to make sure it is kept on.
Dame Felicity Lott has announced that tomorrow will be her farewell solo performance.
Yesterday it was 160 conductors in the Faz, led by Pierre Boulez.
Today’s, it’s the who’s who of living composers in Die Zeit, an international A-Z from Michel van der Aa to Gérard Zinsstag. The letter is titled ‘Not in Our Name’. This is an incredibly effective campaign, led by the French music director Francois-Xavier Roth.
Read here (auf Deutsch). Signatories follow:
Michel van der Aa, Peter Ablinger, Carlos Roqué Alsina, Gilbert Amy, Mark Andre, Theodore Antoniou, Richard Ayres, Nikolai Badinski, Vykintas Baltakas, Klarenz Barlow, Franck Bedrossian, Peter Benary, Xavier Benguerel i Godó, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Philippe Boesmans, Hans-Jürgen von Bose, Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Brass, Peter Michael Braun, Sylvano Bussotti, Aureliano Cattaneo, Friedrich Cerha, David Robert Coleman, Chaya Czernowin, Luis de Pablo, James Dillon, Paul-Heinz Dittrich, Andreas Dohmen, Pascal Dusapin, Dietrich Eichmann, Moritz Eggert, Jean-Claude Eloy, Peter Eötvös, Julio Estrada, Reinhard Febel, Dror Feiler, Brian Ferneyhough, Lorenzo Ferrero, Peter Förtig, Clemens Gadenstätter, Bernhard Gander, Ulrich Gasser, Rolf Gehlhaar, Frank Gerhardt, Sofia Gubaidulina, Georg Friedrich Haas, Saed Haddad, Peter Michael Hamel, Johannes Harneit, Werner Heider, Jörg Herchet, Franz Jochen Herfert, Arnulf Herrmann, Kenneth Hesketh, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Volker Heyn, Manuel Hidalgo, Anders Hillborg, Heinz Holliger, Josef Maria Horvath, Klaus Huber, Nicolaus A. Huber, Klaus K. Hübler, Karel Husa, James Ingram, Michael Jarrell, Ben Johnston, Betsy Jolas, Johannes Kalitzke, Gija Kantscheli, Dieter Kaufmann, Thomas Kessler, Wilhelm Killmayer, Marek Kopelent, Dmitri Kourliandski, Georg Kröll, György Kurtág, Hanspeter Kyburz, Helmut Lachenmann, Bernhard Lang, Michaël Levinas, Liza Lim, Jonathan Lloyd, Jorge E. López, Dieter Mack, Mesias Maiguashca, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Yan Maresz, Laurent Mettraux, Wolfgang Mitterer, Marc Monnet, Wolfgang Motz, Detlev Müller-Siemens, Tristan Murail, Olga Neuwirth, Makiko Nishikaze, Helmut Oehring, Klaus Ospald, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Brice Pauset, Krzysztof Penderecki, Robert HP Platz, Enno Poppe, Alberto Posadas, Martin Christoph Redel, Nicolaus Richter de Vroe, Rolf Riehm, Wolfgang Rihm, Yann Robin, Uroš Rojko, Peter Ruzicka, Frederic Anthony Rzewski, Kaija Saariaho, James Saunders, Rebecca Saunders, Dieter Schnebel, Tobias PM Schneid, Klaus Schweizer, Kurt Schwertsik, Martin Smolka, Daniel Smutny, Gerhard Stäbler, Manfred Stahnke, Johannes Maria Staud, Walter Steffens, Günter Steinke, Marco Stroppa, Hubert Stuppner, Paweł Szymański, Dimitri Terzakis, Hans Thomalla, Manfred Trojahn, Manos Tsangaris, Jakob Ullmann, Paul Usher, Caspar Johannes Walter, Jörg Widmann, Gerhard Wimberger, Heinz Winbeck, Róbert Wittinger, Hans Wüthrich, Jürg Wyttenbach, Franck Christoph Yeznikian, Fredrik Zeller, Hans Zender, Walter Zimmermann, Gérard Zinsstag
