The Stuttgart Philharmonic has appointed Dan Ettinger to be the city’s GMD, succeeding Gabriel Feltz.

A former assistant of Daniel Barenboim’s at the Berlin State Opera, Ettinger, 41, is presently music director in Mannheim, and chief conductor with the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Israel Symphony Orchestra.

Some recent releases that may have passed you by..

A stunning, contemplative soliloquy.

A fine cellist fights back from years of shoulder injury.

Too clever by half, but infinitely engaging.

Clever still, plays misty for me.

And a great ghost story for tonight.

The iconic Greek composer, 88, is under observation in Athens with a respiratory infection. We wish him a swift recovery.

The sought-after film composer and five of his pals sit around a table and chew out the business in a fascinating colloquy for THR.

Thomas Newman says: ‘You have to let people know you’re flexible. If you come in like the guy who knows what he’s doing, and this is what it is, that’s tough.’

Alan Silvestri: ‘I walked into this project being recommended by Bob Zemeckis who, after Romancing the Stone, thought I could do anything. And they played me the temp dub, which was very carefully put together, and it’s temped with the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony.’

(oh, so that’s how its done.)

They grouch, they grumble, they deliver – pretty much like any concert composer. The difference is only the digits on the cheque.

Read the round table and watch the video here.

A formative influence on John Coltrane, the great jazz saxophonist Yusef Lateef died yesterday in western Massachusetts. He was 93.

Born William Emanuel Huddleston in Chattanooga, he grew up in the musical backstreets of Detroit and burst onto record in 1957. One of the first to play exotic instruments in modern jazz, he used Chinese wooden flutes, koto, rahab and other items from his eclectic collection, creating a fusion sound that was decades ahead of his time. A Grammy winner, Yusuf’s scores have been performed by the Altanta and Detroit Symphony orchestras.

After joining the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, he twice made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Reading on Slipped Disc yesterday that the freed Russian oligarch had wanted nothing more in his jail years than to attend a classical concert, Toccata label owner Martin Anderson promptly sent a batch of new releases to his hotel in Berlin.

He chose an esoteric set, knowing that Khodorkovsky would listen with fresh ears.

·        Ashton Cello Sonatas Vol. 1

·        Ernst Violin Concerto, Concertino and Quartet

·        Facco Pensieri Adriarmonici Vol. 1

·        Martinů Early orchestral music

·        Nikolai Tcherepnin Piano music

·        Telemann Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst Vol. 5

Lovely gesture, Martin!

The Swedish composer Lars Edlund died yesterday, aged 91.

A prolific writer for voices, with an oratorio on Dante’s Divine Comedy to his name, he began suffering from a terrible ringing in his ears after undergoing surgery to correct the effects of a stroke.

Edlund was an influential teacher for several decades at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

photo: Martin Cejie