Why? To use on whom?

Discuss.

h/t Holly Mulcahy

Full story here.

We’re receiving confirmation from Poland of the death of Wojciech Kilar at the age of 81.

Kilar wrote music for more than 130 films, most notably for Polanski’s The Pianist, Coppola’s Dracula, Jane Campion’sPortrait of a Lady and Andrzej Wajda’s Promised Land. Born in Lviv (now Ukraine) on 17 July 1932, he settled in Katowice in 1948 and became a leader of the new Polish wave. He never ceased composing works for concert performance, leaving five symphonies, two piano concertos and much choral music.

He was married to the pianist Barbara Pomianowska.

The Union Ornithologique de France is getting into a bit of a flap.

Having belatedly discovered that the late composer Olivier Messiaen introduced pre-recorded sounds of birdsong into such works as Oiseaux exotiques and Réveil des Oiseaux, the UOF is demanding its rightful share of the incoming cash.

If I were the Messiaen estate, I’d pay up without a fight. Ever seen Hitchcock’s The Birds? You don’t want to make them mad.

h/t: Dianne Winsor

UPDATE: The Spanish story was posted on Innocents Day. It ain’t, as the Gershwins put it, necessarily so.

Zsolt Bognar is a fine young pianist who is making a good career. His problem? He lives in Cleveland beneath Daniil Trifonov, the Tchaikovsky winner and finest pianist of his generation. Why is that a problem? Over to Zsolt:

‘Not only do I hear him in class, but he also happens to be my upstairs neighbor, so I hear him practicing as well (laughs). Like Babayan, he is a similarly lively and inventive character. He will sometimes knock on my door at two in the morning, “Zsolt, I have to tell you something that Murray Perahia told me about the Schubert B-flat Sonata. I have to demonstrate to you what he said,”. And I’ll reply, “But, it’s two a.m.”, and he will say, “This is important!”. He then proceeds to do an illuminating analysis of the piece.’

Read Elijah Ho’s fascinating interview with Zsolt right here.

The Chinese Violin Society has been holding its annual meeting in Xiangyang, the People’s Daily reports. Between performances of the Four Seasons and The Butterfly Lovers, the meeting reaffirmed its adherence to the national teaching method. Read here.

Raimundo Pereira do Nascimento is the electrician of the Manaus Opera House, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. In a fascinating news film, he tells the BBC about his building and his work. Watch here.

Our social secretary reports that Chris Thile, the classical chart-topping mandolin player, has quietly married his sweetheart, Hollywood actress Claire Coffee.

Much happiness to them both.

Details are emerging about last week’s car crash at the Elysée gates, from which a 67 year-old man was taken into custody.

He has been named as Attilio Maggiulli and in 1974 he founded the Comédie Italienne in Montparnasse. A student of Giorgio Strehler in Milan, Attilio and his wife Helene Lestrade have been running the show on a shoestring for almost four decades in a former police station and its adjacent sex shop. It is the only Italian theatre in France. Ten years ago, Attilio went on hunger strike to prevent the withdrawal of state subsidy. Now, it seems, he is even more desperate.

Attilio will be spending New Year either in a prison cell or in psychiatric care.

Rae Woodland, who is thought to be the first English soprano to sing with Luciano Pavarotti (La Sonnambula at Covent Garden, in 1965), has died at the age of 91.

She worked and recorded extensively with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears and became a much-loved teacher at their young artist programme in Aldeburgh. She also sang opposite Janet Baker in the first BBC Proms performance of Mahler’s second symphony, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Though never among the big stars of her era, Rae (as you can hear below) had a lovely, rich soprano voice and was notably popular among her fellow-singers and her students.

The Telegraph reports in its obituary that, as a child, Rae was among the early successes of reconstructive surgery for a harelip. The operation left hardly any trace and she enjoyed a rich and full career in the public eye.

The first sign of artistic dissent within Russia to the anti-gay laws has been articulated by Maria Maksakova, a mezzo-soprano working at the Mariinksy Theatre and a member of a celebrated operatic dynasty. At the Mariinsky, she has sung orabella (Cosi fan tutte), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Frugola (Il tabarro), The Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos),Nicklausse (The Tales of Hoffmann) andEboli (Don Carlos). Maria, 36, is also a presenter on Kultura TV and a member of the state parliament  for  President Putin’s United Russia party (according to her Wiki entry).

In a video forum, she spoke out against the ‘extremely negative consequences’ of anti-gay laws. She added: ‘Those artists, who are now in Europe, perform in various theaters around the world, and our wonderful colleagues come across great difficulties of discriminatory character, because they get thrown out from the performances and orchestras.’

Here’s the video clip:

Press release:

The 2014 Category Finalists are:

Strings

William Dutton (18) – violin

Anna Im (16) – violin

Elizaveta Tyun (18) – violin

Roberto Ruisi (17) – violin

Juliana Myslov (17) – harp

Keyboard

Martin Bartlett (17) – piano

Ning Hui See (17) – piano

Hayley Parkes (18) – piano

Julian Trevelyan (15) – piano

Isata Kanneh-Mason (17) – piano

Woodwind

Hannah Foster (17) – flute

Daniel Shao (18) – flute

Jessika Gillam (15) – saxophone

Nick Seymour (17) – saxophone

Sophie Westbrooke (15) – recorder

Brass

Ellena Newton (14) – trombone

Isobel Daws (14) – trombone

Matilda Lloyd (18) – trumpet

Lewis Bettles (18) – trombone

William Thomas (13) – trumpet

Percussion

Matthew Farthing (17)

Elliott Gaston-Ross (15)

Jess Wood (16)

Tom Highnam (17)

Stefan Beckett (18)

The category finals will take place on 3-7 March 2014 in the Dora Stoutzker Hall, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff. The semi-final follows on 9 March, before the BBC Young Musician Final on 18 May 2014 at Usher Hall in Edinburgh. BBC Young Musician will be broadcast extensively on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3.

For the first time, BBC Young Musician adds a new Jazz Award. Running alongside the established classical music format, the first ever BBC Young Musician Jazz Award will comprise two audition stages followed by a Final on 8 March 2014 to be held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. The Jazz Award finalists will be announced in early February.