The excellent principal cellist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Floris Mijnders, is upgrading to the Munich Phil. Presumably to work with Rotterdam old boy Valery Gergiev.
It’s looking good for the Milwaukee Symphony, which needed to raise $5 million in a couple of months to avert closure.
They’re at $4.8 million right now, boosted by a swell of sympathy and local pride after the recent theft of their concertmaster’s Stradivarius.
The campaign has been distinguished by a total unanimity of purpose between the musicians and their management, all pulling together without recrimination to save a vital institution.
Noah Bendix-Balgley won the audition for first concertmaster in Berlin today (14th). He replaces Guy Braunstein, who quit at the end of last season to pursue solo opportunities. Good for Noah, good for Guy.
Concertmaster of the Berlin Phil used to be a job for life. No longer. Players these days seek greater diversity in their careers – and so they should. I have just been discussing that positive trend at the Colburn School.
Truls Mork has pulled out of Philadelphia’s Carnegie date next week after damaging his shoulder in a ski fall. We wish him a swift recovery.
Carnegie, for the second time today, tells us that someone else has ‘graciously’ agreed to step in.
If we see that adverb again, we shall start being very ungracious towards Carnegie Hall. Respect the language, not the lexicon of the music business. Press release follows.
(February 14, 2014, New York, NY)―Carnegie Hall today announced that cellist Johannes Moser has graciously agreed to step in for Truls Mørk as soloist in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 107, with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage next Friday, February 21 at 8:00 p.m. Mr. Mørk has withdrawn from this appearance due to an injury to his shoulder as a result of a skiing accident; he is expected to make a full recovery in the coming weeks. The remainder of the orchestra’s program—to include Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen: A Study for 23 Strings and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”—remains the same. This concert marks Mr. Moser’s Carnegie Hall debut.
This February 21 performance will air on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and on stations nationwide as part of the Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series, produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall in collaboration with American Public Media.
The Landtag of Baden-Württemberg has ordered the management of SWR radio and television to go back to the drawing board and find a solution for the Stuttgart and Freiburg/Baden-Baden orchestras that works better than forced fusion.
The SWR boss Peter Boudgoust had argued that there was no alternative to abolishing one of the two orchs. Parliament has ordered otherwise.This could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for after more than two years of musical resistance to an unworkable scheme.
It comes on the day that the SWR Reiburg conductor, Francois-Xavier Roth pledged to remain with the orch untilo 2016, despite getting a better job in Cologne, chiefly in order to procure its survival.
Read on here (auf Deutsch).
Daniele Gatti is out for two months and Carnegie’s having to recast its Vienna season. Latest press release:
(For Immediate Release, February 14, 2014, New York, NY)—Carnegie Hall today announced that Christoph Eschenbach has graciously agreed to step in for Daniele Gatti and conduct theVienna Philharmonic Orchestra on Saturday, March 15 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. The concert is the penultimate concert by the orchestra in Carnegie Hall’s three-week, citywide festival Vienna: City of Dreams, which runs from February 21 to March 16. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s March 15 program—Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished,” and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano Juliane Banse—remains the same.
As previously announced, Maestro Gatti with deep regret has cancelled all of his professional engagements for the next two months, including two Vienna: City of Dreams programs, due to a tendinopathy (acute inflammation of the tendon) in both shoulders. Franz Welser-Möst will step in for Gatti with the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on Friday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m. in a concert performance of Berg’s Wozzeck.
The March 15 concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will be Maestro Eschenbach’s second appearance in the Vienna: City of Dreams festival. As a pianist, he collaborates with baritone Matthias Goerne in a performance of Schubert’s song cycle Die schöne Müllerin onWednesday, March 5 at 8:00 p.m.
The maestro has sent a short response to the pianist’s criticism of him for performing music while fellow-citizens were being killed by forces of the regime.
Here’s Gustavo’s immediate response, sent to the newspaper El Universal, which linked to Slipped Disc’s publication of Gabriela’s letter.
Lo que nuestro Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela representa son los valores de Paz, Amor y Unión. El 12 de febrero es un día especial porque fue el día en que nació un proyecto que se ha convertido en emblema y bandera de nuestro país en el mundo. Conmemoramos pues a toda la juventud, conmemoramos el futuro, conmemoramos la hermandad. Nuestra música constituye el lenguaje universal de paz, por ello lamentamos los hechos acontecidos el día de ayer. Con nuestra música y nuestros instrumentos en mano, le decimos un no rotundo a la violencia y un sí contundente a la paz. Gustavo Dudamel.
What our National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela represents are the values of Peace, Love and Unity. February 12 is a special day because it was the day that a project was born that has become the emblem and flag of our country to the world. Therefore, we commemorate all youth, we commemorate the future, we commemorate brotherhood. Our music represents the universal language of peace; therefore, we lament yesterday’s events. With our music, and with our instruments in hand, we declare an absolute no to violence and an resounding yes to peace. Gustavo Dudamel
Our pair of operavores, Elizabeth Frayer and Shawn E Milnes, have been to see the Glyndebourne Billy Budd at BAM. Way better than advertised, they thought. But the facilities at BAM? Shocking. Wouldn’t be tolerated in a proper opera house. Read on right here.
This is a general rehearsal shot of the Vienna Volkoper’s new production of Albert Herring. They want it to look authentic English, 1940s.
But check that cash till. It’s heavy metal, unseen before 1960s. And the amount on the till? Should be in £.s.d.
The outfits? A shopkeeper would have worn full-length brown overalls, not a short pinny. And no-one, but no-one in chilly 1940s England ever went shoulder-cut sleeveless.
Or had a telephone booth inside the shop.
Nice try, guys. Muss try harder, ja?
Photo: Daniel Ochoa, Sebastian Kohlhepp. Copyright: Barbara Zeininger
The festival has been heavily reliant on Claudio Abbado and Pierre Boulez, both of whom command high ticket prices. With Abbado’s death and Boulez’s infirmity, they have been left in a quandary. The solution is to instal Andris Nelsons – but it is short term. The incoming Boston conductor has summer commitments to Bayreuth that he won’t give up any time soon. Tanglewood, too, is calling. Lucerne is left looking for a long term solution. Press release follows.
Media Release
In place of the late Claudio Abbado, Andris Nelsons will conduct the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA during LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer 2014
Lucerne, 14 February 2014. Andris Nelsons will conduct the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s concerts during the 2014 Summer Festival. Two different programs will be performed, each featuring works by Johannes Brahms. Claudio Abbado himself had planned these programs for the summer. “We are extremely pleased to be able to have Andris Nelsons, one of the leading conductors of our time, agree to take on these LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA concerts,” says Michael Haefliger, Executive and Artistic Director of LUCERNE FESTIVAL. “We are furthermore happy that we are able to present these two Brahms programs originally conceived by Claudio Abbado. In this way, the memory of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s founder remains alive in the Festival’s artistic programming as well.” For the opening concert on 15 August as well as the concert on 16 August, the works to be performed include the Serenade No. 2 in A major, the Rhapsody for Alto, Male Chorus, and Orchestra, with Sara Mingardo as the soloist, and the Symphony No. 2 in D major. The program for
22 and 24 August consists of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, featuring Maurizio Pollini, as well as the Symphony No. 3 in F major.
Andris Nelsons, “artiste étoile” of the 2012 Summer Festival in Lucerne, was born in 1978 in Riga. At the start of the 2014-15 season, Nelsons will officially assume his position as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since the 2008-09 season, he has been at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and with the CBSO he made his LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut in the summer of 2009. Nelsons will be heard during LUCERNE FESTIVAL at Easter on 12 April, when he will conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the third act of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. Along with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s concerts, during LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer he will also lead the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on 30 and 31 August.
That’s what Decca president Dickon Stainer thinks of his new signing, two brothers and a cousin whose group, Sol3 Mio, outsells One Direction in the record stores back home (they still have record stores in New Zealand).
The boys are presently studying in Wales. You can hear them and reqd a bit more here.
