After months in which the top classical record was barely sold 400 copies a week, those Decca nuns from Missouri have just gone through the convent roof.

Benedictines of Mary album Lent at Ephesus sold 8,160 copies last week, according to Nielsen Soundscan. The previous album Angels and Saints piggybacked at 1,670 copies.

Below that it was back to normal. Next best-selling albums were Simone Dinnerstein’s Bach (360) and Anne Akiko Meyers’ Vivaldi (345).

 

decca's nuns

Salah Salahadyn claims he played violin as a kid and took good care of the instrument he stole, wrapping it in his own baby’s blanket. The Milwaukee suspect in the theft of Frank Almond’s Strad turned up of his own volition at a TV station.

strad theft 1

Not Germany.

Not Austria.

Not Holland.

A Eurobarometer survey asked: How many times in the last 12 months have you been to a concert?

 

sweden

 

The highest concert attendance was in Sweden, with 61 percent of respondents have been at least once. Next was Denmark.

Here’s our chart:

1 Sweden (61)

2 Denmark (60)

3 Latvia (55)

4 Estonia (54)

5 Austria (52)

= Luxembourg (52)

7 Lithuania (51)

= Netherlands (51)

9 Finland (47)

10 Germany (45)

 

The UK languishes with 36 percent. Portugal was bottom of the table with 19%, just below Poland and Greece.

kiev conservatory

The building, on the edge of the Maidan, has caught fire during clashes between police and demonstrators.

The National Music Academy is named after Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and founded in 1913. Police and protesters have been hurling firebombs and stun grenades at each other.

UPDATE: Our correspondent adds: The building was evacuated and the fire extinguished. For the moment protesters use it as a hospital… Everything is changing every hour, you understand…

kiev conservatory

 

so-independence-square-remains-a-warzone

REUTERS/Olga Yakimovich

This is Laura Mvula, classically trained singer who has reached top of the pops tree, rmemebering what it’s like to be an up-and-coming.

Just watch.

Laura_Mvula_Like_The_Morning_Dew_200

The conductor issued the following statement to his orchestra on arriving in Los Angeles from Caracas. He has also denied to the LA Times reports that the country’s beleaguered president attended his concerts

 

Gustavo+Dudamel+Conductor+dudamel

 

TO MY LA PHILHARMONIC FAMILY

I abhor and renounce all violence.  I love my country and its people, and what is happening pains me beyond words. The values and music making of El Sistema represent the very best of Venezuela .  For almost forty years, the importance of El Sistema to millions of people both in and outside of Venezuela is impossible to measure.  I cannot allow El Sistema to become a casualty of politics.  Regardless of political or public pressure, I will continue this work in Venezuela and throughout the world.

Much has been written about what I should or should not have done, as the streets outside our Caracas concert hall erupted in violence.  Should the concert have been cancelled, thereby sending hundreds of young people who had already arrived at the hall back into those same streets?  My answer was and remains NO to violence and YES to El Sistema’s core values of peace, love and unity.

The head of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Helga Schmidt, has asked Zubin Mehta to be the next music director, replacing Omer Meir Welber, whose term is about to expire. Valencia is broke and losing most of its musicians. Schmidt is appealing to Mehta for charity.

 

MMF concerto per Benedetto  XVI

In an interview with the FA today, Mehta despairs of the aging European audience. The best hope for classical music, he says, is China.

Excerpts:

Q: Are you saddened by the fact that there’s a lot of grey hair in the

audiences of classical music concerts?

ZM: “That’s not the case everywhere. In Europe, it’s true that a large

proportion of the audience is older. A lot of people become interested

in classical music only when they’re older. But in Asia, there are a

lot of young people in concerts. I recently conducted in nine cities

in China and I only saw young faces in the concert halls there.

Q: Why do so many listeners reject modern music?

ZM: “Classical opera and the established works really do have a wide

audience in Europe and in Germany. Performances of Italian opera are

always full and Strauss’ Rosenkavalier is usually sold out. People

really don’t seem to like to listen to modern music. Nevertheless, I

don’t ‘spare’ audiences modern works. In my concerts in Israel, there

is always something new. You have to give young composers a chance to

have their pieces heard. We’ll see after 20, 30 years what remains. It

was no different in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Q: Are many of the rituals of the concert hall outdated?

ZM: No, I don’t think so. We’re successful. The concert halls are

full. I don’t see any empty seats in my concerts. We have three

world-class orchestras in Munich. They are all crowd-pullers.

On children’s concerts:

ZM: “Children are like sponges. They soak everything up. You can see

that in how easily they learn languages. It’s the same with music.

Children absorb it very quickly.”

Q: Should children start learning to play an instrument at an early

age?

ZM: “Very early. Then you can see if a child has talent or not. Not

everyone need play an instrument. Some can just listen. But if a child

has talent, then we have to make sure that they can develop their

abilities. But over-ambitious mothers can do a lot of damage here.”

Q: How important is singing at school?

ZM: “It’s the basis for everything. Unfortunately, so many schools

have stopped singing. Children should sing from the very first class

onwards.”

Q: There are a lot of first-class orchestras in Germany. Is this a

luxury?

ZM: “No. It’s not a luxury. Standards have risen in Germany. Earlier,

only large cities had really good orchestras. But now there are

excellent ensembles even in medium-sized towns. There’s been a similar

development in the United States as well. There are no longer only

five, but 20 world-class orchestras there, because the training is so

good. Investing in music schools and orchestras is a good investment.”

Christian Buxhofer, founder of the Arosa music academy and president of Arosa Culture, has died suddenly, aged 52. He leaves a wife and son. Buxhofer was editor in chief of the Bünder Tagblatt.

buxhofer2

Seems to have got the general idea quicker than most.

h/t KE

boy conductor

The Minnesota Orchestra has posted rehearsal video for its forthcoming concert with hot key rider Daniil Trofonov. Missing is concertmaster Erin Keefe. Why? Local suspicions suggest she may be in line for the NY Philharmonic vacancy.

Watch here.

The Orch has struggled to sell the first subscription concert, forced to bring forward the $25 “public rush” tickets three days in advance.

 

erin keefe