David McGill, who is stepping down after 17 years as principal bassoon of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has explained why he’s walking away from one of the best seats in the musical world. It’s his duty, he says.
“I was very lucky to have studied with what might be considered the very last of the old guard of music teachers in Philadelphia. So I feel like it’s on my shoulders to carry on what they gave to me, and after 30 years of performing in an orchestra, I felt like, well, it’s time.”
Read more here.
Yundi prefers kebabs.
According to his latest selfie.
Police in the Italian regions of Lazio, Liguria and Umbria have found extensive labelling frauds, upgrading cheap wines and delivering them for sale at up to ten times their value, La Repubblica reports.
Among 30,000 bottles seized are some from Bocelli’s family winery near Pisa, which yields an exclusive 300 bottles a year.
Be careful what you drink.
William Mason, former general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, has been recruited as artistic advisor to the San Diego Opera, which has come back from the dead after being shut down by its former board and management.
Mason, 72, comes out of retirement. He spent 29 years at the Lyric and knows the opera business inside out.
Good call, San Diego. Kudos, Carol Lazier.
The outgoing Philharmonic conductor has told Richard Morrison in a Times paywalled video that, come what may, when his time is up with the orchestra he will remain in Berlin. ‘Our plan is that we would remain living in Berlin,’ he says. ‘I’ve been doing an opera every year in the Staatsoper in Berlin. I’ve just done the Ring for the first time with the Deutsche Oper. There are many possibilities at home…’
He emphasises ‘at home’. Home is Berlin.
If he were to join the LSO (as Morrison has reported), it would be as a fly-in on Air Berlin.
Alexander Sokolov, a Putinist former minister of culture (2004-08), has been given a third term as head of the Moscow Conservatoire after an internal election that he won by a 261-4 margin.
Insiders say Sokolov, 65, is trying to wrest the Tchaikovsky Competition back from Valery Gergiev into the hands of a professorial clique.
Peter Grote, the piano salesman who has been installed as the next competition’s artistic director, is said to be Sokolov’s place man. Gergiev, according to our sources, is being written out of the script.
The kind of cultural in-fighting that used to prevail under Soviet authority has been revived by the Putin regime.
We’ve been hearing rumblings of discontent for months, but our informants refused to be specific. Now, the rupture is now in the open.
The Rotterdam Philharmonic has a scattering of empty seats in the ensemble and some very discontented musicians. In the face of player complaints the chief executive, Hans Waege, has been – even by Dutch standards – uncommunicative.
Five weeks ago, Waege went on sick leave. Only his doctor knows when he’ll be back. The uncertainty is unsettling. Several players have been auditioning for other orchestras. The music director, Yannik Nézet-Séguin is believed to have had a falling out with Waege.
Here’s a report in Dutch.
A quiz question: which music director of the Royal Opera House has played a recital at the Wigmore Hall?
Think back.
Not Bernard Haitink; never seen at a keyboard.
Not Colin Davis; he played clarinet.
Not Solti (we think)…. though he did revert to the piano late in life, playing four-hand Mozart with Murray Perahia.
Not Rafael Kubelik or Karl Rankl.
In that case…. drum roll… Sir Antonio Pappano will be the first serving chief at Covent Garden to play the Wigmore when he opens the new season with …. second drum roll…. Dame Joyce DiDonato (the damehood is in the mail).
Nice one, Tony.
In other news, tickets for the Wigmore’s new seasons, released this morning, are selling at 1,000 an hour.
Season highlights include:
Joyce DiDonato and Sir Antonio Pappano in the opening concert
Maria João Pires Portrait Series
The Mozart Odyssey
Henry Purcell: A Retrospective celebrates the ‘British Orpheus’
Paul Lewis: A Celebration
Pavel Haas Quartet Bohemia
Introducing Igor Levit
Florian Boesch Residency
Composer Focus – Wolfgang Rihm
Zoe Keating, who took on Anthem Blue Cross in a media campaign after it refused to provide hospital treatment for her desperately sick husband, has won a stay of execution. ‘I also got a call from a women named Patricia at Anthem, who told me not to worry, my husbands hospital stay would be covered. I spoke to Patricia at length today. It’s a little hard for me to explain the reason they denied my husband’s hospital stay, because I found it hard to understand. But luckily I have an excellent memory and can type fast, so you can just read my transcription.’
Do read it. The language spoken by the insurers falls midway between George Orwell’s newspeak and Joseph Stalin’s sanitised encyclopedias. Amazing that an organisation designed to protect people in pain could wind up speaking in this sick way.
Zoe adds: ‘Hopefully our situation is resolved and I can go back to focusing on my husband and son. I post this in the hope that it will help other people (people who do not have 1 million twitter followers or who’s stories don’t get covered in the the press) get their denied health insurance claims reversed. What should you do? Keep meticulous notes. Be persistent. Make noise. Do not take no for an answer. Tell everyone. Why this all has to be so convoluted, I do not understand. It makes me livid to think of how many families suffer needlessly because of corporate bureaucracy and greed.’
Our positive thoughts and good wishes go out to Zoe and her family in this difficult time. Here’s how you can help.
Dreadful tale from Mike Vincent on Musical Toronto.
The Bozzini Quartet, heading for the city by rail, faced demands from a train conductor to pay for an extra seat for the cello.
We are unaware of any such precedent. Let’s stop this before Richard Branson hears of it.
David Weiss, principal oboe and photographer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 30 years, died last weekend at the age of 67. The LA Times reports, after talking to the Weiss family, that David collapsed while surfing off the Pacific Palisades. The cause of death has not been ascertained.
Far too soon, and deeply mourned.
The town of Linz is planning a September focus on some of the art that was banned by its most notorious son.
There will be an opera, Ulenspiegel, by Walter Braunfels, a concert of once-forbidden music, a reading from Ernst Krenek’s travel diaries and, most appealing, an exhibition of the dance music banned by the Nazis as being tainted by blacks and Jews. Swing was strictly verboten.
The Braunfels opera will be performed in a tobacco factory by the Israel Chamber Orchestra, conductor Martin Sieghart. Full info below.
Tabakfabrik Linz // in Kooperation mit dem Internationalen Brucknerfest Linz 2014
Ulenspiegel
Oper von Walter Braunfels
Termine: 10.9. um 19:00, 12.9. um 19:00, 14.9. um 16:00, 16.9. um 19:00
Ausstellung
Swing tanzen verboten
Unterhaltungsmusik nach 1933 zwischen Widerstand, Propaganda und Vertreibung
Termin: 9.9. – 5.10.
Ausstellungseröffnung mit Vortrag und Führung
Swing tanzen verboten
Unterhaltungsmusik nach 1933 zwischen Widerstand, Propaganda und Vertreibung
Termin: 9.9. um 18:00; Eintritt frei
Swing tanzen verboten
Konzert zur Ausstellung – eine musikalische Reise
Termin: 9.9. um 19:30
Schülervorstellung: 18.9. um 17:00
Verbotene Klänge
Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen von Ernst Krenek; Konzert mit Lesung
Termin: 11.9.um 19:00
Veranstaltungsort: Tabakfabrik Linz, Quadrom bzw. Dock und Studio Noir (Ausstellung)
