Santa sometimes come in June. See press release below. UPDATE: And click here to see what followed that.

Much to watch on Youtube, if you’re not fixated on the football.

Two early films have been uploaded about Glenn Gould, both from 1959.

Don’t  just sit there, click here.

Frank Schirrmacher, one of the best-known journalists in Germany, has been cut short in mid-life. Successor to Marcel Reich-Ranicki as the FAZ books editor, he rose to become editor of the august paper – only to succumb, too young, to the relentless pressure.

We regret to report the death of Dr Alice Brandfonbrener, a pioneer in the rehabilitation of injured performers. She was 84.

After going to Aspen as a physician in 1978, she held a 1983 seminar there on performing arts medicine. Ever since, musicians beat a track to her Chicago door. She was director, from 1988, of the Medical Program for Performing Artists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. “If someone comes in with a sprained wrist, I don’t just look at the wrist; I study the whole patient,” she said. “A musician’s medical condition frequently stems from multiple sources, including technique, physical conditioning, the repertoire, the instrument — even their emotional state.”.

Alice will be universally missed. If you have an Alice experience, do share.

Here’s a recent interview.

Video Interview: Alice Brandfonbrener from Performing Arts Medicine on Vimeo.

They’ve averstised the vacancy today, and shifted the goalposts.

It is a much diminished role, in which the new boss will function beneath a new ‘Controller’ of Music and will have oversight, rather than control, of the BBC Proms.

The key criteria are:

Respected industry/media figure, ideally with experience gained within music, culture, media and / or broadcasting, and a demonstrable ability to schedule, programme and prioritise to the benefit of audiences

Experience of leadership within a large or complex organisation and of effectively leading large teams and developing talent.

The second line would appear to exclude internal favourite Tom Service, who has the support of many staff.

It would tend to favour old ex-BBC hands like Stephen Maddock, Tony Sargent and Hilary Boulding.

Gillian Moore of London’s South Bank remains the front-runner among non-BBC applicants, though we hope the likes of Susannah Eastburn (Sound and Music) and Marcus Davey (Roundhouse) will be tempted to throw their hats into the ring.

Full advertisement here.

Here’s her spot on the Today programme. She was preceded by a listener who defined himself as ‘a psychotherapist and opera director’.

Jonathan Miller, were you listening?

Click here to listen.

The most celebrated literary salon in Paris between the Wars – the ménage of Gertrud Stein and Alice B Toklas that so offended Ernest Hemingway in his macho memoir – is being recreated as an opera this week n St Louis.

The composer is Ricky Ian Gordon and the leading ladies are sung by Stephanie Blythe and Elizabeth Futral.

In other literary news, William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun has just earned a stunning operatic debut in Buenos Aires, at the Teatro Colon. The composer is Oscar Strasnoy.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, 79, is stepping down due to ill-health and speculation is rife about his successor, to be announced next month.

It’s an establishment decision, recommended by the Great and the Good. Since the Poet Laureate is now the estimable Carol Ann Duffy there are targeted whispers that precedent is about to be broken again by appointing a female composer.

The front-runner, according to gossip, is Judith Weir, 60, opera composer.

The orchestral composer Sally Beamish is also said to be in the running.

No disrespect to these excellent candidates, but why not break the mould still further, Your Maj? Go outside the magic circle to the real world of working composers who grind fingers to the bone writing film and television scores of considerable merit.

Joceylne Pook, for instance, whose work was used by Stanley Kubrick.

Rachel Portman, who has written for Mike Leigh and Jim Henson.

Ilona Sekacz, one of the busiest TV composers.

Or Debbie Wiseman, presently working on the death of Dylan Thomas.

No need to keep it within the upper crust, eh? Get someone who writes tunes and tells stories.

This may be the biggest advance for Nordic culture since the Vikings left Newcastle.

The Danish composer Per Norgard has won the New York Philharmonic’s 200,000 cash stipend for new music, the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize.

The judging panel was slightly weighted to the north. It contained the NY Phil music director Alan Gilbert (former chief of the Stockholm Phil) and Esa-Pekka Salonen (Finnish new-tech netrepreneur) among other worthies.

But there’s no denying Norgard’s merit. I’m just listening to a new recording of his symphonies by the Vienna Philharmonic, no less.

(He might look a little less morose today).

Members of the Vienna Philharmonic have voted for a new chairman.

Clemens Hellsberg (pic), who filled the role for 17 turbulent years, will be replaced in September by a fellow-violinist,  Andreas Großbauer. It is not clear if the election is contested.

The players also voted to replace their business director. Harald Krumpöck, another violinist, takes over from Dieter Flury.

Any change in the orchestra’s policies on anti-discrimination and full disclosure of the Nazi past is unlikely.

The German Labour Minister Andrea Nahles is pushing through a minimum rate of 8.50 Euros an hour for interns in all sectors of the economy. The rate would take effect after seven weeks’ work.

First to oppose it is the German Music Council (DMR). It calls the wage ‘unrealistic’ and says music organisations would have to get of their interns before they were properly trained. Young people, says the DMR, would be ‘denied a much-needed insight into the professional world.’

That stiff statement may be all the insight they could possibly need.

An astonishingly outspoken assessment from the influential German curator Kasper König, who is about to open Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

It is the first time the great contemporary show is being staged in Russia. Probably also the last.

Says König: The ink on my contract was still wet when that appalling anti-gay law was passed. It became clear to me that I was working in a country where there is no civil society. Practically anyone can make a law and it’s waved through as long as that person has enough money and power. These strategies, in my opinion, are meant to make the people feel insecure so that they don’t think about their future or about change.

Read the full and frank interview here, on DW, in English.