The NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover has announced a new chief conductor. It’s Andrew Manze, period instrument violinist and ensemble leader.

Andrew_Manze

The Gramophone magazine awards have been announced:

 

 

riccardo chailly

 

 

 

 

·         Sir James Galway awarded Lifetime Achievement

 

·         Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the worlds oldest orchestra, win Recording of the Year for Brahms symphony cycle  150 years after relationship with composer began

·         Sir Neville Marriner awarded Outstanding Achievement in his 90th year

 

·         Leonidas Kavakos crowned Artist of the Year in international public vote

Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzigs monumental cycle of Brahmss four symphonies has been crowned Recording of the Year and was presented to the conductor at the event. The recording, issued on Decca, beat over 600 new releases to win the coveted prize.

 

The Gewandhausorchester Leipzig  the worlds oldest orchestra  cherishes its historical ties to Brahms. The composer himself conducted the orchestra for the Leipzig premieres of his first, second and third symphonies, as well as the world premieres of several other landmark pieces, making this a fitting homage to the great composer.

 

The results are in from the Nielsen Competition at Odense.

The final 6 are:

Joachim Becerra Thomsen (19 / Denmark)
Ting-Wei Chen (24 / Taiwan)
Kakeru Chiku (24 / Japan) 
Sébastien Jacot (27 / Switzerland)
Yukie Ota (29 / Japan)
Yaeram Park (18 / South Korea)

We’re delighted that Yukie Ota, who overcame the butterfly that settled on her face, has made it to the final.

butterfly flute

10608686_10153226318977627_1530985376981747484_o

 

Anna Netrebko, rehearsing Lady Macbeth at the Met yesterday.

Nielsen Soundscan doesn’t lie, but it can often surprise. The data centre has just tols us that the top-selling classical record in the US over the past seven days is played by a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music.

chaminade

The album, on the Steinway label, consists of music by a peripheral French composer. It has been promoted on WQXR and on Archiv Music.

The Flatterer sold 278 copies, beating Joyce DiDonato into second place.

Go, Jo!

 

joanne polk

It was brave of the judges at the International Indianapolis Violin Competition to pick an all-women final line-up.

Braver still to agree that five of the six finalists should be Korean.

Heroic, when half of them are students of one of the judges, Miriam Fried (who must have recused herself from the selection).

cho_jinjoo

Now, if these stats look a tad unbalanced, please note that 27 of the 40 selected entrants originated from South Korea, China, Japan or Taiwan.

How did that happen? Are we to believe that almost 70 percent of the best young violinists are now bred in the Far East? Or is it that teachers in Korea, China and Japan have learned to work the system, grooming their candidates to pass the entry level? Are any of the entrants, for instance, receiving state or corporate subsidies that are not available to European or North American contenders?

The imbalance is so blatant at Indy 2014 that official clarification is required.

zhulla_areta

One who missed the cut: Areta Zhulla (Greece)

UPDATE: Here’s a dose of clarity from Laurie Niles. It doesn’t do much to bolster confidence in  the Indy process.

SECOND UPDATE: It’s unfair, says Aaron Rosand.

 

 

The Danish Minister for Culture, Marianne Jelved, was asked for her view on the national broadcaster (DR)’s plan to scrap its chamber orchestra.

Here’s her serene and non-committal letter, straight out of the TV series Borgen:

16. september 2014
Folketingsmedlem Michael Aastrup Jensen (V) har den 9. september 2014 stillet mig  følgende spørgsmål, nr. S 1827, som jeg hermed skal besvare.
Spørgsmål:
Finder ministeren, at et DR uden Underholdningsorkesteret er mere eller mindre unikt?
Svar:
Jeg finder, at DR UnderholdningsOrkestret har spillet en vigtig og værdifuld rolle i det danske musikliv. Samtidig er det en kendsgerning, at DR som følge af medieaftalen for 2015-2018, som blev indgået den 26. juni 2014 af samtlige Folketingets partier, skal gennemføre besparelser. Det er DR’s ledelse, som inden for de udmeldte rammer i medieaftalen har ansvaret for at finde de konkrete besparelser. Jeg har stor respekt for denne ansvarsfordeling.
Der skal som opfølgning på medieaftalen indgås en ny public service-kontrakt for DR for perioden 2015-2018, hvori DR’s public service-forpligtelser vil blive nærmere fastlagt.
Marianne Jelved

borgen

 

Translation:

 

 

16 September 16, 2014
Michael Aastrup Jensen MP asked me the following question, no. S 1827, which I have to answer.
Question:
Does the Minister believe that a DR without its chamber orchestra is more or less unique?
Answer:
I find that the Chamber Orchestra has played an important and valuable role in the Danish music scene.

It is also a fact that the DR as a result of the media agreement for 2015-2018, signed June 26, 2014 by all political parties, must make savings. The DR’s management that within the framework announced in the media agreement has responsibility to locate individual savings. I have great respect for their responsibilities.
They must follow up on the media agreement by signing a new public service contract for DR for the period 2015-2018, in which DR’s public service obligations will be further determined.
Marianne Jelved

UK Music, a cross-industry group, reports that music added £3.8 billion to the British economy in 2013, up 9% on 2012.

Gross value added rose from £3.5 billion to £3.8 billion. Exports accounted for £2.2 billion. The industry sustained 111,000 jobs.

Live music alone was worth £618 million.

Keep these figures handy for when the next election comes around.

EdSheeranBritAwards210212

From Nicola Benedetti:

The world is watching Scotland. Please let us keep our dignity during the next 48 hours. Advocating for one thing needn’t result in energy spent being against the other.

I wish Scotland luck in one of the most important days of our history, and I have full confidence, no matter what the result, this new found political and social engagement will remain with us to cultivate a better future for our country.

Love to you all, and good luck to you all.’

benedetti (1)

Remember the British Airways ad?

You can watch it live at Opera Holland Park next summer as Delibes’s Lakmé gets a rare production.

Details newly announced here.

lakme

In June, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was gifted $32 million in one day.

Yesterday, the Seattle Symphony was handed a pay-in slip of $10 million.

Before the day was out, a former chair of Buffalo Philharmonic chipped in with a donation that music director Jo-Ann Falletta called ‘transformative’.

joann falletta portrait

 

 

We don’t yet know how much, but it’s several million dollars, swelling the orch’s endowment to a comfortable $32m.

Full story here from our pal on the spot, Mary Kunz Goldman.

 

UPDATE: Detroit Symphony has pocketed a $3.75 million gift for its neighborhood concerts.

 

Early this summer, a slew of middle-aged, male London critics lay into an Irish mezzo-soprano at Glyndebourne for being too fat. 

A leading English mezzo, Alice Coote, issued a stinging response on the dangers of judging a singer by body shape. Opera, she wrote, ‘will die if audiences have only average looking, average singing humans walking around in interesting ( or average) looking productions.’ Her challenge put critics on their mettle and was quoted in breakfast television studios from Moscow to New York.

Alice admitted at the time that she might be singled out for revenge by a disgruntled critic. That moment appears to have arrived.

alice coote xerxes

 

In this morning’s (London) Times Richard Morrison, one of the Glyndebourne fat pack, writes of Alice’s performance as Xerxes at English National Opera:

One thing makes this show impossible to recommend, and that is Alice Coote’s weird, almost unhinged performance in the title role. Xerxes is a perpetual loser, forever outwitted, but in the end he accepts his losses with good grace. Coote, however, plays him like some overblown Victorian tragedian emoting Lear. And her singing – full of ugly scoops, slow-ups and grossly indulgent embellishments – is like something dredged from another era, and not in a good way.

Richard’s apoplexy is running so high in this review that he commits a hapless tautology – Victorian tragedian… like something dredged from another era – a slip of the memory that is as ugly and unprofessional as anything the critic claimed to have heard.

He concludes:  Coote’s mezzo is still a great instrument, but I won’t hurry to hear her murder Handel again.

I think Richard has overstepped the mark. I was unable, due to a sudden family issue, to attend the opening night so I cannot offer a personal opinion on Alice Coote’s Xerxes. However, the first review appeared from Guy Damann in the Guardian newspaper. He writes:

The main draw of this umpteenth revival of ENO’s 1985 production, directed here by Michael Walling and conducted by Michael Hofstetter, is the casting of Alice Coote in the title role. Though by no means a natural Handelian, Coote recently released an impressive CD of Handel arias, and her full-bodied tone and tremendous vocal swagger work particularly well with a characterisation that plays the role as a cross between George I and Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-But-Dim. The emperor’s blind sense of omnipotence translates well into the way Coote effortlessly wrests control away from the pit, slowing the orchestra – at times almost to a standstill – and the way she both inhabits the character as well as exceeds it, revelling in the electricity of her vocal presence. True, her voice was wearing out by the end of the evening, but her depiction of the despot’s reluctant enlightenment is both touching and profound.

Almost the exact opposite.

Guy had no axes to grind. Could it be that fat-pack Richard nurtured an unconscious malice for Alice?