press release:

The Anatomy of Melancholy is a new opera from musician Finn Beames based on the classic text. It’s at Testbed1 in Battersea and runs this week.

This original opera, inspired by Robert Burton self-help manual (published in 1621) and performed by eight musicians and seven singers, will take an intimate look at historical and modern-day experiences of depression through song, speech and mobile live-feed video screens. Via the exploration of a young man’s experience of depression and his family’s responses, the production draws attention to both personal experiences of and approaches to mental health, and intends to draw attention to the links between mental and physical health.

The work has been written in collaboration with molecular psychiatrist Professor Jonathan Flint, Head of the Psychiatric Genetics Group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, and accordingly includes cutting edge research on genetics and depression so there’s also something very interesting in how musicians and artists are working with health professionals and medical researchers to create new perspectives on research and make this information more accessible for a wider audience.

This 1986 Volvo belonged to Witold Lutoslawski. A nifty little model in its day.

105k on the clock.. Details here.

Basle, never renowned for its easygoing ways, has decided to get tough on non-EU freelance musicians who play in the city orchestra and opera house. It has told them there will be no further work permits for those without a fulltime job.

Freelancers who can’t get a contract will have to leave town.

(picture from Basle Carnival)

Graeme McNaught, 54, a concert pianist and lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, walked free yesterday despite a conviction for menacing his former partner, the author, Janice Galloway.

The Sherriff’s Court had previously decided that five charges had been proven against McNaught – including the charge of stalking and ‘acting in a threatening and abusive manner and and placing Miss Galloway in a state of fear and alarm’.

However, the court set him free unconditionally and said it has no authority to order psychiatric treatment.

The Conservatoire has made no statement with regard to his future teaching activities.

Ms Galloway issued the following statement last night:

I am extremely dismayed and, given that the police in Scotland are presently attempting to press for greater justice for victims of stalking, shocked that the Sheriff was left with no means to enforce any kind of order, despite his judgement upon the findings that Graeme McNaught did indeed commit the acts of harassment (stalking) with which he was charged. 

This man want the show to go on.

This guy represents a wolf sanctuary.

The demonstrator on the right (in skullcap) calls the protest misguided.

Isn’t democracy a wonderful thing?

photos (c) Elizabeth Frayer/Slipped Disc

The flautist leads a pack a musicians who are campaigning to save the 70-strong ensemble from imminent abolition. We support their resolve and their campaign.

However – and it’s a big however – no politician in the north of Ireland has yet spoken up to save the orchestra.

The minister of culture has never visited its concerts. There seems to be a distinct lack of public and corporate will.

And the Arts Council of Northern Ireland needs to explain why it allowed the orchestra to deplete it financial reserve from £1 million to less than half a million. There has been negligence, incompetence and cavalier disregard for procedure throughout this unhappy saga. If the orchestra is to be saved – and we desperately hope it is – we need to see the resignation of its chairman, Sir George Bain, along with a public inquiry into the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Here’s Sir Jim’s letter:

James Wilkinson, 69, is retiring next year as president of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, which he returned to stability and international form. Applications from Henson and Romenstein will not be considered. Heinz Hall needs youth, vigour and 57 new ideas.

You’ll know it when you hear it.

Raphael Ravenscroft was the player. He was paid £27 (about $40).

The singer, Gerry Rafferty, went on to earn around £80,000 a year in royalties.

Raphael’s death was announced today. He was 60.

Mikhail Khokhlov, director of Moscow’s newly reconstructed Gnessin School, has been calling for change in Russian music education.

He denounces the prevalent method (see here) of hitting a pupil who plays a wrong note and says the Soviet system of grooming talent from the cradle up is no longer appropriate. Read his extensive and provocative thoughts here (in Russian).

The violinist has now cancelled Cleveland.

‘I’ve been recovering from a muscle strain over the past few months, and have made solid, steady progress,’ she explained. ‘I fully expected to be healed in time for my engagement with The Cleveland Orchestra, but unfortunately, my doctor has said that performing next week would be detrimental to my long-term recovery. With sadness, I must withdraw from these concerts.’

Hilary announced in late July that she’d be out for six weeks with muscle strain. Apparently, it is taking much longer than expected to heal.

We wish her well.

Two prime ministers changed Australia’s attitude to culture and civilisation.

The first was the urbane, humane, hedonstic Gough Whitlam who ruled the country in the early 1970s until he was sacked in a constitutional putsch. Whitlam, who died last night aged 98, kick-started the Aussie film industry with substantial state investment while offering moral encouragement to every other art form. The country flowered under his aegis and never looked back.

The only other politician who matched his cultural vision was Paul Keating in the 1990s, a Parliamentary street-fighter who liked to say he prepared his budgets while listening to Mahler.

For the memory of such men, we love Australia.

Keating, Whitlam, 1975

This report, exclusive to Slipped Disc, comes from a regular Met-goer and former New York Times writer:

The extraordinarily vocal demonstrators guaranteed that the Metropolitan premiere of THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER would be a success. Most in attendance were so appalled by the uneducated and irrational brouhaha, they were revved to show their support for the Met, the composer and the performers. Conductor David Robertson never received the kind of frenzied ovation he got just for coming out.

And that’s the way it was all evening: a politicized occasion that backfired for the supposed righteous. And at the end, the person receiving the most applause was John Adams.

To cut to the chase, KLINGHOFFER is no more anti-semitic than THE BARBER OF SEVILLE. Even Rudolph Guiliani who spoke this evening to the demonstrators was oddly rational about the piece now that he had heard it.

Nor, I am sad to report, is it on a level with Adams’ NIXON IN CHINA and DOCTOR ATOMIC. It is strangely unoperatic, more of an oratorio.  There are some lovely moments, and no one makes a racket more excitingly than Adams, but there are arid patches and very little sense of drama.

The performers were terrific, whether sympathetic, like the Klinghoffers and the captain, or terrifying like the terrorists. I found the production, which uses projections throughout to be drab and uninteresting.

The Met’s brilliant advertising campaign: “see it and you decide” says it all. There is no way this opera can be seen as anti-semitic. Misguided maybe, but not in any way racist.

Another correspondent tells us:

There was one successful disruption (during the performance) last night.  Someone shouting “the murder of Klinghoffer will never be forgiven” repeatedly in a break in the action during Act One.