Even in an age of political correctness and mind control, this ban takes the breath away.
A planned production of Bizet’s Carmen at the State Opera of West Australia has been pulled by the management because it conflicts with a two-year $400,000 partnership with the State Government health promotion agency, Healthway. Carmen is set around a cigarette factory.
Carolyn Chard, West Australian Opera general manager said the decision was “not difficult”.
She added: ‘“We care about the health and wellbeing of our staff, stage performers and all the opera lovers throughout WA, which means promoting health messages and not portraying any activities that could be seen to promote unhealthy behaviour.”
What next – a soft-drinks Meistersinger? Condoms in Lulu?
A new French biography of an anniversary composer delivers a musicological bombshell. Sylvie Bouissou, author of a 1,166-page Fayard door-stopper on the life and works of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), argues that his was the hidden hand behind the ever-popular nursery-rhyme song.
Her evidence:
1 The tune appears in a manuscript of 86 canons, assembled by a collector Jacques Joseph Marie Decroix and kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Decroix, who is the source of many Rameau scores, attributes Frère Jacques to Rameau.
2 A violinist called Francoeur who played in the Paris Opéra orchestra in Rameau’s time while his uncle was director, mentions this canon on ‘Frère Jacques’ in another manuscript found by Ms. Bouissou at the BibNat and ascribes it to Rameau.
3 The tune was first published in 1811 by the “Société du Caveau”, (a group of composers founded in 1720 with Rameau as a prominent member. Where else could they have got the tune?
Too late to claim royalties from the Mahler estate?
Read more here.
The tenor has cancelled concert in Barcelona and Lucerne over the next week. His doctor has strictly ordered him not to sing, says the sick note. The withdrawals punch a hole in the promotion schedule for Kaufmann’s Sony schmaltz album.
The German director Willy Decker, 64, has withdrawn from Zurich’s Turn of the Screw ‘on health grounds’.
It’s that time of year.
Danish media have just cracked the cost of hosting the last Eurovision contest. It ran four times over budget at 334 million kroner (£35 million).
Is this the reason DR is having to kill an orchestra?
The direct cost to the broadcaster was an unspeakable £21 million. For four hours of trash TV. Heads should roll.
Barrett Wissman, part-owner of the disintegrating IMG Artists, has popped up in Forbes magazine as a contributor on ‘the entertainment business, culture and the arts’.
Don’t Forbes know he has a fraud conviction?
Trendy, or meaningful?
Press release:
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival launched its new ‘Health and Wellbeing’ strand of work earlier this month, with a twelve week project running weekly creative sessions with refugees and asylum seekers at The Reach Project in Huddersfield, and local community participants at Huddersfield Mission. The funds that the hcmf// team raised by cycling from London to Paris in July is directly funding the project, alongside a Big Lottery Fund grant.
Part of the Festival’s Learning & Participation programme, the new project, Momentum, started on 2 September, and is running in partnership with Huddersfield Mission and The Reach Project, Huddersfield. The project will be led by award-winning music and health practitioner Georgina Aasgaard, and will focus on building participants’ confidence and self-esteem as well as exploring emotional and physical issues through creative music-making.
Georgina is a regular practitioner working with Liverpool Philharmonic as lead artist for their work with Mersey Care NHS Trust, as well as being a mentor for music and health practice with Live Music Now. She also regularly performs as a cellist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic. Georgina will be supported by Sam Hodgson, who is a HOOT Creative Arts trained artist.
It must be something in the air that has prompted six resignations in as many weeks.
This one is less hasty than some of the others.
Tughan Sokhiev, who recently became music director of the Bolshoi, has discovered the immensity of that nightmare job. Tugan, 37, has decided to leave the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and has given them 18 months to find a suitable successor.
Press release follows.
Tugan Sokhiev announced today that he will not extend his current contract as Music Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin beyond 2016. He assumed the position in September 2012 after two years as Music Director Designate.
“The tasks I have taken on at the Bolshoi Theatre at the beginning of this year are more monumental than it was possible to predict when I took up the position. They require too much presence and attention on my part in the medium-term to allow me to stay with my orchestra and fulfil my duties in Berlin with good conscience. The DSO is an excellent ensemble which deserves an artistic leader who is able to perform the exhilarating and demanding tasks to the full and who does not have to divide his energies in this way,” the 37 year-old conductor explains his decision. “The DSO is a first class orchestra in fantastic shape and we will realise many wonderful projects together during this season and those to come.”
Musicians committee chair Matthias Kühnle: “We greatly regret Tugan Sokhiev’s decision not to be available to extend his time as head of our orchestra, but we do respect it. We have achieved a great deal together in the past years, and we are looking forward to our future projects with much anticipation.” Managing Director Alexander Steinbeis adds: “The orchestra has developed fantastically in repertoire and in its sound under Sokhiev. Even after his departure as Music Director he will remain closely associated with the DSO and will return annually to conduct the orchestra in Berlin.”
Thomas Kipp, General Manager of Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH (roc berlin), emphasises: “The DSO is currently in excellent shape,
due in no small part to Tugan Sokhiev, and is strongly positioned both artistically and economically.” The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin can look back on a remarkably successful development in the past three years with a constant percentage of more than 80% of seats sold – 83% in the past concert year – approximately 73,000 audience members in Berlin alone, and a continuous increase in the number of
subscribers. With Tugan Sokhiev, the orchestra is setting new accents in the cultural life of the capital city, particularly in the Russian-Slavic and French repertoire. The recording recently released of Prokofiev’s ‘Ivan the Terrible’ on Sony Classical has been highly praised by the press. Other CD releases are pending. The DSO and its Music Director will tour together in Europe and to Japan in the next two years.
Until this morning, the plan was that the much-loved but acoustically inadequate Salle Pleyel would cease to be used as a classical music venue after the opening of the new Philharmonie, intended for next January but possibly delayed.
The Salle had been sold to the Cité de la Musique, which intended to use it for non-classical purposes. A judge this morning nullifed that deal.
The court action was brought by Carla Maria Tarditi, a little-known conductor who was married to Hubert Martigny, co-founder of Altran Technologies, which bought Pleyel in 1998. She wants the Salle preserved for classical music.
So now it looks like Paris will have too many classical halls and not enough music directors, as maestros flee an avalanche of impending cuts.
Report here.
The pianist Katya Apekisheva has started a social-media ball rolling with a list of the ten composers or works of music that irritate her the most.
Katya’s list*:
1. Vivaldi. Four seasons
2. Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
3. ABBA
4. About 85% of music by Liszt
5. Berlioz
6. Ending of Tchaikovsky piano trio ( around 8 last pages)
7. Neapolitan song ‘O Sole Mio’
8. Beethoven Fur Elise
9. Virtuoso violin music, such as Sarasate and Weniawsky
10. Brindisi from Traviata
*Actually the idea started withKatya’s friend, the violinist Roman Mints here.
Now mine:
1 National music
2 Tchaikovsky (except last 3 syms and violin concerto)
3 Anything with Moon in the title – any language – lune, mondo &c.
4 Mahler’s Adagietto except when played within the fifth symphony
5 Vivaldi’s you-know-what
6 Messiaen
7 Bernstein’s Mass
8 Anything by Puccini after Bohème
9 Elgar’s oratorios
10 Barber’s Adagio
Now yours…?
First up, from harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani:
1. Pretty much everything by Phillip Glass;
2. Bernier, Monteclair, Boismortier, and those piddling French composers played by people who can’t handle Couperin or Rameau.
3. The second set of Handel’s keyboard suites. Oy.
4. The Vivaldi Gloria
5. Herbert Howells
6. The Mahler piano quartet.
7. Messiaen organ works; what a supreme waste of time.
8. Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum, after the first chorus
9. Anything involving the trumpet and organ in the sense of transcription
10. Beethoven’s Battle Symphony and Choral Fantasy – for a tie!
Myung Whun Chung has come to Vienna’s rescue, taking over the Rigoletto vacated by the walkout music director Franz Welser-Möst. Peter Schneider steps in for Chung in Tannhäuser. Michael Boder replaces Franz W-M in last season’s surprise hit, Cardillac.
That still leaves the Staatsoper with at least a dozen batonless nights.
Der koreanische Spitzendirigent Myung-Whun Chung wird die von Franz Welser-Möst zurückgelegten Dirigate der Neuproduktion von “Rigoletto” (Premiere am 20. Dezember; Reprisen am 23., 30. Dezember 2014, 2. Jänner 2015 – die Vorstellung am 27. Dezember dirigiert Guillermo García Calvo) übernehmen. Des Weiteren wird er auch die Dirigate von “La traviata” (5., 8., 16. Dezember 2014 – die Vorstellung am 12. Dezember wird von Jesús López-Cobos dirigiert) leiten.
Peter Schneider, Stammdirigent und Ehrenmitglied der Wiener Staatsoper, übernimmt dafür von Myung-Whun Chung die gesamte Vorstellungsserie von “Tannhäuser” am 22., 26., 30. Oktober und 2. November 2014.
Der deutsche Dirigent Michael Boder steht anstelle des ehemaligen Generalmusikdirektors bei der Wiederaufnahme von Hindemiths “Cardillac” am 22. Juni 2015 (Reprisen: 25. und 29. Juni) am Dirigentenpult.
Philip Glass greets Steve Reich at BAM, each with an arm around arts promoter Harvey Lichtenstein.
It has been three decades since the two composers last spoke.
Neither can probably remember the cause of their rupture.
Here’s how they looked before.
Andrew Bennett, a 30-year veteran in UK orchestral management, has been named executive director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Canada. Andrew has been general manager of the orchestra at the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal, since 2006.
Press release follows.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (KWS) is thrilled to announce the appointment of Andrew Bennett to the position of Executive Director beginning in November 2014. Bennett was appointed after the completion of a search that began when former Executive Director Genevieve Twomey resigned from her position in the fall of 2013.
“The search was extensive and brought several highly qualified candidates to our attention,” commented KWS Board Chair Catherine Copp. “Andrew stood out to the search committee from the beginning and it is clear that he offers the KWS both innovative vision and sound fiscal management. We are very excited for him to arrive and begin working with our Board, stakeholders, talented musicians and dedicated staff.”
Bennett will begin his post as Executive Director on November 5, 2014, relocating to Waterloo Region from Portugal where he has worked as the General Manager of the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música since 2006, responsible for managing and programming for the resident 94-piece orchestra. Throughout his time as General Manager, the profile of the orchestra has risen significantly as they embarked on ambitious programming and a touring schedule that included stops in Austria, France, Spain, Brazil and Benelux.
“To work in Canada, and especially in the Waterloo Region with such an enterprising and ambitious orchestra, was an opportunity I could not turn down.” stated Bennett. “I am eager to begin working with such a talented group of people and to get to know better the region and our audiences. The orchestra is poised to embark on even greater adventures, and I look forward to joining everyone on that stimulating journey.”
“I am so thrilled that Andrew Bennett will be joining the KWS family!”, commented Edwin Outwater, KWS Music Director. “I already know he is a wonderful colleague from our work together in Europe. He brings passion, energy, innovation, and a sense of fun and adventure wherever he goes. Like me, he shares a strong desire to create an orchestra for the 21st Century. Together – with the musicians, board, staff, and our wonderful audience – we will achieve this ambitious and essential goal.”
Originally from Bournemouth on the south coast of England, Bennett has thirty years of experience working all over Europe in the performing arts, mainly in the area of orchestra management with some time spent in theatre, events management and opera. The search for an Executive Director was conducted by search firm Spencer Stuart, working with a search committee that included representatives from the KWS Board, Staff and Orchestra.
