The Mayor of Rome published a blog tonight on the peace settlement reached with the orchestra and chorus at Rome Opera. The final lines read: The mayor underlines that Riccardo Muti will carry on as honorary conductor of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.
That sounds promising.
Read news of today’s deal here.
press release:
The Boston Symphony Orchestra will release its first CD and digital download with Music Director Andris Nelsons on BSO Classics in early December, featuring Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture—the first piece Mr. Nelsons conducted as BSO Music Director—and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, recorded from live performances during Andris Nelsons’ first few programs as the BSO’s new music director. Wagner’sTannhäuser Overture was recorded during Andris Nelsons’ inaugural concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on September 27, 2014, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 was recorded November 6-11, 2014.
Jaap van Zweeden, music director in Dallas, is talking about Shostakovich 8 and remembering his grandma who fought in the Dutch resistance.
He quickly adds: ‘She was not proud of it. She said: these young men had a future and I took that away.’
He’s conducting Shostakovich 8 in New York this week.
After appearing on Dancing with the Stars, all Time for Three wanted to do was get home.
No, said US Air. We won’t take the bull-fiddle.
Outcome? In the end, the boys flew Delta.
Mind you, if you let them aboard, they’re likely to start playing. And that, as the pilot likes to say, ‘could interfere with the instruments’.
This is Jennifer Panebianco, 9 years old, playing a Kreisler allegro at the Farnham Competitive Music Fest in London, this weekend.
Words fail.
Click on blue word ‘Post’ if the video fails to pop out.
During the night, agreement was reached between the unions, the sovrintendente Carlo Fuortes and the mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino.
The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma has withdrawn the letters that fired its orchestra and chorus. The unions have agreed of a pay cut of 120-200 Euros a month. The musicians will vote on the deal next week.
First report (in Italian) here.
An increasingly desperate Labour Party has trotted out its latest election-year pledge.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, is about to announce a plan for a £10 entry charge to citizens of the US and 55 other countries. The money will go to pay for extra border guards.
Just what we need right now, a fortress mentality.
Read here.
Richard King is only 46, but after 17 years he’s tired of the responsibility. ‘There’s never really an easy concert. It’s time to let someone else have a chance at it,’ he tells Zachary Lewis.
Richard will play fourth horn in the Cleveland Orchestra from now on.
Has that happened before in a frontline orchestra?
Here’s the trailer for the Munich Manon Lescaut she walked out of. Looks pretty conventional from here.
Swedish musicians are mourning Magnus Persson, who died at the weekend, aged 54.
Classically trained, Magnus ran a 1980s fusion band and became the first-call accompanist to a gamut of stars, among them opera singers Anne-Sofie von Otter and Malena Ernman.
We have finally had full sight of Peter Gelb’s letter to singers, asking them to pay back seven percent of their fees in order to help the Met out of financial difficulty.
There are two key sentences:
– The members of the chorus and orchestra have accepted an overall 7% cut in their wages, reaching into the 2017/18 season and the Met has cut administrative staff costs by an equal amount.
– I am writing to you now to ask that you join in this effort by voluntarily accepting a 7% reduction in your contractual compensation at the Met for the remainder of this season, as well as subsequent seasons through 2017/18.
Spot the discrepancy?
The chorus and orchestra accepted an overall 7% cut… reaching into 2017/18.
The pay cut for chorus and orchestra is not an immediate 7%. It is gradated, reaching into 2017/18. It also comes with a pledge of a pay rise in 2018, and – significantly – veto rights over all the Met’s major spending plans.
The singers are being told to cough up 7% now, and for nothing in return.
They are being bilked.
Gelb continues: ‘In recent days I’ve had conversations with Ildar Abdrazakov, Piotr Beczala, Joyce DiDonato, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Zeljko Lucic, Peter Mattei, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, all of whom have agreed to accept this reduction and have also agreed that we may include their names in this letter.’
Who’s missing from this list?
Conductors. They are far too wily to pay kickbacks without seeing the small print.
Not to mention: Jonas Kaufmann, Roberto Alagna, Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Juan Diego Florez. They’re taking advice.
For an honest, respectful approach to artists to trim their fees, see David Pountney’s letter from WNO.
