… Marina Abramovic.
Five directors – Roman Polanski, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Marco Brambilla, Giada Colagrande and Yorgos Lanthimos – have agreed to film the performance artist as she plays Callas in seven death scenes from major operas.
Let’s not get too excited.
Mark Sokol, 68, co-founder and first violin of the Concord String Quartet, a pioneer in American chamber music, has died in San Francisco of pancreatic cancer.
Tribute here.
Anna Picard has just posted her Times (paywall) review of the Kyung Wha Chung comeback concert.
She gives it two stars and reports (as we did earlier) the moment when, between the Allegro and Andantino cantabile of Mozart’s wistful Sonata in G, Chung turned to the parents of a child, whom I could not hear myself but was later told had been coughing, and said: “Maybe bring her back when she’s older.” With one shrivelling put-down, a tetchy atmosphere turned toxic.
We hear that other reviewers intend to mention the incident. Ms Chng would do well to apologise.
Paul Pelkonen stopped by the Met yesterday to score a late ticket for the Meistersinger revival. Whaddaya know? They’ve changed the rules.
With one box office window open, a helpful clerk gave me a single-sheet document, outlining the company’s altered policy. There was no press release e-mailed toSuperconductor and no announcement on the Met website.
Rush tickets are now available day-of-show, on the Metropolitan Opera website starting at 12pm Monday through Friday. The tickets are available only through the website, and must be purchased online, picked up at the box office or simply printed out and brought to the theater.
Read Paul here.
Apparently, the idea is to stop punters scoring too many cheap tickets, but the level of customer communications is reminiscent of the Bolshoi in Soviet times. Whatever the policy, it;s not working. Paul saw yards of empty seats last night.
Thrilled to find our pal Martin Anderson among 30 ‘risk-takers and innovators’ profiled by Musical America in a special edition (click here).
Martin, 59, a hitherto unsung hero, is a former economist who founded Toccata Classics, a label of esoteric music which is about to hit its 200th release. It features music by the Norwegian composer Leif Solberg, not yet a household name.
Better still, they are giving away free samples in a prize raffle every day in December. Click here for your chance to win music you’ve never heard – or probably heard of – before.
We’re delighted to share the news that Sally, who retired last year after four decades with Schotts, is returning as a consultant with start-up arts and education headhunters, Minerva.
If you work in music and you’re good at your job, expect a shoulder-tap from Sally in the new year.
We don’t know yet exactly how it will work but George Osborne has announced that orchestras can now claim the same benefits that were given to theatres in the spring.
This should mean 25 percent tax relief on tour performances and 20 percent on home.
It won’t save Ulster or any other orchs in trouble, but it will ease bottom line pressures on working ensembles.
The director, Warlikowski, says his Don fancies ‘very young girls’, The theatre has banned it for under-16s.
More video here. Live streaming from tonight.
We’ve received distressing reports from the long-awaited London comeback recital of the Korean violinist Kyung-Wha Chung.
The Royal Festival Hall was sold out and there was high anticipation. Kyung-wha opened with a Mozart sonata.
At the first movement break, everyone in the Royal festival – this is London in December – burst out coughing.
The soloist was not pleased. She turned on a child, sitting about ten rows back to the left of the stage and said to her parents: ‘don’t you think you should bring her when she’s a bit older?’
The remark cast a pall on the rest of the concert. An audience member told us they felt she was picking on the child and continued staring at her for the rest of the first half. One said: ‘I’ve never heard a Mozart sonata take so long.’
The incident recalls another disruption, six weeks ago, when the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas asked the mother of a child to remove her from the front rows.
Such conduct is, in our view, unacceptable.
A performer should not respond to audience disruption, accidental or otherwise. A performer needs to be ‘in the zone’, in a separate space, to maintain an illusion of inspiration that is unaffected by the mundane. Interventions from the stage can wreck a potentially historic concert.
UPDATE: First review here.
2nd UPDATE: Erica Jeal in the Guardian here.
3rd UPDATE: The damage here.
The orchestra has reported a $650,000 deficit for the past year, which included the end of the lockout and a scrambled-together concert season. It has been expecting losses of $1m.
The orch has received a $10 million gift from an anonymous philanthropist and $3.2m from three other friends. Details here.
Plácido Domingo has been awarded Best Classical Album at the 15th annual Latin Grammy Awards in Las Vegas. In 2010, he was awarded ‘Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year’.
Five years ago, many were predicting that Cleveland – a city in worse social and economic crisis than Detroit – would not sustain its cultural amenities. How wrong they were. The orchestra has just turned in a budget surplus and boosted its endowment to $172 million.
Gary Hanson, its president, will be retiring on a high. Press release below.
CLEVELAND — The audited financial results of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2013-14 fiscal year were reported at the Annual Meeting of the Musical Arts Association on Tuesday evening, December 2. President of the Board of Trustees, Dennis W. LaBarre, announced a year-end budgetary surplus to the assembled Association members at the meeting in Severance Hall, the Orchestra’s home concert hall since 1931. The Musical Arts Association is the non-profit organization that owns and operates The Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, and Blossom Music Center.
Financial achievements of the past year included the third consecutive balanced annual budget —through increased ticket revenues, increased contributions, and ongoing cost control. At year end, the Orchestra’s 2013-14 revenues of $49.6 million exceeded expenses of $48.7 million. This was achieved with year-over-year revenues increasing 3% from 2012-13, while expense growth was held at just 1.5% over the previous year. This is the third consecutive year of balanced operating results, each made possible by special fundraising secured to support operations during a campaign to increase the endowment and the Orchestra’s long-term financial strength.
Advance copies of the Orchestra’s published Annual Report were distributed at the meeting and will be made available to all Musical Arts Association members in the coming weeks. The report features year-end messages from Dennis LaBarre and Executive Director Gary Hanson, as well as a financial summary and an overview of the year’s concert and community activities. The report highlights the thousands of individual, corporate, and foundation donors, plus contributing government agencies, all of whom made the positive outcome possible through their support.
In his message, Mr. LaBarre outlines the numbers for the year — including a record $10.6 million in Annual Fund support. He highlights the Orchestra’s Sound for the Centennial Campaign, with efforts to date having achieved $62 million in cash and pledges to the endowment, and $50 million in legacy commitments. The endowment today stands at $172 million — up from a low of $97 million following the financial crisis in 2008. Building on this success and strong vote of support from Northeast Ohio, the Trustees and staff will now focus on the Campaign’s successful completion by 2018.
“Expanding the endowment to provide a greater contribution to operating budget will provide the Orchestra with the financial strength to remain secure during future difficult economic cycles,” Mr. LaBarre said at the Annual Meeting. “Once this is achieved, we can focus our fundraising efforts on an ever stronger Annual Fund and special fundraising for specific artistic and community initiatives.”
“The achievements of the past year were considerable,” said Mr. Hanson in his remarks. “The annual financial results reinforce the success of recent years, while artistically the Orchestra reached new heights. From coffee shops to cathedrals, from Blossom to Severance Hall, over the past year we continued our dedication to community engagement. Our second annual neighborhood residency, titled ‘At Home in Lakewood, Ohio,’ served to strengthen the bond between The Cleveland Orchestra and the citizens of Northeast Ohio. Concert attendance by young people under age 25 surged to over 41,000 in the past year, with young people now making up over 20% of the audience for classical concerts at Severance Hall, taking us well on our way toward securing the youngest audience of any orchestra.”
