Alexander Gilman, artistic director of Swiss-based LGT Young Soloists tells us his orchestra is stranded in Hong Kong, refused boarding by a customer-unfriendly airline.

Hi Norman,

The LGT Young Soloists, a youth orchestra with young musicians had a tournee of 5 concerts in Asia. We arrived with Singapore Airlines to Hong Kong and were supposed to fly out today from Hong Kong back via Singapore to Zurich. They did not let us on the plane because they wanted us to check our instruments even though the cellos had extra seats booked by us. They wanted to force us to check violins with the suitcases.

I told them we had Stradivaris and extremely expensive violins. Their answer was they don’t care, it is our policy. We are stuck here in the evening now with young kids and don’t know what to do.

The pilot refused to come out and talk to us. The crew was laughing at us and telling us we can only come in if we check in 8 violins and 2 violas. The contrabass were already checked in and the two cellos had seats booked.

They did not let us on board only because of violins and violas, even though we told them that we are speaking about Millions of Euros that will be destroyed. Their answer was they don’t care and that this is Singapore Airlines Policy.

Additionally, they checked in the two cellos before and separated the minor kids who own them for two hours from us. They did not let the two girls join us for two hours. These two girls did not know what happened for two hours until the crew decided to let them and the luggage out. The two girls were panicking and scared, sitting outside in the airport not knowing what happened until we found them.

Now they are taking pictures of our instruments to send it to Lufthansa to check with them if the size is ok to be checked in.

And the outcome? Click here.

David Danzmayr, fast-rising music director of the Illinois Philharmonic has been named chief of the Zagreb Phil in Croatia.

The Seattle Symphony, ‘fastest rising US orch of 2014‘, has received six Grammy nominations for two own-label releases, including Producer of the Year for Dmitri Lipay and best contemporary for John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean.

No other US orch label apparently comes close.

Stephen Jay Carlton, 46, has been convicted of stealing $272,000 from a California orchestra. But it appears he has a prior conviction for manslaughter over strangling his wife, possibly in a sexual accident. So they’re throwing awat the key.

Read here.

Norman Schoer played viola in the 1943 Broadway premiere of Oklahoma. He went on to serve the Lyric for 25 years, retiring at 84.

Whatever became of his beautiful Amati?

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Information received:

The Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez is the founder of a social project in Peru, trying to improve the life of children and youngsters through music. Following the philosophy of the Venezuelan “El Sistema”, Flórez has founded “Sinfonia por el Peru”, a project, that currently reaches out to 9 of the most difficult regions of Peru and to about 2000 children, who attend music schools and, by learning together in the orchestras and choirs, learn about societal values like respect, consequence and diligence, they experience growing self-esteem and are able to develop their skills as musicians and singers.

To create awareness for his own as well as for other projects of the same kind, Juan Diego Flórez has decided to put together an orchestra – The Harmonia Symphony – consisting of young musicians from different music projects. This orchestra will accompany Flórez and his singer colleagues Fatma Said (Egypt), Pretty Yende (South Africa) and Sergey Artamonov (Russia) in a concert on Human Rights Day  in Geneva on December 10, 2014. Youngsters from South America, South Africa, Asia and Europe will play together, conducted by Spanish conductor Pablo Mielgo. For many of the musicians it is the first international concert.

Projects involved:

• Academia Filarmonica de Medellin (AFMED, Colombia)
• The National System of Youth and Children Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela
• Superar (Austria, Switzerland)
• MusicEnsemble (Geneva, Switzerland)
• The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy (USA)
• The Mangaung String Program (Bloemfontein, South Africa)
• Bravura Musical Foundation (Cochabamba, Bolivia)
• Sinfonía por el Perú  (Peru)
• Verbier Festival Orchestras (Switzerland)
• The “Sistema Orchestre e Cori Giovanili e Infantili in Italia” (Italy)

The concert will broadcasted live to over 63 countries.