The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has named Regina Han general director of Korea National Opera. It’s a key post. South Korea is producing many of the winners of international singing contests.

Regina, 44, also known as Han Ye-jin, enjoyed a stage career as an international soprano before entering academic life.

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Bachtrack has published its annual account of who did what in 2014. As usual, women conductors and composers are somewhere way below the radar and the busiest orchestras are mostly American.

That, however, is a slight distortion.

The rankings are based on concerts listed on the Bachtrack site. That’s quite limiting.

Many European orchestras are busier by day than some US orchs are by night. They are recording games and film tracks, bustling abaout on social and educational missions and generally fulfilling more ‘services’ (the US term) than their transAtlantic counterparts.

So, while the rankings are of interest, they are not a valid reflection of the productivity of orchestras.

Let alone conductors.

world orchestra for peace

It’s 60 years ago tonight – January 7, 1955 – that Marian Anderson finally broke the Metropolitan Opera’s colour barrier.

We think now of American apartheid as belonging to the former slave-owning southern states. It didn’t. It existed, too, in the metropolitan heart of liberal New York.

Anderson, whose cause had been championed by no less than a president’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, had to wait until her late fifties to make her Met debut. On breakthrough night, she sang Ulrica, in Ballo in Maschera.

Too late for her, perhaps, but she broke the ice for others to follow.

NPR has a short feature, here.

Sixty years is not a long time. It’s within the living memory of many Met subscribers. The house should pause tonight to remember.

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They have a series of New Year concerts throughout January at the South Denmark Philharmonic.

In order to rouse the bucolic audience from festive stupor, the enterprising conductor David Riddell decided to absail down from the roof – a matter of 15 metres – while the orch struck up the Radetzky March.

The effect was so exhilarating, a spokesperson said, that the orch is thinking of making it a requirement for all other conductors.
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photo (c) SDP/Slipped Disc

Might work well in Vienna.

‘He invited me to the football World Cup. Well, I am Brazilian…’

More here.

pereira girl

They’ve added a new V-P, Lisa Mantone, to head the development department, whichh includes fundraising, PR and publications, the last two of which need a kick up the foundations. Lisa started out at the NYPO, before going on to raise squillions for Columbia University, MoMA and WNET.

In a separate move, Bill Thomas, senior V-P, is named Chief Operating Officer (COO).

lisa mantone

Pinchas Zukerman’s time is almost up. They’re calling in extra batons. Press release below.

 

 

storgards

January 6, 2015 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Today, the National Arts Centre Orchestra strengthened its artistic leadership with the appointment of John Storgårds, Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, as its Principal Guest Conductor, effective September 1, 2015. It also announced contract renewals for Alain Trudel as Principal Youth and Family Conductor and Jack Everly as Principal Pops Conductor.

 

The Storgårds appointment is a three-year contract. The orchestra musicians and administration are all smiles.

 

Storgårds made his conducting debut with the NAC Orchestra in 2013 with an all-Finnish program to great acclaim, and last year shaped and conducted the orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No 8.

 

Commenting on the appointment, NAC Music Director Designate Alexander Shelley said, “I’m thrilled that distinguished Finnish conductor John Storgårds has accepted this post. I admire his work and look forward to his exciting artistic contribution.”

Just click on pic.

 

airport dance

The Mayor of Saint-Etienne in the Loire region of France has a lawsuit on his hands.

Conductor Laurent Campellone, 42, dismissed after 11 years as music director of the Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Etienne by the Mayor, Gaël Perdriau, is suing for aggravated damage. The theatre’s director general and head of production were also fired, allegedly for misconduct.

Campellone, a Christoph Eschenbach protégé, is fuming. He accuses the Mayor of ‘une violence inhumaine et s’apparente à une véritable rafle’ – the last noun being a coded reference to police roundups during the German Occupation.

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The endlessly inventive animator film producer Andras Erkel,  founder of Hungary’s Studio Baestarts, has died of brain cancer.

After launching with a Simpsons music cartoon, he worked with MTV, HBO, Disney, Warner, BBC, ITV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, ZDF, WDR and Svensk Film.

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This one-minute video, retrieved from the company’s bunker,  is what CNN will screen in the event of a nuclear wipeout.

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Assuming anyone’s watching CNN.

(The BBC probably has Abide With Me in the  nuclear safe).

The conductor Joe Guercio, who arranged ‘The Way We Were’ for Barbra Streisand and much else, has died in Nashville, aged 87.

His greatest triumph was the six-note theme that heralded Elvis Presley’s arrival on stage.

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Joe was in charge of the band at the Las Vegas Hilton when Elvis first swung by.