New research by Dr Christina Scharff  at Kings College London finds extensive inequalities at every level of the classical music profession with regard to sex, class, education and ethnicity.

Among its findings:

– The proportion of women working in the arts and cultural sector  has fallen to 43%;

–  women earn less than men (£29,015, compared to £34,669)

–  only 7% of the cultural workforce was from a black and minority ethnic background;

– just 3.9 % of students at five conservatories were from ‘low participation neighbourhoods’;

– the middle-class culture of music education may explain why classical music continues to appeal to middle-class audiences.

The report recommends ‘The introduction of quotas to increase the representation of minority groups. Quotas can be applied to … commissions, prizes, scholarships, concert programming, conductors and composers.’

Read the full report here. We will be surprised if this recommendation does not become Labour Party policy and an Arts Council condition for obtaining grants.

h/t: John Williamson

Sistema_Scotland3_-_Marc_Marnie_328_221_s_c1_center_top

 

 

The weekly list of US classical sales becomes ever more depressing.

Only Bocelli reached 1,000 CD and download sales on Nielsen Soundscan last week; the next best record failed to sell 400.

But the most shocking stat is that a new DG release by Piotr Beczala, the Polish tenor who has been wowing Met audiences in Iolanta, managed to sell just 120 items in a week. In the whole of the USA.

It looks like curtains for the record biz.

beczala

A production of Tannhäuser in Novosibirsk has drawn a complaint from the Russian Orthodox church and a police charge of offending religious sensibilities against the director, Timofei Kulyabin.

tannhauser siberia

production shot

He is accused of public ‘desecration of the object of religious worship in Christianity – the image of Jesus Christ in the Gospels’. The show opened in December and Novosibirsk Opera will revive it next month. Metropolitan Tikhon, head of the Orthodox church in the region, compared the offence it caused to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in France. Kulyabin, 30, an award-winning director, calls his complaint ‘absurd.’

He could face a heavy fine, or jail, if found guilty of blasphemy.

Mitropolit-Novosibirskiy-i-Berdskiy-Tihon-325x231

The video…. the coverage… the commentary.

She wrote on Instagram: ‘Armani hooked me up! My beautiful cape was tied too tight! But nothing can stop me and love really lifted me up! Thanks for your good wishes! I’m fine! #livingforlove.’

MAdonna falls

The Welsh mezzo-soprano Maureen Guy, who saing in Igor Stravinsky’s 80th birthday Athens production of Oedipus Rex and in Georg Solti’s Decca Ring cycle, has died, aged 82.

Her sorrowing husband, whom she married in 1958, is the tenor John Mitchinson.

Our warm sympathies to John and their two sons, David and Mark.
maureen guy

Productions are coming thick and fast for Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera, The Passenger. It opened to standing ovations and rave reviews in Chicago on Tuesday and has its next production in Frankfurt-am-Main on Sunday.

Problem, though. Frankfurt’s British conductor, Leo Hussain, has fallen sick after five weeks of arduous rehearsals.

He will be substituted by a Frankfurt debutant,  Christoph Gedschold, who gave the opera its German premiere in Karlsruhe, back in 2013. The work is known in German by the feminine title, Die Passagierin.

Passagierin_OPFFM_02m_c_BarbaraAumueller

production photo: Barbara Aumueller

christian mason

The British composer Christian Mason, 30, woke up a lot less poor this morning. Click here. Christian lives in London and works with the LSO.

Friederike Starkloff has taken over as first concertmaster of the NDR Philharmonic in Hannover.

Originally from Chemnitz, she has won any number of competitions and plays a J.B. Guadagnini, on loan from the Baden-Württemberg State Collection. She has recorded Mozart sonatas on the Oehms label and is a fearless performer.

She succeeds Volker Worlitzsch, who has retired.

friederike starkloff

Joshua Gersen his name is, and he starts in September.

A Curtis grad, he has been music director of the New York Youth Symphony for the past couple of years. WQXR have an interview here.

joshua gersen

In rugby news….. the chief executive of Welsh Rugby Union will step down after the World Cup this autumn.

Roger Lewis, who will be 61, is a former head of BBC Radio 1, Decca Records, EMI Classics and Classic FM.

He has one more job left in him.

Obvious vacancies: BBC Proms controller, Classic FM, English National Opera… IMG Artists…

 

roger lewis

Don Puryear of Steinway Piano Gallery of Houston writes:
Last week in the Steinway Showroom, I met Betty Ruth Tomfohrde. She asked me to play Chopin’s Ocean Etude on the Horowitz Steinway for her, and after I finished, I asked her to play Chopin for me. I’m not sure what I was expecting….but I wasn’t expecting THIS!

Ruth is the mother of Janis Susskind, managing director of Boosey & Hawkes music publishers, who is happy for this video to be widely shared. Juilliard trained, Ruth was professor at the Moore School of Music in Houston, and regular recital partner of Andor Toth (Sr.), Fredell Lack, and Laszlo Varga.

ruth betty tomfohrde

h/t: Rosie Johnson

Barely had they broken on Women’s Wear Daily as the new power couple of the opera stage than soprano Ailyn Pérez and tenor Stephen Costello are getting divorced (our social affairs correspondent reports).

CostelloPerezLove

Rumours had been floating for a while. Pérez is currently singing Micaela in the Met’s Carmen. On February 9, she told Latin Post: ‘I’m about to start a new page. A different life but I don’t know what it looks like. This one has been intense, I don’t know how I am going to lighten it up but maybe I’ll hang out with friends more, meeting new people, getting a hobby.’

The following day Costello announced on his web page: It is with great sadness that I share the news that my wife Ailyn Pérez and I have separated, with the intention of divorcing.  I am very grateful for all of the love we’ve received over the years from our friends, family, colleagues and fans, and hope you will continue to show your support for us by respecting our privacy at this difficult time.’

Their debut album, Love Duets, was released ten months ago. Sad.