Sascha Weidner, an award-winning German nature photographer who masterminded the Deutsche Oper’s posters for the past three seasons, has dropped dead of a heart attack.

Our sympathies to his family and colleagues.

photos (c) Sascha Weidner estate

Just to show they are more than Facebook friends, the Yuri Bashmet International Charitable Fund has awarded its 2014 Dmitry Shostakovich prize – $25k and a statuette – to the Verbier Festival founder, Martin Engstrom.

Past winners include Denis Matsuev, Yefim Bronfman, Maxim Vengerov and Evgeny Kissin.

Gareth Davies, principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra, has written a beautiful portrait of his colleague, John Alley, who has reached retirement age.

Do not miss the video clip where John downs a pint while playing a Shostakovich cadenza at the BBC Proms.

Click here.

pictured: John Alley, flanked by Andrew Marriner and Moray Welsh

UPDATE: Message from John Alley: Flattered as he is to receive a plethora of kind comments and messages, John Alley would like to announce that HE HASN’T RETIRED. Because of LSO rules he is no longer Principal Keyboard Player. He is still available through the normal channels. Many Thanks. J. A.

The great harpsichord player  Zuzana Ruzickova turned 88 this week. She lives in Prague and continues to offer guidance to a new generation of performers.

Tomorrow, she celebrates the 70th anniversary of her liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp – a hell worse than Auschwitz, as she descries it.

She is talking to Frank Vogl, who is making a film of her life. ‘The spirit of Bach was always with me and kept me alive,’ says Zuzana.

Read the interview here.

Lauri Porra is bassist in the Finnish heavy metal band, Stratovarius (2.5 million worldwide sales).

His grandma’s father was Jean Sibelius (spot the likeness?)

So for the Sibelius 150 year, Lauri has given up the metal and written a concerto for electric bass and symphony orchestra.

You can watch it here. Worth it, to see a Sibelius plucking those strings.