Good news from the graveyard shift.

Last August we reported that Sacramento had lost both its orchestra and opera company, leaving the state capital of California dry of classical music.

Now, a team from the Detroit Symphony has found a way to bring them back.

Read here.

The results of the public vote are in… and they are decisive.

More than half the votes cast (51%) went to two men in their thirties, Andris Nelsons and Gustavo Dudamel (voters were not informed that Dude has made himself unavailable). Thielemann was polled 17%

Here are the poll results:

Andris Nelsons: 448 votes

Gustavo Dudamel: 229

Christian Thielemann: 223

Daniel Barenboim: 125

Mariss Jansons: 116

Riccardo Chailly: 56

Riccardo Muti: 47

Yannick Nézet-Séguin: 37

Others: 37

After listening to 152 contenders, the Chopin judges have agreed on 84 finalists for October. The largest contingents are from Poland and China – 15 each. There are 12 pianists from Japan, 9 from South Korea and 7 from Russia. Two of the Russians appear to be sisters.

1. Ms Soo Jung Ann (South Korea)
2. Ms Miyako Arishima (Japan)
3. Mr Tymoteusz Bies (Poland)
4. Mr Rafał Błaszczyk (Poland)
5. Mr Łukasz Piotr Byrdy (Poland)
6. Ms Michelle Candotti (Italy)
7. Mr Luigi Carroccia (Italy)
8. Ms Galina Chistiakova (Russia)
9. Ms Irina Chistiakova (Russia)

10. Mr Seong-Jin Cho (South Korea)

11. Mr Ashley Fripp (United Kingdom)
12. Ms Yasuko Furumi (Japan)
13. Ms Saskia Giorgini (Italy)
14. Ms Katarzyna Gołofit (Poland)
15. Mr Adam Mikołaj Goździewski (Poland)
16. Ms Ivett Gyӧngyӧsi (Hungary)
17. Mr Chi Ho Han (South Korea)
18. Mr Olof Hansen (France)
19. Mr Zhi Chao Julian Jia (China)
20. Mr Aljoša Jurinić (Croatia)
21. Ms Joo Yeon Ka (South Korea)
22. Mr Honggi Kim (South Korea)
23. Ms Su Yeon Kim (South Korea)
24. Ms Yedam Kim (South Korea)
25. Ms Yurika Kimura (Japan)
26. Ms Dinara Klinton (Ukraine)
27. Ms Aimi Kobayashi (Japan)
28. Mr Qi Kong (China)
29. Mr Marek Kozák (Czech Republic)
30. Mr Łukasz Krupiński (Poland)
31. Mr Krzysztof Książek (Poland)
32. Ms Rachel Naomi Kudo (United States)
33. Mr George Li (United States)
34. Mr Ning Yuen Li (China)
35. Ms Kate Liu (United States)
36. Mr Eric Lu (United States)
37. Ms Tian Lu (China)
38. Mr Xin Luo (China)
39. Mr Roman Martynov (Russia)
40. Ms Nagino Maruyama (Japan)
41. Mr Vladimir Matusevich (Russia)
42. Ms Nao Mieno (Japan)
43. Mr Łukasz Mikołajczyk (Poland)
44. Mr Paweł Motyczyński (Poland)
45. Ms Alexia Mouza (Greece)
46. Ms Jiyeong Mun (South Korea)
47. Ms Mayaka Nakagawa (Japan)
48. Ms Nozomi Nakagiri (Japan)
49. Mr Szymon Nehring (Poland)
50. Ms Anastasiia Nesterova (Russia)
51. Ms Ronald Noerjadi (Indonesia)
52. Ms Mariko Nogami (Japan)
53. Mr Piotr Nowak (Poland)
54. Ms Arisa Onoda (Japan)
55. Mr Georgijs Osokins (Latvia)
56. Mr Jinhyung Park (South Korea)
57. Mr Piotr Ryszard Pawlak (Poland)
58. Ms Zuzanna Pietrzak (Poland)
59. Ms Tiffany Poon (China)
60. Mr Kausikan Rajeshkumar (United Kingdom)
61. Mr Charles Richard-Hamelin (Canada)
62. Ms Tamila Salimdjanova (Uzbekistan)
63. Mr Cristian Ioan Sandrin (Romania)
64. Ms Natalie Schwamová (Czech Republic)
65. Mr Aristo Chingtoa Sham (China)
66. Ms Boyang Shi (China)
67. Mr Dmitry Shishkin (Russia)
68. Ms Rina Sudo (Japan)
69. Mr Michał Szymanowski (Poland)
70. Ms Rikono Takeda (Japan)
71. Mr Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev (Russia)
72. Mr Alexei Tartakovsky (United States)
73. Mr Hin-Yat Tsang (China)
74. Mr Alexander Ullman (United Kingdom)
75. Mr Chao Wang (China)
76. Mr ZhuWang (China)
77. Mr Andrzej Wierciński (Poland)
78. Mr Yuchong Wu (China)
79. Mr Zi Xu (China)
80. Mr Yike (Tony) Yang (Canada)
81. Ms Yuliya Yermalayeva (Belarus)
82. Mr Cheng Zhang (China)
83. Ms Chuhan Zhang (China)
84. Ms Annie Zhou (Canada)

Not because he loves music, necessarily. Owning a record label no longer makes you rich.

But Warner owner Len Blavatnik, 57, who tops the Sunday Times Rich List with £13.17 billion, is known to have some cultural interests. He was among four backers, for instance, of the movie Woman in Gold, a tale of post-Nazi art restitution, and he is said to be a huge fan of Fiddler on the Roof.

He bought Warner for $3.3bn, a rather small part of his fortune, and goes around telling people, ‘I bought a record company at the wrong time.’ His ambition for Warner: ‘Even though it’s the music business, it’s still business.’

Born in Odessa, he described his boyhood in Russia as ‘this little Jewish kid, walking around with a violin case’.

Read full New Yorker profile here.

Our eagle-eyed social affairs correspondent spotted a small-ads announcement in yesterday’s Times (recte), announcing the engagement of Mr Iestyn Davies, countertenor of this parish, to Ms Gemma Lawley, of Shropshire.

We wish them lasting happiness.

The groom is a magnificent proponent of countercultural subversion.

Let us know how you/your friends get on.

The ugly political eruption at Friday night’s Jerusalem Quartet concert could and should have been prevented. The Quartet are a regular target for a small, known group of disrupters. The Wigmore Hall, where they usually play, have taken measures to exclude those noise-makers and, if one slips through, to eject the agitator with minimum fuss and force.

The Queen Elizabeth Hall was wantonly unprepared for the eventuality.

Ariane Todes of Elbow Music tells Slipped Disc:

 
‘The hall had lots of security guards on the outside, fussing around with walkie talkies, but no security measures at all – no bag searches or anything, and lots of different doors to the foyer. When the shouting started (in the Minuet and trio of the Mozart) a couple of ushers went up to the guy and must have asked him to leave but he just kept going and the woman joined in. It took a minute for a lady with a walkie talkie to come by but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything either. None of the security guards from outside came in. A guy from the audience walked up to them and started getting angry with them. I’m not entirely sure what happened at the end but it looked like they were gently prodded out.’

Ariane adds: ‘The players kept their focus brilliantly, though, and  it was a superb concert – possibly the best quartet playing I’ve heard live.’

‘In 35 years reviewing for The Times,’ says Hilary Finch in the paper’s ombudsman column, ‘I’ve felt that what I’ve been paid to do is not to criticise, but to report – as succinctly and vividly as possible. And to report for a newspaper which has always thought – and I hope always will – that the remarkable things that are going on in classical music-making up and down the country is a story worth telling.’

Some may find her attitude old-fashioned in a decade when music critics seek to stoke controversy with comments about body-shape and fuel a bandwaggon for or against a second concert hall or opera house.

We find Hilary’s comments refreshing, professional and timely. Hilary has always been a trusted voice in the stalls, eminently knowledgeable, shrewd and humane in her judgements. She will file her last review at the end of his week. We wish her a very happy retirement.

The Morgenpost has opened its website until 5pm today for Berlin citizens to vote on who they would like to see as the next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Readers (and listeners to RBB) are invited to choose between Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Chailly, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christian Thielemann. (Two of these, Muti and Nézet-Séguin, are contractually unavailable).

It’s an interesting initative and some of the comments on the site are highly intelligent. But the Berlin Phil players, when they come to vote on May 11, will be looking far beyond the sympathies of Berlin in deciding on a conductor with the potential to refurbish their international profile.

Click here for mock election.

Oh, and we’ve just received these Bayreuth pit-camera pics of the Christian T. candidate.

UPDATE: Now click here for the results.