Allan “AJ” Nilles, formerly violist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, has won the audition for tutti violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
He has been living in Berlin since January and announced the move in a San Diego interview. He was added today to the Berlin Phil roster.
A correspondent in Vancouver reports:
On Friday night (May 1) Yo-Yo Ma filled in for a cellist in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra who threw out his back.
It is not unheard of for Yo-Yo to join the section after he plays the concerto, but in this case, he played in the cello section in the first half of the concert, and then performed the Dvorak Concerto in the second half.
During the extended ovation, Yo Yo took a selfie with conductor Bramwell Tovey.
There were two Germans and a Taiwanese in the final. Here’s what happened.
Press release: 317 aspiring conductors applied for entry to the 2015 Malko Competition. Two dozen made it through
pre-selection. After five intense days at DR Koncerthuset the victor was crowned in Copenhagen tonight.
HRH Prince Henrik, the patron of the competition, was able to announce Tung-Chieh Chuang, 32, from Taiwan as the winner of this year’s competition. David Niemann from Germany won second prize, and third prize went to Jesko Sirvend also from Germany.
Tung-Chieh Chuang will receve a €20,000 cheque and have jury president Sakari Oramo as his mentor for the next three years. The title also brings engagements with twenty-seven of the leading European orchestras, including the Stockholm Phiharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Munich Philharmonic, and of course with the competition hosts, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
President of the Jury, maestro Sakari Oramo commented: “The competition has a thoroughly high level, every single one of the 24 original contestants hold a professional ability to conduct. The differences are in their respective ways to lead, inspire and enthuse the orchestra, as well as in the many nuances of their musicianship. Feedback sessions that all contestants have spent with every jury member have been the most valuable and important element of this competition. I am very much looking forward to working as a mentor for Tung-Chieh Chuang.“
About the winner: Tung-Chieh Chuang
The breakthrough for Tung-Chieh Chuang, 32, from Taiwan came in 2013 when he won the Mahler Competition. Since winning 2nd prize and audience prize at the most recent Solti competition (1st prize not awarded), Chuang has attracted numerous worldwide engagements. He has worked with Die 12 Cellisten der Berliner Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, National Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), Taipei Symphony Orchestra, among others.
The composer Rodion Schhedrin has reported the death of his wife, the legendary dancer Maya Plisetskaya, aged 89.
She died of heart attack in Germany. ‘The German doctors did their best, but she could not be saved,’ said Shchedrin.
Born into a Jewish family whose father was murdered by Stalin in 1938, Plisetskaya first danced at the Bolshoi when she was 11. She inherited Ulanova’s title as prima ballerina assoluta in 1961. Among the roles she created were Moiseyev’s Spartacus (1958), Grigorovich’s The Stone Flower (1959), Aurora in Grigorovich’s The Sleeping Beauty (1963), Alberto Alonso’s Carmen Suite (1967), written especially for her, and Bejart’s Isadora (1976).
Her supremacy was inviolable. She once received a half-hour standing ovation at the Metropolitan Opera.
Here she is, dancing at 61:
Christopher Russell, who has come across this footage, wonders if this was the last time a nation paid full honours to a dead composer.
Was any of our readers present at the ceremony?
Geek Out! at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford reminds us that Mahler’s first symphony was the original trial work on a network of ZX Spectrum computers in the mid-1980s. Why Mahler?
Invented by Lady Gaga’s accompanist, Brockett Parsons.
He’s calling it Pianoarc.
