The Utah Symphony has signed a three-year contract with its musicians.
That’s nice.
But they could only do so with the help of a federal negotiator. ‘I’m proud of the successful outcome of these efforts and grateful for the musicians’ cooperation and support in ratifying this agreement early,’ said Melia Tourangeau, outgoing USUO President & CEO. ‘Under the guidance of Federal Mediator Kevin Hawkins, we were able to have productive discussions and build a level of trust I’ve never before experienced during contract talks.’
Why the hell is that? Why can’t orchestral managers and musicians, who went to the same schools and share a common goal, talk to one another without calling in Big Government? But the Met did it. So did Atlanta.
You want to know what’s wrong with US orchestras? That’s wrong.
I’ll take questions on the subject next week at the LOA convention in Cleveland.
Bruce Lundvall died yesterday. A record-biz lifer he rekindled the jazz market in the 1980s by reviving the Blue Note label with such talents as Dianne Reeves, Norah Jones and Bobby McFerrin.
A member of the CBS Masterworks team for two decades until then, he was a music-loving, self-effacing, talent-seeking kind of guy, the best of the old record civilisation. He died of the effects Parkinson’s Disease, aged 79.
On Sunday, Bob Belden suffered a massive coronary and was put on life support.
A former head of A&R at Blue Note, Bob was a versatile saxophonist and prodigious composer who won several Grammys for his Miles Davis reissues.
We hear from close colleagues that a decision was taken today to switch off his life support. Bob was 58.
A whole record culture is slipping away from us.
The result of yesterday’s wave of brief strikes was a swift agreement today to award all musicians in state orchestras and stage staff at opera houses a pay increase of 2.1 or 2.4 percent.
‘We always wanted them to get a well-deserved pay rise,’ said an employers’ spokesman. ‘The strikes were unnecessary.’
As of today, the Chinese pianist is an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts of New York University.
The point being?
To devalue the credibility of an NYU PhD.
What in socks has he done to earn a doctorate?
Tim Page has started a compulsive thread on his Facebook page, calling in song lines that you totally misheard.
Tim heard, ‘You’re like a maggot. I’m like a piece of meat.’ The real lyric is ‘You’re like a magnet. I’m like a piece of steel….’ (Not sure which is preferable.)
I well remember a pop refrain that ran, ‘And I did what I did for Maria.’ My teenaged self and several friends thought the singer was describing an anterior sexual activity.
It appears there is a technical name for these things: a Mondegreen.
It is drawn from a Scottish ballad:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray,
And Lady Mondegreen (recte: And laid him on the green).
Whatever.
So how about the opera and concert lines that we constantly mishear, or hear misquoted?
Pasta Diva.
When I am laid in her.
Come for tea, my people.
Send us your favourites. Here’s an Orfful one to get you started.
The wonderful Emmanuel Ceysson, principal harp at the Bastille for the past decade, has won the audition at the Metropolitan Opera for the seat left vacant by the death of Deborah Hoffman in February 2014.
I loved the fairness of [this] audition: we played behind a screen for all three rounds, we picked numbers for the order, our cell phones were confiscated. The jury had no way to know who we were, how we looked, they only judged us on what they heard…
The semi and finals were on the same day, starting at 3 p.m., and we finished around 10 p.m., it was quite a long and stressful day, but [all] auditions are a challenge…
Most challenging excerpt? Well you can make all excerpts challenging, as any piece of solo repertoire. I loved the repertoire for this audition because it gave us the opportunity to express ourselves in many different ways: Lucia, Chenier, Meistersinger for phrasing, Hansel for virtuosity and stability, Walküre for pedal changes, etc.
Word just in: the Antwerp Philharmonic has turned to Joost Maegerman to be its new intendant.
Joost has been a member of the Rotterdam Philharmonic double-basses for the past few years, and chairman of the orchestra’s musicians board. He comes from Antwerp and still lives there.
Rotterdam colleagues consider him a brilliant all-rounder. Yannick will be sorry to lose him.
The Minnesota Orchestra has renewed music director Osmo Vänskä to the end of the decade, by which time he will have been in charge for 16 years.
It has also signed a new deal with the musicians, raising minimum salaries to $2,127 a week by 2020 and increasing the number of players from 78 to 88.
‘Minnesota is my musical home,’ said Vänskä in the press release. But, as we reported yesterday, he’s selling his downtown pad.
Angela Denoke has pulled out of Gianandrea Noseda’s Berlin Philharmonic debut this weekend with a sick note.
Due to sing the Strauss Four Last Songs, she is replaced at very short notice for the three concerts by the Finnish soprano, Camilla Nylund, a Philharmonie regular who happened to be in Berlin, rehearsing Ariadne at the opera.
‘A dream come true,’ says Camilla.
It’s the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and it’s a dazzling opportunity for an over-the-top cross-dresser.
Click here for details. Apply now. Competition will be tough.
photo: Adrian, 1965, in New York’s 82 Club production
Graham Spicer at Gramilano has exclusive and exciting news of the birth of an Italian opera company dedicated to the baroque. All of its members are under 30.
‘Coin du Roi is the first private opera company in Italy for at least the last 200 years. History shows us that our structure is an efficient one, that of the palchettisti [individually owned boxes in the theatre] which we propose today in the form of a membership which will create a new type of cultural patronage,’ claims its music director, Christian Frattima.
The British pianist James Rhodes has overcome an injunction by his ex-wife to win the right to publish an autobiography containing accounts of his abuse as a child. His ex-wife had sought to stop publication, claiming it might affect the wellbeing of their 11 year-old son.
She fought the case all the way up to the UK Supreme Court, which has just ruled in James’s favour.
The ruling reads: The only proper conclusion is that there is every justification for the publication. A person who has suffered in the way that the appellant has suffered, and has struggled to cope with the consequences of his suffering in the way that he has struggled, has the right to tell the world about it. And there is a corresponding public interest in others being able to listen to his life story in all its searing detail.
James Rhodes said:Clearly this is a victory for freedom of speech. More importantly it is a powerful message to survivors of sexual abuse. There is already too much stigma and shame surrounding mental health and sexual abuse, and although I am horrified that it has taken 14 months of overwhelming stress and expense, I am relieved that our justice system has finally seen sense and not only allowed me to tell my story but affirmed in the strongest possible way that speaking up about one’s own life is a basic human right. I hope the book will help fellow survivors of rape find the courage to speak up. And I hope it will inspire those in pain to find solace in music and togetherness.
James was accompanied to court by the eye-catching actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, who said: ‘We have been friends since school. I am here to give my support. It is a very emotional moment. It is a searing vindication of freedom of speech.’
