Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo library announces with great sadness the passing of Georg Anderhub, our superb performing arts photographer based in Lucerne, on 19 July 2015 aged 66.
We send our deepest condolences to his mourning family and friends. He worked with the Lebrecht photo library for many years and was always on hand to help us with special requests for the great musicians and conductors who passed in front of his insightful camera lens.
Georg’s close friend and colleague, Suzie Maeder, has written to us:
A brilliant photographer, he was not only a professional colleague but a friend since childhood. After graduating from the same high school in Lucerne we both embarked on a career in photography. Georg studied in Zurich whilst I moved to London. He first joined the Luzerner Neuste Nachrichten as a staff photographer but went freelance in 1994.
His love for music and theatre enabled him to create portraits of incredible insight and creativity and he has documented the Lucerne Festival since 1973. In books, newspapers, magazines and exhibitions his reportages about a wealth of subjects were published and shown. Georg was a superb visual storyteller.
Initial reports indicated the David Roth, general director of Kentucky Opera, died on Sunday when his car ran off the highway and hit a tree.
His family have now been told that Roth, 56, died of a heart attack while driving. Details here.
Joseph Cullen, who pleaded guilty to offences against two boys aged eight and eleven, was sentenced in Glasgow today to 12 months in jail.
Cullen, 55, was successively director of the London Symphony Chorus and the celebrated Huddersfield Choral Society.
This is Leif Ove Andsnes at Marylebone today, and he’s doing it for a film.
South Florida lost three classical stations last week when the Minnesota owner sold them to Christian operators. Miami critic Lawrence A. Johnson is incensed. So are many Slipped Disc readers.
Larry assesses the options for a non-Christian resurrection here.
Richard Nass, who played English horn (cor anglais) at the Metropolitan Opera, for forty-eight seasons until his retirement in 1999, has died at the age of 96. Before the Met, he played six seasons for Fritz Reiner in Pittsburgh.
Richard is survived by his wife, Met cellist Marian Heller, and three children.
The latest summer victim of airline maltreatment is the distinguished NY-based French bass player, Joëlle Léandre. Joelle flew Austrian to the avant-garde Nickelsdorf Konfrontation festival last week when this happened.
She won’t be flying Austrian again any time soon. We’re awaiting a response from the airline.
Joelle, who is also a singer and composer, has performed with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, as well as John Cage and the Merce Cunningham company.
Founder of the Chicago Sinfonietta and a widely known guest conductor, Paul Freeman has died at 79.
Born in Richmond, Va., Paul conducted more than 100 orchestras in over 30 countries and made around 90 recordings, many of them in London and Prague. He retired four years ago in declining health.
His papers are held at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College, Chicago.
The Berlin Phil have posted a subtitled interview clip from 2012 with their incoming chief conductor.
Asked how he gets his particular sound in each piece with an orchestra, he tells clarinettist Alexander Bader: ‘I work on it a lot at home. When I study a score I learn it page by page and I sing it to myself.
‘Otherwise when I step in front of this kind of orchestra you have so much coming at you, unless you have your own idea of sound you will just go under….It ought to sound different with every conductor.’
The interview was filmed the last time Kirill worked with Berlin, in December 2012.
The ivory ban imposed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and followed by some other nations has left many musicians in a state of high anxiety about getting their instruments through airports.
Joey Grimmer, incoming principal bassoon of Kennedy Center and Washington National Opera orchestra, has compiled an indispensable guide to instruments and ivory.
From ascertaining whether you have any ivory to learning how to obtain the appropriate instrument passport, you absolutely need to read and keep this guide if you want to travel in peace.
Get a CITES Musical Instrument Certificate and use it every time you travel internationally
Have the ivory removed
I know some people who have opted for option 1 and I highly discourage it. These instruments are many of our livelihoods and Congress has given the FWS the authority to seize property that contains undocumented ivory. This is no idle threat and we have seen instances of ivory being confiscated.
Alexander Toradze, the Georgian pianist and Valery Gergiev pal, has been a professor at Indiana University South Bend since 1991. They haven’t seen him since last August and have no idea when he’s likely to return.
‘It’s a personnel issue and we can’t comment on it,’ says the college. More here.