This is the time of year when young musicians travel around in search of positions… and few of them can afford the fares and accommodation.

So a pair of Aspen students have come up with a crowdfunding source.

At this stage, it’s open only to string players. Read about it here.

Apply for your funding here.

vienna phil audition2

The great baritone, undergoing treatment in London for a brain tumour, has just posted a defiant picture…

dmitri hvorostovsky

…with a message: ‘Grateful for so much support from my family, friends, medical team, and fans. Fighting the good fight!’

Best news of the day: Simon Keenlyside has confirmed that he will sing Macbeth with the Royal Opera on tour in Japan in September.

Simon has been resting his voice on doctors’ orders since December.

He recently cancelled an October run at the Met, but this appears to be related to personal issues, unconnected to his vocal health. The entire profession will rise to welcome him back.

In other news, Simon will sing Fagin in Oliver! at Grange Park in summer 2016.

keenlyside

Three years ago Yosuke Kawasaki, concertmaster of the National Arts Center orchestra in Ottawa, had his violin and bows seized by Customs on entering Canada. Later, he was ordered to pay a C$120,000 fine to release them.

After fighting the case through the courts he has now been told to pay C$59,650, the amount he would have shelled out at the border had he originally declared the instruments at Customs. Despite the latest remission, it would seem that he has been treated harshly nonetheless.

Report here.

Pinchas Zukerman and NACO concertmaster Yosuke Kawasaki exchange a handshake. (Fred Cattroll photo)

 

Peter Bodenham, a vibrant acting member in the Opera North chorus, has died at the age of 64. He joined the company from Scottish Opera in 1981 and was one of its most popular characters. Notice here.

The Bartered Bride - Smetana - Opera North - 18th October 2014

Conductor - Anthony Kraus
Director - Daniel Slater
Designer - Robert Innes Hopkins
Lighting - Simon Mills

Kecal - James Creswell
Marenka - Kate Valentine
Jenik - Brenden Gunnell
Krusina - Peter Savidge
Ludmila - Ann Taylor
Vasek - Nicholas Watts
Tobias - Stephen Richardson
Hata - Fiona Kimm
Jiri - Peter Bodenham
Esmeralda - Jennifer France

The League of American Orchestras has elected seven board members.

Two are strong characters from the New York Philharmonic – its president Matthew Van Besien and principal clarinet Anthony McGill.

Press release follows.

 

 

New York, NY (August 4, 2015) — Kjristine Lund, Anthony McGill, Alan Pierson, David M. Roth, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Matthew VanBesien, and Jonathan Weedman have been appointed to the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. The League is a membership organization comprised of hundreds of orchestras from across North America.

The seven new board members were elected by League members during the organization’s annual meeting at the end of May 2015.  Each will serve a three-year term. A number of ex-officio Board appointments were also approved, including Simon Woods, Seattle Symphony; Mary Saathoff, Lubbock Symphony Orchestra; and Wendy Young, Symphonicity (orchestra executive directors); Linda Weisbruch, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Volunteer Council president-elect); and Dan Petersen, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra (Youth Orchestra Division). Patricia A. Richards, chair; Steven C. Parish, vice-chair, Robert Peiser, treasurer; and Barry Sanders, secretary, were re-elected as the Board’s officers; each will serve a one-year term.

Kjristine Lund is a member of the Seattle Symphony Board, where she chairs the Marketing Committee and recently served as co-chair of the orchestra’s Strategic Plan. She owns Lund Consulting, a Seattle-based firm she founded in 1990 that develops strategies and provides management and communication services for clients whose projects are typically community-focused. Lund holds an MBA from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in urban affairs from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She was a participant in the League’s Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar in 2002

Anthony McGill has served as principal clarinet in the New York Philharmonic since September 2014, and prior to that held the principal clarinet post for a decade in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra. Other recent engagements have been with the Baltimore, New Jersey, San Diego, and Memphis symphonies. McGill serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Bard College Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan School of Music.

RS6960_artists_anthony_mcgill_9717

Alan Pierson serves as artistic director and conductor of Alarm Will Sound, principal conductor of the Dublin-based Crash Ensemble, and co-director of Northwestern University’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. He was formerly artistic director and conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Pierson has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Steve Reich Ensemble, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble ACJW, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Silk Road Project, and he has been a visiting faculty conductor at Indiana University and Eastman School of Music.

David M. Roth is a principal and managing director of WLD Enterprises, Inc., a private investment company. He was formerly a partner in the Farmington, Connecticut law firm of Levy & Droney, P.C., where he specialized in litigation, investment banking, and public finance law. Roth’s board affiliations include, among others, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (chair 2005-2008 and 2010-2011); Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts; and the Greater Hartford Arts Council. A graduate of Lafayette College, Roth holds an MA from the University of Virginia and a JD from the University of Connecticut.

Daniel Bernard Roumain is a composer and a performer whose work has spanned more than two decades, and who has been commissioned by distinguished artists and institutions worldwide. Roumain is perhaps the only composer whose collaborations span the worlds of Philip Glass, Cassandra Wilson, Bill T. Jones, Savion Glover, and Lady Gaga. Roumain is currently working on We Shall Not Be Moved, a new chamber opera commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, with a libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and directed by Bill T. Jones, and Meditations On Raising Boys, a new oratorio commissioned by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

Matthew VanBesien joined the New York Philharmonic as executive director in 2012 and was named president in 2014. Previously, he served as managing director of Australia’s Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and as executive director and chief executive officer (from 2005-2010) and general manager (from 2003-2005) at the Houston Symphony. VanBesien earned a bachelor of music degree in French horn performance from Indiana University. He was second horn in the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra from 1992 to 2000. VanBesien completed the League’s 2001-02 Orchestra Management Fellowship Program.

Jonathan Weedman has served as senior vice president for the Wells Fargo Foundation since September 1996. He began his career with Wells Fargo in 1989 as a business banking officer and later joined the Premier Banking Division. Weedman serves on the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Colburn School, and the Antaeus Theatre Company, among other organizations, and has chaired the Los Angeles Philharmonic Hollywood Bowl Opening Gala with his partner for the past six years. Weedman attended the University of Southern California and the University of California-Los Angeles, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history.

The Nielsen Soundscan stats are in for the week, and it’s looking bleaker than ever.

The top-selling classical record, Decca’s Monks of Norcia, shifted just 298 units in the USA, physical and digital.

Andrea Bocelli was the only other artist who topped 200.

Worst of all, no entry in the Nielsen top ten was a new release. The classical market is almost wiped out.

monks of norcia

 

 

With all the stubs now counted, the Verbier Festival reckons that it sold 30,000 tickets, 3,000 down on last year.

Worse, almost two-fifth of the tickets were sold during the festival itself, which is a bit last-minute for sound financial planning.

Festival organisers blame the strong Swiss franc for the downturn.

musicians in mountains

Online, the Valery Gergiev concert beat previous viewing records with 34,000 hits.

Research from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston appears to demonstrate that surgeons perform better when there’s music playing in the background – provided it’s music they like.

Fifteen plastic surgeons were asked to close incisions on pigs’ feet on two successive days. When their preferred music was playing, the stitches were better and done significantly faster.

Reports on the study, however, do not indicate which genre of music works best.

UPDATE: Nurses disagree, here.

We know a former cardiac surgeon who only ever cracked open chests while Mozart’s D minor piano concerto (K466) was playing. And always the same interpretation.

Any further examples?

surgeons music
Photo: Matthew Brunwasser

This just in from one of the world’s leading opera houses, La Monnaie in Brussels:

 

Call for proposals for the direction of Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto

While the opera house is being renovated, a process that will take several months, La Monnaie is making preparations for a highly unusual season, away from home. On this occasion, La Monnaie now issues a call for proposals for the direction of Mozart’s Mitridate, which will be performed in ‘La Monnaie’s Big Top’, the legendary tent previously used by both La Fenice and the Opéra Royal de Liège while works were in progress in their opera houses. Offer us your vision of the work and we will provide professional conditions, placing at your disposal the singers, including Michael Spyres in the title role and Lenneke Ruiten and Myrtò Papatanasiu in the roles of Aspasia and Sifare respectively, along with an internationally renowned conductor, Christophe Rousset, the Monnaie Symphony Orchestra, and all the technical teams needed, as well as a budget for your own artistic team.

Your submission, which should not contain your name, should contain your ideas for the staging, sets (see the technical details enclosed), and presentation you envisage for this Mozart opera, as well as a brief description of the artistic team (in a separate document, in order to preserve the anonymity of the description of the artistic project). The budget you will be allocated will cover the remuneration of the artistic team (director, set designer, lighting designer, dramaturge, and choreographer if necessary). Costs linked to the making of sets and costumes will form part of a different budget.
For full technical details relating to the ‘big top’, the size of the budget, the cast, and the rehearsal schedule, send an e-mail to mitridate@lamonnaie.be.

On 28 September 2015, a jury made up of professionals, appointed by La Monnaie, will choose three projects from among those submitted. The three artistic teams in question will be invited to La Monnaie (a maximum of two individuals per team) to take part in a workshop on 13, 14, and 15 October 2015, at the conclusion of which their proposals will be presented to the members of the jury. Travel expenses connected with participation will be reimbursed by La Monnaie.

On 15 October 2015, the jury will choose a proposal for the staging of Mitridate, which will be performed as part of La Monnaie’s programming on seven dates in May 2016 (from 5 to 19 May) in ‘La Monnaie’s Big Top’ at Tour & Taxis. Rehearsals are due to begin on 29 March 2016.

Candidates should ensure that their proposal, in English, in five copies, arrives before 18 September 2015 at this address: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie / Mitridate / Marie Goffette / 4 rue Léopold / 1000 Bruxelles. Please do not forget to give an e-mail address with your submission, so that we can acknowledge receipt of your submission.

la monnaie

Mannes is moving next month from the Upper West Side to join New School in Greenwich Village. The aim is less Brahms, more contemporary.

To that end, the college has gone out hiring, among others:

Composers Lowell Liebermann, Missy Mazzoli (pictured) and David Little, violinist Miranda Cuckson, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, pianist Jeremy Denk, Met concertmaster David Chan, Wall Street Journal theatre critic Terry Teachout and New York Philharmonic principal violist Cynthia Phelps.

It’s a whole new school.

missy mazzoli
Photo: Marylene Mey

When a Bach pianist turns to Beethoven, you can expect a lighter touch. Angela Hewitt is airily delightful in the earliest of these sonatas – the Op.2 No.2 which Beethoven wrote aged 25 after finishing his course of studies in Vienna. By no means an early work in the normal sense of the term, this sonata is imbued with, if anything, too much knowledge…

angela hewitt

 

From my Album of the Week on sinfinimusic.com. Read the full review here.