A sign of things to come: Sir Simon Rattle’s next record deal is with his next orchestra.

His debut release is Schumann Das Paradies und die Peri.

Sample here:

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St Thomas Church in Leipzig has summoned four cantors to audition. They are:

Markus Teutschbein of Basle;

Clemens Flämig of Halle;

KMD Prof. Dr. h.c. Markus Johannes Langer of Rostock;

and Matthias Jung of the Dresden Boys’ choir.

Details here.

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On Saturday, September 5, a radical Toronto goup will present a mass performance (#1000strings) of John Oswald’s piece, Spectre. They are looking for volunteers.

#1000strings is an accessible, participatory piece designed for all ages and levels. #1000strings is calling all Toronto string players to come and perform alongside a star studded lineup of violinists, violists, cellists, bassists.

You can register here.

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At KUHA 91.7 FM, General Manager Lisa Shumate has told the University of Houston officials she wants to sell the frequency and transmitter for the station. Cassical broadcasting will continue online only.

This is part of an alarming trend. Read here.

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Stephen Moss in the Guardian has a splendid interview with Jonas Kaufmann, who lets it be known that he’ll be the one singing ‘Rule, Britannia’ at the Last Night of the Proms. Stephen suggests he should try one verse in German.

Jonas is still thinking about that one.

Read here.

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Anne Akiko Meyers has been the subject of a hate campaign after she posted a foolish response to the birth of a non-white orchestra. Her response:  I wonder if you have to be black to solo with this orchestra? #reversediscrimination

The tweet was circulated on social media by a malign strings enterprise. Anne has now issued this contrite statement on violinist.com:

“Quickly, I realized the implications were just so horrible and dreadful that I took down the post almost immediately, about 20 minutes later,” Meyers told me this morning, speaking over the phone. “I am extremely sorry. It was a very big mistake and I in no way stand behind that question, in no way.”

End of non-story.

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NMC Recordings announces:

MARTLAND REVEALED!

This double album anthology includes a booklet that features a foreword from Louis Andriessen along with many tributes and photos.

COMING SOON on NMC: You can pre-order the album (and hear extracts of it) at http://nmcrec.co.uk/recording/martland

 

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Steve Martland died in May 2013, aged 59. He is greatly missed.

We hear that IMG Artists co-owner Alexander Shustorovich has been going around the festival circuit saying that he’s negotiating to buy CAMI.

IMGA and CAMI are the world’s two largest classical agencies.

This may be happy-hour talk, or it may be Russian bluff. But CAMI is ripe for the plucking now that Ronald Wilford is no more and Jean-Jacques Cesbron has hived off  the commercial bits into a separate company, CAMIMusic.

Whether fraudster-co-owned IMG is a fit and proper proprietor for CAMI, and whether any such deal would pass US anti-trust laws, is another matter altogether. But a deal is in the air. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

 

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Wissman (l), Shustorovich (r), rich pal inbetween

The big issue of the day is whether Congressmen and women should rise to applaud when the Pope pauses for breath in his inaugural address on September 24.

Everything, it appears, is political. Here’s the tenor of debate in the Catholic press:

Is a papal address to Congress like a symphony or an opera? If it is a symphony, then members of Congress should sit quietly through the address until the pope finishes. You do not applaud during a symphony, even between movements. If it is opera, then the members would be permitted to jump up and applaud whenever they think the pope hits the right note.

In the political theater that is Washington, this distinction really matters. The state of the union address is clearly opera with the president’s party responding to applause lines. Should this be the model for the pope’s address to a joint session of Congress on September 24? The general consensus is that the Democrats are better off if the papal address is treated like an opera while the Republicans would be better off with a symphony.

Read on here.

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