Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Lithuanian winner of the 2012 Salzburg young conductors contest, has been promoted to Associate Conductor of the LA Phil, extending her tenure until 2018. Gražinytė-Tyla, 29, was appointed a Dudamel Conducting Fellow in 2012 and has gone from strength to strength. She will make her second appearance at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday, conducting Bernstein and Bizet.

Dude says: ‘Mirga is an impressive talent, which is immediately evident to anyone that works with her or sees her conduct. We were very excited to have her join the LA Phil family as Assistant Conductor following her participation in our conducting fellowship program, and now we feel even more fortunate that she will continue with us in the role of Associate Conductor.’

mirga graz

The Congolese counter-tenor Serge Kakudji is recovering from a vicious race attack in Palermo, Sicily.

He writes: ‘The fact of being black almost cost me my life on 20 July in Palermo…. I can now walk with just a single crutch. Thank you for your thoughts … Do not forget to respond with love to people who are trying to hurt  us.’

Serge, who lives in Paris, is regularly seen at the Opéra.

serge kakudji

This could run and run.

The American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (AFM Pension Fund) is suing Atlantic Recording Corporation (Atlantic), Hollywood Records (Hollywood), Sony Music Entertainment (Sony), Universal Music Group Recordings, Inc. (UMG), and Warner Brothers Records, Inc. (Warner) for failing to make pension fund contributions.

ray hair

The statement continues:

The suit states that the five recording companies failed to make pension fund payments from foreign audio stream revenue and foreign and domestic ringback revenue.

For over 75 years, the major recording companies have had contracts with the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) requiring the companies to share a portion of sales revenue with musicians. Most of the revenue was originally from record sales and later CD sales. In 1994 AFM and the recording companies entered into an agreement, subsequently renewed, requiring the companies to pay 0.5% of all receipts from digital transmissions including audio streaming, non-permanent downloads and ringbacks.

“The record companies should stop playing games about their streaming revenue and pay musicians and their pension fund every dime that is owed,” said Ray Hair, AFM International President. “Fairness and transparency are severely lacking in this business. We are changing that.”

Last year independent auditors discovered that the recording companies had not made the required revenue payments from foreign audio streams, ringbacks, and foreign non-permanent downloads. Attempts to reconcile the issues outside of court have been ongoing for several months to no avail. Suit was filed today in New York.

This is the fifth lawsuit filed against major media corporations for contract violations in the past few months. Under Hair’s leadership, AFM has begun aggressively enforcing existing contracts and standing up to large corporations that fail to pay musicians when their work is reused or offshored.

The suit seeks payment for all missing revenue owed the AFM Pension Fund, late payment penalties, interest, damages and legal costs. Read the complaint here.

Meloclassic have come up with this wonderful picture of James Dean…. with the austere German pianist Walter Gieseking. The date is uncertain, either 1951 or 1954.

james dean walter gieseking

So, who else have we got?

2 Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Chaplin

schoenberg chaplin

3 Marilyn Monroe & Irving Berlin

marilyn monroe irving berlin

4 Mickey Mouse and Stokowski

mickey mouse stokowski

5…. add your own

The Metropolitan Opera press office have messaged parterre.com that Fabio Sartori has withdrawn from November’s tail-run of Turandot because he no longer wants to sing Calaf.

He will be replaced by Yusif Eyvazov, fiancé of Anna Netrebko.

 

eyvazov netrebko2

Lorenzo Viotti, 25, has been named winner of the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award.

It’s worth 15,000 Euros and a  concert at the next Salzburg Festival.

Past winners – Maxime Pascal (2014), Ben Gernon (2013), Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (2012), Ainārs Rubikis (2011) and David Afkham (2010) – are doing pretty well.

lorenzo viotti
spot the winner

 

Born on March 15, 1990 in Lausanne, Lorenzo Viotti studied piano, singing and percussion in Lyon. In 2009 he moved to Vienna to gain experience as a percussionist with numerous Viennese orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic. He continued his conducting studies with Nicolás Pasquet at the Music Academy Franz Liszt in Weimar, which led to his debut with the Jena Philharmonic in 2013. During the summer of 2013 he made his opera debut with Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Schönbrunn Palace Theatre. That same year, he won both the 11th International Conducting Competition in Cadaqués, Spain, where he emerged first among 70 candidates, and the MDR Conducting Competition.

New release from Chandos Records.

fucik

 

We’re not being diacritical, but they proofread that cover 37 times.

Thirty years after having recorded Dvořák’s complete Symphonies on Chandos, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and its laureate conductor Neeme Järvi tackle another romantic Czech composer: Julius Fučík, famous for his more than 400 polkas, marches, and waltzes, some of the best of which are featured here. Fučík studied violin in his early years, switching later to the bassoon, with a subsidiary in percussion and timpani. Playing in Austrian regiments, he gained invaluable experience of writing for military band and became a very prolific composer of marches. The most famous of these is of course Entry of the Gladiators, completed in 1899 and performed throughout the world ever since. Full of energetic, effervescent Bohemian cross-rhythms, tuneful brass melodies (often now associated with a circus atmosphere), but also more lyrical expressions, this album is a festival in itself.

Fort Worth Symphony.

As of last week, the musicians are out of contract and the admin is demanding job cuts.

There has been no VP of Development for nine months – meaning, no serious money coming in.

The musicians have opened a Facebook page, always a sign of trouble ahead.

Its most recent entry has been heavily censored.

fort worth symphony

Couldn’t happen now, or could it?

Imagine a cultural paradise where, on one street, two great composers painted each others’ portraits in the afternoon and an actor wrote full-length scores for his own films. This was Hollywood in the mid-1930s, where George Gershwin and Arnold Schoenberg would take time out from their easels to meet Charlie Chaplin as near-equals on the tennis court.

From my Album of the Week on sinfinimusic.com. Click here to read the full review.

chaplin violin

(In the end, he gets the girl.)

Most of us know that downloading classical works from iTunes is a hopeless pursuit. The system breaks everything into ‘tracks’, making it impossible to hear a symphony undisturbed and in the intended movement order.

Macworld has just published a few tips on making classics more accessible on iTunes. You may find it helpful.

Click here.

exam student headphones

Geoffrey Terry, who publishes Orchestral Concerts CDs from Prague, has sent us this personal reminiscence of the great Czech pianist Ivan Moravec, who died on July 27.

moravec_ivan

 

 

I acted as UK agent for Ivan Moravec in the early 70s and he became a personal friend.

I met Ivan for the first time during a tour of the UK by the Prague Symphony Orchestra in March 1968; he performed Mozart’s piano concerto no 25, K503 and the conductor was the very neglected Václav Smetáček. During the course of the tour I had the great pleasure of driving Ivan, and his wife Zuzana, from one venue to another across the UK and the conversation was delightful.

On the day of the RFH concert, following the customary visit by the piano tuner, I was intrigued when Ivan produced a small tool kit and began to ‘voice’ the Bösendorfer, following which there was a noticeable but subtle improvement in the sound of the instrument.

Bösendorfer was Ivan’s instrument of choice and I recall his Queen Elizabeth Hall performance on 1st May 1969, which I promoted, when, during rehearsal, a representative from Steinway approached me back stage. I was amazed when he informed me that Mr. Moravec must use Steinway instruments exclusively otherwise in situations where only a Steinway was available he would not be permitted to use it. Ivan, like me, considered the man to be out of his mind – there were no further references or repercussions.

 

Every concert I arranged for Ivan resulted in glowing reviews and yet at that time he was little known in England and my expectation that he would be acknowledged for his extraordinary ability did not transpire.

 

 

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, presently playing Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne, has announced a regular residency at Duckie, a south London gay club that describes itself as ‘purveyors of progressive working class entertainment’.

There’s an upcoming date on Setember 5.

The OAE say:

oae duckie

 

‘Back in November last year we took our late-night series The Night Shift, clubbing, appearing at the legendary Vauxhall institution that is Duckie…. When we appeared last year we had no idea what to expect – but we ended up being pretty overwhelmed by the reception we got, with one of the loudest roars of approval we’ve ever had for a performance. We’ll be playing a new 10 minute set, on stage around 11pm. Entrance to the club is £6 and you can dance the night away afterwards courtesy of resident DJ’s The Readers Wives.’