Raymond Yiu’s symphony, premiered tonight at the BBC Proms, is founded on personal memories of the 1980s Aids crisis and wound around Thom Gunn’s poem, In the Time of Plague.

Raymond tells his local newspaper: ‘When I first came to London (from Hong Kong) AIDS seemed to encircle my life. People just vanished, everyone was afraid. And it’s something that stays with me in my mind. You don’t forget something like that.’

It’s tonight, 7.30, here. Not to be missed.

Former Seattle Opera chief Speight Jenkins has written a thoughtful blogpost on what’s wrong with singers today and why audiences don’t get excited as they used to.

Speight blames musico-political correctness:

The most successful singers of the past who filled opera houses involved their audiences emotionally in the way they sang. If a soprano can handle all the runs in Lucia’s Mad Scene brilliantly, if a tenor has the right legato for “Una furtiva lagrima” or a baritone the vocal power and accuracy for “Cortigiani”, they are deemed ready for the roles of Lucia, Nemorino, and Rigoletto. Did an audience censor Maria Callas for leaving out the first high E-flat in the Mad Scene? Or Franco Corelli’s throwing in high notes because he could sing them? Or Leonard Warren’s varying the tempi and holding high notes longer than the score indicated?

Another problem with correctness is who it excludes. My firm belief is that two of the greatest artists of the past century, Maria Callas and Leonie Rysanek, would find it hard today to find a job. Why? Both of them, because they were so emotionally involved in what they were singing and acting, were extraordinarily variable. Both could on some nights hit every note, and on others give downright painful performances.

But people queued all night to hear them… Of whom can that be said today?

Read Speight’s full post here.

Helen Kemp worked for almost 80 years as a singer, teacher, choir director and composer.

In 1949 she founded the Choristers Guild, which turned into a nationwide movement. Hundreds of US professionals owed her their first musical experience.

Helen, who was 97 at the time of her death, had been professor of voice and church music at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, where her late husband, John, headed the church music department. She was still conducting into her 90s.

Here’s the family announcement:

The Kemp family is profoundly saddened to tell you of the passing of our beloved Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Helen Kemp. She passed peacefully in her home on this beautiful Sunday morning, August 23, 2015. Mamma Helen was active and healthy, creative and fulfilled at her wonderful age of 97. Throughout her life, she shared the joy of music with countless choristers, students, singers and teachers around the world… Helen Kemp’s life is a life to be celebrated. She blest us on her way with countless gifts of love. Sing a joyful song today with her in mind. She would love that. (Service plans will be announced soon.)

We reported six weeks ago that Chancellor Merkel was planning to take with Berlin Staatskapelle with Daniel Barenboim on her first trip to Teheran.

Now it appears the Iranians are negotiating dates with both philharmonic orchestras. The Vienna Phil is expected to accompany Austrian president Heinz Fischer on a state visit in the months ahead, while sentimentalists in Teheran have fond memories of visits by the Berlin Phil and Karajan before the 1979 revolution and are keen on their return.

The source of this leak to German media is Bahram Djamali, head of music at the Iranian ministry of culture.

The ministry probably won’t mind if the Vienna Phil appears one last time in its traditional all-male lineup.

UPDATE: Vienna won’t go.

Of course!

It takes a genius of a physicist to remove the crackle and pop from eroded old recordings.

Fascinating read here.

The chair that the Canadian pianist wore to a gravity-defying frazzle is on display at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. CBC have a nicely illustrated story about it here.

The New York Philharmonic, which has a Rachmaninov season coming up, has reminded us of the existence of a recording of the great composer playing the US national anthem.

It’s an unusual performance, completely without bombast and with more than a trace of melancholic yearning.

The Russian culture minister should listen to it before he tries to repatriate the composer’s remains.

Compare and contrast with the Horowitz interpretation.

We’re sorry to hear that Billboard has bowed to pressure and removed the online version of a survey it was conducting on the music biz.

Just for fun, and because it’s August, here are some of the Billboard questions. You might like to apply them to the classical sector. For instance:

1 Who is the most overpaid executive in the (classical) music industry?

2 Who is the most press-hungry executive?

3 Who is the most high maintenance act in music?

Have fun.

Charles Tomlinson, a profound influence on late 20th century poets, has died at the age of 88. Aside from his own verse, often deceptively simple, he made important translations of leading Italian poets.

The publisher and poet Michael Schmidt writes:

‘Octavio Paz led me, a young editor, to him when I first came to England. He in turn led me to Donald Davie, and to so much else. The debt all English readers owe him, as bridge-builder and poet, is inestimable. He said in an interview, ‘there isn’t much real poetry I don’t feel some sort of allegiance to in this swamp of newspaper prose we inhabit’.’

Our friend Valerio Tura, formely artistic administrator at La Monnaie, reports from Bologna on a welcome liberalisation in Italy’s arts administration.

A few days ago the Italian Government appointed, with a brand-new “European” procedure, 20 new directors of the top National museums. This is possibly good news, perhaps just a start for better times to come (maybe…). With a new law, an international selection was launched some months ago, with a public “appel aux candidatures”.

A commission of independent experts (including Nicholas Penny from the National Gallery of London) scrutinized the cvs of more than 1,000 international applicants, shortlisting about 120 candidates, all of whom were interviewed in person. After this, 60 names (three for each museum) were submitted by the commission to the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Franceschini, and he picked the 20 to be appointed. Among the 20 chosen, seven are non-Italians (from Germany, France, UK, etc.). This has triggered an enormous debate – some think an exaggerated and unexpected one – in the Italian media, and among politicians. Many are voicing loud against the ‘invasion’… Is this is just a symptom of Italian parochial provincialism…?

Possibly yes, as top staff members in non-Italian museums are often coming from abroad, in such countries as Holland, Spain, UK, France, etc. And no journalists, nor politicians have ever found this inappropriate, nor politically incorrect. Could such a protest against the ‘invasion’ happen in the classical music business? Possibly no, even in Italy. Let’s see.

During his long life Roman Vlad, born in Ukraine, held top jobs in various important musical institutions in Italy. Austrian Michael Messerklinger was for many years artistic director of the RAI Symphony Orchestra in Torino. John Fisher had for some years the same position at the Teatro La Fenice in Venezia, and so did Italo Gomez, from Colombia. More recently Stéphane Lissner was followed by Alexander Pereira as “sovrintendente” at La Scala.

Costa-Rican Gaston Fournier has been in top management positions at Maggio Musicale, Santa Cecilia, Scala, and is currently the artistic director at Teatro Regio of Torino. About them no one has ever made any similar campaign against the ‘invasion’ of non-Italian people… And what of other countries? Dominique Meyer, a Frenchman, is the top-boss at Wiener Staatsoper. Andreas Homoki, German, is the intendant of Opernhaus in Zurich. Englishman Peter Jonas first, and Austrian Klaus Bachler later have been ruling the Bayerische Staatsoper for nearly twenty years and no one has ever asked “Why not a German…?”.

Peter Alward was called from London to manage the Salzburg Easter Festival. Frenchman Pierre Audi is since nearly a quarter of a century the general director of Nederlandse Opera. German Alexander Neef is the general director of the Canadian Opera Company. Belgian Gérard Mortier has worked in Austria, Germany, France, Spain. Another Belgian, Bernard Foccroulle, leads the Aix-en-Provence festival. Several Italian opera managers have been working and still work in France, Belgium, USA, Portugal, Spain… Let alone Giulio Gatti Casazza, who was at the helm of the Met for more than thirty years, Rudolf Bing (Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, Met), who was born in Austria, and Bruno Zirato, who was the managing director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for quite a long while (and the guy who dared giving young Leonard Bernstein his first chances…). So what…?

If we look in the history, in the field of orchestra and opera management – luckily – this has always been rather common, since centuries… Lorenzo Da Ponte and Giacomo Montrésor were among the ones who started opera business in New York. Domenico Barbaja was for a number of seasons the impresario of Theater an der Wien. Moravian Maurice Strakosch would manage extensively opera business in both France and North America. And the list could continue, including the likes of Haendel, Hasse, Salieri, Paisiello, who at some point in their lives were not only musicians, but also kind of impresarios… Therefore, why in Italy is now the ‘national identity’ perceived as a more sensitive issue when it is about museum managers, than when it is about managing classical music…? Maybe because classical music is less ‘national’ than paintings and sculptures…?

Two new releases have arrived of Paavo Järvi’s Bruckner cycle from Frankfurt.

On the 4th symphony he’s looking sombre.

By the 6th he has got a sheepish grin.

Which one will sell more? We’ll let you know in due course.