– ‘One of the advantages of having such a large budget, we shaved a little bit here and a little bit there, and those little bits added up.’
– ‘We sold more single tickets, but we are losing subscribers.’
Hot on the tail of the Halifax violin heist, we have footage of a man stealing a viola on a train from London to Dover.
He’s about the least competent thief you could imagine. The judge released Stephen Tillyer, an insurance salesman, with a suspended jail sentence and costs. The viola is valued at £300,000.
It belongs to London Symphony Orchestra principal viola, Edward Vanderspar.
The apparently indefatigable Yannick Nézet-Séguin has signed on for five more years with the hometown orch that gave him his first break, the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montreal.
‘My commitment has never wavered to the first orchestra that was prepared to place its trust in a young conductor 15 years ago,’ he said today, signing a contract that sees him through to 2021.
Yannick, 40, is also music director of the Philadelphia and the Rotterdam Phil. He’s due to leave the latter in 2018.
This spot-on definition of classical concerts comes from an anonymous blogger, and it’s a response to Gillian Moore’s piece about getting people to behave better in concerts she puts on at London’s South Bank.
It’s an accurate perception, almost brilliant. Here’s some more:
I sometimes feel like we’re missing something else, something bigger, that we could be experiencing if we stopped looking on our fellow concertgoers as an irritation, and started taking notice of them. What would it be like if we tried to enjoy being in a room with a lot of other people, experiencing the music as a group, rather than all sitting in our individual seats feeling aggrieved that the chap next to us is manspreading and the woman in front is so ridiculously tall and trying in vain to pretend that Iestyn Davies (below) is singing to us ALONE in our living room for our personal delight (however brilliant that sounds)?
A major competition has finally broken with the tyranny and collusion of conservatory teachers who vote for each others’ students.
The 2017 jury, all noted performers, will be:
Leonard Slatkin, jury chairman (United States)
Arnaldo Cohen (Brazil)
Jean-Philippe Collard (France)
Christopher Elton (United Kingdom)
Marc-André Hamelin (Canada)
Joseph Kalichstein (Israel)
Mari Kodama (Japan)
Anne-Marie McDermott (United States)
Alexander Toradze (United States/Georgia)
UPDATE: It has been pointed out that one of the above-named is primarily a teacher. He’s the token teacher on a panel of performers. This is a vast improvement on past Cliburns and general competition practice.
This is not all bad news.
The top two selling items on Nielsen Soundscan this week are two Max Richter sleep albums from DG.
Both sold over 1,000 copies.
Nothing else reached 400.
This looks like a work in progress.
Andrew Litton, 56, is shuffling his pack. He has told the Colorado Symphony, where he only recently renewed, that he wants out after the end of this season.
He is also leaving the Bergen Symph in Norway.
Instead, he will be music director of New York City Ballet (NYCB), which is closer to where he lives.
Gillian Moore is unhappy at all those misery-guts who spend their concert time finding fault with others, usually other people in the audience.
The woman in the seat behind vigorously poked my friend on the shoulder. ‘You were moving your head up and down during the music,’ she said. ‘You need to learn to behave in concerts, or stay at home!’
The woman in the seat behind had paid for her ticket. The woman she was criticising, a music biz insider, had not.
This is possibly more complicated than it looks.
Gillian wants to introduce courtesy rules in concert halls. Read her rant here. Maybe there should be special rules for people on free tickets. Have your say below.
Léonard Frey-Maibach was announced today as first solo cellist of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra.
He’s 24, from Lyon, and he’s been playing in the section for the past two years.
Léonard plays an 1810 Nicolas Lupot.
Like all skilled polemicists, Damian Thompson sprinkles his arguments with elements of truth and doubt. Picking up a Slipped Disc story about the inclusion of women composers in the school music syllabus, Damian maintains that women are given being an unfair crack at fame.
Sample:
Meanwhile, we’re stuck in a situation where the barriers to women becoming composers have been removed but they’re still honoured for being women. Judith Weir (born 1954) is a minor figure whose ‘stark’ scores sound as if crucial instrumental parts have gone missing. Her opera Miss Fortunereceived such a savaging at Covent Garden in 2012 that the Santa Fe Opera dropped its plans to stage it. Last year she was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music. You may not be surprised to learn that she’s all in favour of the new A-level syllabus.
Probably better not read the backwoods Spectator readers comments below the line.
h/t: Mahan Esfahani, David Conway
CBC Canada have blanked the thief’s face on this store video ‘because she has not been named as a suspect’.
If you recognise her, call the police in Halifax, Canada. The item she stole is a a MV400-2 Flame Violin, priced at C$2,616.
A presenter of Scottish and Irish music for BBC Radio Scotland, Radio 3, BBC2 and BBC 4, was found slumped drunk in a stationary car, blocking a narrow Highlands road.
Mary Ann Kennedy, 47, was said to be seven times over the drink-drive limit. She’s been banned for four years.
