A call from prime minister Abe to accentuate ‘practical vocational education that better anticipates the needs of society’ has drawn a rapid response.
Out of 60 national universities that offer courses in humanities and social sciences, 26 say they will cut back their faculties. Of these, 17 will shut them altogether, according to the THES. Japan’s universities regularly top polls as being the best in Asia.
This could mark the start of a global trend.
Your thoughts?
We reported earlier that Heinz Holliger had received the Swiss Grand Prix for music, worth more than $100,000.
In a thoughtful interview with a Swiss newspaper, Holliger laments the decline of music in everyday life, wondering why people no longer sing while they work. He wants to do something about it.
He’s going to give away every cent of his hundred grand.
Good man.
Chicago has launched a Lyric Opera Bus for the northern suburbs. It costs $20 return, and you can have that second intermission drink without a second thought.
Way to go.
Read here.
An Italian tabloid heads oddly upmarket. Eat your hearts out National Enquirer, Rebekah Wade, Rupert Murdoch.
h/t: Joel Cohen
The Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet, which erased its previous chief conductor and general manager from its history after a controversial production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, is under Putinist reconstruction.
The new oligarch-boss, Vladimir Kekhman, offered the vacant baton to Vladimir Jurowski. He honourably refused.
His younger brother Dmitry, however, has now accepted.
Dmitry Jurowski, 36, is chief conductor of the Flemish Opera in Antwerp.
We’ve just been informed that the state of Liechtenstein has a new chief conductor.
He is Stefan Sanderling, 51, son of the much-loved Kurt Sanderling who was a confirmed socialist, choosing to spend his life in the USSR and the German Democratic Republic.
Liechtenstein is where capitalists go to protect their gold from the greedy taxman.
Stefan, who succeeds Florian Krumpöck, will not be the best-paid in his profession, but his audience certainly are.
His late father may permit himself a wry little smile up there, in the heavenly workers’ paradise.
The ARD Wettbewerb, the classical competition with the highest TV exposure in German countries, remains impressively impartial.
In this year’s four specialities, a Brit won the trombone prize, a Swiss the flute and a Russian pair the piano duo.
The big prize – for singing – went last night to the unheralded American, Emalie Savoy.
Emalie has been part of the Met’s development programme and has been working of late at the Salzburg Landestheater. By winning the ARD, she gets her break on the international stage. Book that name.
It’s impossible to review the Artemis Quartet’s new release without being aware of their recent tragic loss.
However, doing my best to set that consideration aside, I have been blown away by their penetration of the works: This is what Brahms does at his best: he takes you to a protected space, suspended from earthly realities.
See full review on sinfinimusic.com. Click here.
One of the rituals of the US concert season is the nerve-biting tension as to whether the Chicago Symphony will play, or stay home. The musicians’ contract expires in the week of the opening concert. Negotiations are always last minute.
As things stand, the players have agreed to rehearse the opening concert with Riccardo Muti, despite the contract ending last Sunday. The opening concert is tomorrow (Thursday).
The orchestra has a new president, Jeff Alexander (pictured), and he is being put to the test.
Who blinks? We’ll know tomorrow.
Either way, the two sides need to change the negotiation mechanism. It ain’t easy to play with nails bitten down to the knuckle.
UPDATE: Here’s the official statement:
Since early July, the Musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local 10-208 A.F.M., and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association have been engaged in negotiations over a successor agreement to the labor contract expiring at midnight on September 13, 2015. Although the parties were unable to reach an agreement before the contract expired, negotiations are ongoing. The parties are scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, September 15.
There will be no further comment at this time.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Chicago Federation of Musicians & CSO Members’ Negotiating Committee
There are five considerations at work when it comes to giving lifetime awards. The rules seem to be:
1 Give the prize to whoever bring greatest celebrity to the giver. (Step up Lang Lang).
2 Give it to whoever has the most powerful friends. (The Christoph Eschenbach syndrome).
3 Give it to whoever really needs it. (Never happens).
4 Apply the discredited educational maxim, ‘all shall have prizes’.
5 Anyone still left without a prize?
Heinz Holliger, 76, the oboist, composer and conductor, has been awarded the Swiss Grand Prix for Music 2015. He collects 100,000 Swiss francs ($100,000).
UPDATE: But what happened next? See here.
