We regret to report the death, at her Leith flat near Edinburgh, of the much recorded harpsichord player and organist Lucy Carolan.

A Cambridge scholar who went on to study with Gustav Leonhardt, she was an extremely private person with a wide range of musical connections. Lucy was 62 when she was found dead, on September 4.

The Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov has posted these relaxed pictures from Central Park with his much-loved colleague, who has been receiving cancer treatment.

Hvorostovsky will sing the opening performances of Il Trovatore on September 25 and 29 before returning to London to resume treatment.

Following on from the Danish orchestral fundraiser that we reported earlier, the conductor Nicolas Nebout is putting together a big concert for Syrian refugee children on 11 November at St James’s Piccadilly.

Programme:
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No.5
Gustav Mahler, Kindertotenlieder (soloist: Sarah Connolly)
Malek Jandali, Phoenix in Exile (World Premiere)

Book tickets here. 

When Yannick Nézet-Séguin was just 23, a retired national politician called Jean-Pierre Goyer fired the conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal and named the young man his successor.

photo: scena.org

Goyer, who died in 2011, had been Solicitor General in Pierre Trudeau’s government, driving through an agenda of prison reform. He later chaired the arts council of Montreal and was president of its second orchestra when Yannick came to attention.

Now the city has founded a $125,000 Prix Goyer in his name ‘for Extreme Emerging Artist.’

The first winner is a pianist, Philip Chiu.

press release:

Montréal pianist Philip Chiu, heralded internationally for the brilliance of his playing and his infectious personality, is the winner of the $125,000 Prix Goyer 2015-2016 for Extreme Emerging Artist. Prix Goyer is the biggest prize in Canada and one of the largest in the world for an artist emerging in classical music.

The award is founded to honour Jean-Pierre Goyer and his contributions to music, arts and culture in Montréal, Québec and Canada. The prize was presented to Philip on Saturday at the Ensemble Caprice concert in Bourgie Hall, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra is giving a refugee aid concert on Wednesday at the DR hall in Copenhagen.

Viola player Katrine Bundgaard (pictured) tells Slipped Disc she has invited 104 refugees and arranged bus transport from the Sandholmlejren camp.

The programme is:

Sibelius: Karelia suite
Per Nørgård: Percussion concerto (‘For a change’)
Carl Nielsen: 3rd symphony, Espansiva.

Tickets here.

Go. I f you can’t go, give.

Last week, Karl Fenner had his instrument smashed at the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, just after he won an audition to play in the ASO.

Now we hear from Milton Masciadri, a teacher at the University of Georgia, that his doublebass has suffered the same horrible fate. Milton’s bass is, we hear, a beautiful Tessore.

Milton writes: ‘In my case they failed to put the restraining belt on the neck of the bass after inspection. This is the second instrument broken in three days….’

Someone needs to get a grip at the TSA. Meantime, don’t fly an instrument to Atlanta.

The Democratic Party’s socialist candidate has released a list of artists who are lending him support.

There are many musicians among them but only two who are even marginally classical – the film composer Hans Zimmer and the blues composer Corky Siegel.

Does this mean classical music USA has written off Bernie’s chances?

Would many UK classical musicians sign a Jeremy Corbyn list?

Headless since the last chairman winged away and the putsch that removed John Berry as artistic and executive director, the ENO board has made two stand-ins into permanent appointments.

Harry Brünjes is confirmed as chairman and Cressida Pollock as chief executive. Brunjes is a pioneer in private medicine. Pollock is a McKinsey management consultant who speaks geek jargon.

Neither inspires much confidence within the company, but the Arts Council likes grey suits. Both are on three-year terms.

There are grim, colourless times ahead for ENO.

From an open letter published today by the Metropolitan Opera Musicians:

The Met was able to trim $18M from its budget, the majority of which savings came from “management expenses,” and not from the players, singers, and craftspeople that make the Met the greatest opera house in the world.

Our contention all along has been that the Met’s budget grew needlessly large, and that it got that way because of wasteful spending and inefficient management. Therefore, we were certain that a more sustainable path could be found by focusing cost savings on management spending. These recent financial results prove that absolutely correct, and vindicate the imperative to preserve the artistic heart of the Met.

But while we are heartened by the recent financial news, we must remain vigilant, doing all we can to ensure the Met operates in a fiscally responsible manner while placing top priority on the highest artistic standards. Last summer, we wrote that “the Met’s finances will be subject to unprecedented oversight, with powerful new mechanisms put in place for enforcement and accountability…. An ‘Efficiency Task Force’…will have direct input on spending” in order to achieve the mandated $11.25M reduction in management expenses. It is due in part to the ceaseless vigilance of these union task force delegates that the Met balanced its budget. And we want our fans to understand that as we work tirelessly to present masterful musicianship, much work remains behind the curtains to ensure the music continues.

In the end, this progress is not just good for the MET Orchestra, Chorus, or even the entire Met Opera — it’s good for opera lovers the world over, because we are charting a more sustainable course for opera in the 21st century.

In an interview with Tass today, the maestro talks about maintaining control at the Mariinsky Theatre:

‘It was my strong wish the theater had a chance to live by its own rules, and I demanded obedience to the internal, corporate rules. Whenever some abused the code of conduct or fell out of step, I instantly froze relations with that person. I needed close associates whom I would be able to rely on. Some tried to use the Mariinsky Theater as a springboard, to perform on its stage several times for the sole purpose of clinching a second-rate contract in Dusseldorf, Vienna or London. I never used force to keep people, but I severed all further contacts with them. All of my thoughts were not about defectors, but about those who preferred to stay, about preserving the company, about survival. We managed. The 2000s were a little bit easier. Now I’ve had to confront new challenges. But I am certain that we will cope with them with honor and dignity.’

From my album of the week, on sinfinimusic.com:

Reviewing Jonas Kaufmann is rather like presenting the weather forecast. Nothing you say will make a blind bit of difference. The Jonas devotees will go out anyway to buy it and the sceptics will stay home. All a reviewer can do is tell it how it is, and try to save a few innocents from getting soaked.

You may have already formed an opinion on the title track when watching the Last Night of the Proms. The Turandot aria is, by some margin, the least impressive on the album….

Read the full review here.

Wedding bells ring out in St Petersburg for Mikhail Tatarnikov, chief conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theatre, and glamorous ballerina Angelina Vorontsova.

Angelina bade farewell to her former boyfriend, the Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, when he was found guilty of organising an assault on the former Bolshoi chief Sergei Filin, who almost lost his sight in an acid attack. Pavel was jailed for six years by a Moscow court in December 2013.

It was reported in Russian media that high among his grievances against Filin was the director’s refusal to cast Angelina as the Swan in Swan Lake.