You will normally see Vasily Petrenko, music director of the Royal Liverpool Phil and the Oslo Phil, in black tails.

Not last night at the Royal Albert Hall, apparently.

He dressed like the young Jack Nicholson in a very bad film.

petrenko gold jacket

Erina Yashima, newly appointed répétiteur in Kaiserslautern, has been named Solti Conducting Apprentice with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She gets to spend 10 weeks a year for the next two years assisting Riccardo Muti.

Press release below.

erina yashima

CHICAGO—The jury of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association’s (CSOA) International Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship—CSO Music Director and Jury Chair Riccardo Muti; American soprano Carol Vaness; CSO Concertmaster Robert Chen; CSO Principal Cello John Sharp; CSO Principal Trumpet Christopher Martin; and CSOA Vice President of Artistic Planning Cristina Rocca —and the Negaunee Music Institute of the CSO are pleased to announce that Erina Yashima has been named the Third Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprentice.

As part of the two-year conducting apprenticeship, beginning in February 2016 and continuing through January 2018, Yashima will spend at least 10 weeks a year studying and assisting Muti in Chicago during his residencies with the CSO each season. The apprenticeship also includes close work with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the CSO’s training orchestra for young professional musicians, including the opportunity to lead several rehearsals and a performance with the Civic Orchestra each year. The specific responsibilities included in the two-year apprenticeship are tailored to the individual who holds the position.  

At the live audition that took place at Symphony Center, the finalists were required to lead the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in a rehearsal of symphonic repertoire, and also to coach soprano Laura Wilde and baritone Anthony Clark Evans, both members of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in opera arias from the piano.

German-born Erina Yashima was selected in consideration of her distinctive artistic qualities displayed throughout the selection process. She was recently appointed répétiteur with conducting duties of the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern. From 2013-2015, she was the music director of the Freies Studentenorchester Rostock. In 2013 she was given the Award of outstanding excellence by the Musikakademie Rheinsberg for the opera production she conducted there that year. Her guest conducting experiences include a collaboration with El Sistema in Venezuela, where she conducted two youth orchestras (May 2015).

The creation of the CSO International Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship was announced by Muti in October 2009 as part of his larger vision for the CSOA. This vision  includes the opportunity to build on the CSO’s great tradition of training young musicians through the creation of an apprenticeship which fosters the talents of promising young conductors and invests in the future of the art form. The program is named for Sir Georg Solti, who served as music director of the CSO from 1969 to 1991, not only because of his deep connection with the CSO, but also in honor of his commitment to connecting with young musicians.

Earlier in their respective careers, both Sir Georg Solti and Riccardo Muti refined their musicianship through their studies and work with singers in the opera house, and Muti remains passionate about the importance of a conductor’s ability to rehearse with an artist at the piano. He regards keyboard and vocal-coaching skills as crucial in the creation of a complete musician: one who is able to stand before of an orchestra with natural authority. Muti’s sincere hope in establishing this apprenticeship was to identify the promising young conductor who will benefit most from his tutelage and the unique opportunities of working with the CSO and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. The CSO’s International Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship is a program of the Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO.

Funding for the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship is provided by a generous grant from The Claire Rosen & Samuel Edes Foundation. The Foundation’s deep commitment to education and the arts in America provides a promising young conductor the financial means to focus on their work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Muti and the rare opportunities this experience provides.

David Gockley is retiring next August, when he will be 73, after ten years as general director.

After an international search, SanFran has decided to promote from within.

The new guy is Matthew Shilvock, associate general director for the past five years. He’s young – 39 – and English, born in Kidderminster.

More here from AP.

In this Sept. 9, 2015 photo released by The San Francisco Opera, new General Director Designate Matthew Shilvock at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Shilvock will succeed David Gockley as general director of the San Francisco Opera on Aug. 1, 2016, after serving as associate general director since 2010. (Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera via AP)

In my monthly essay for Standpoint, I analyse the thoughts of Maestro Thielemann as expressed in his book, My Life with Wagner (Weidenfeld, £25).

Sample text:

Here’s Thielemann:

Sometimes I have nightmares. I dream that artistic quality is out of tune. I dream that art and music are destroying themselves because the quality has gone wrong. Because far too much that is trivial, empty, superficial and indifferent is rife, and is tolerated. And because none of us can find genuinely creative time to spare any more, either for ourselves or for such great work as Richard Wagner’s.

The world is a terrible place, says Thielemann. Since we can do nothing to improve human conduct, let us observe it from a safe theatrical distance and derive what comfort we can from our personal detachment and innocence. The greatest sin — nightmare — would be to neglect or distort great art, the only thing that might redeem us. Accept that the word is evil. Make good art.

Read the full essay here.

 

Thielemann.Christian

A federal judge has stripped Warner of the rights to the song.

Judge George H King ruled yesterday that Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the use of Happy Birthday To You’. The publisher owned only the piano arrangement, not the song itself. Read here. It’s a severe blow to the publisher.

 

happybirthdaymanuscript2

Message to Metropolitan Opera goers:

An Important Notice About Your Met Opera Performance

 

Dear Ms. X

Due to extensive street closures related to the Pope’s visit to New York City, the Met’s performance of Il Trovatore on September 25 will be delayed by 30 minutes, allowing audiences additional time to get to the Met. The performance will now start at 8:00pm and will end at approximately 10:50pm.

We recommend that you allow yourself extra time to arrive at the Met.

Please feel free to contact a Customer Care Representative at
212-362-6000 with any questions.

If you have a reservation at the Grand Tier restaurant on the evening of September 25, please call 212-799-3400 to confirm your reservation.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Season Premiere of Il Trovatore.

Sincerely,
The Metropolitan Opera

 

anna netrebko met

We enjoyed this picture sequence from the Primavere Gallery in Cambridge, England.

piano removal

 

Click here for more pics. The 1920s Weber piano is valued at £65,000 ($100,000).

 

Not content with being a would-be Paganini on the violin, Sergey Malov also plays viola, Violoncello da spalla and baroque violin.

Try some: his video reel runs through different instruments.

Malov-13x19-2©-Julia-Wesely-e1379450799101