For security reasons, the Maison de Radio France in Paris had to cancel yesterday’s awards ceremony for the 68th Grands Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros.

It decided instead to announce them tonight online.

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The winner of the President of the Republic prize is the composer Edith Canat de Chizy.

Rene Jacobs receives the lifetime award.

The harpsichordist Jean Rondeau is named soloist of the year for Johann Sebastian Bach – Imagine (Erato) .

Laurence Equilbey and the Ensemble Accentus receive the repertoire award for Félicien David, Le Désert (naïve)

The contemporary music award goes to Philippe Leroux for Quid sit musicus? (Soupir éditions).

But the big winners, sharing Classical Album of 2015, are husband-and-wife Sabine Devieilhe and Raphaël Pichon.

Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion win for Jean-Philippe Rameau – Castor et Pollux (Harmonia Mundi), while Sabine Devieilhe’s Mozart: The Weber Sisters (Erato), with the Pygmalion ensemble conducted by Pichon, shared the prestigious award.

 

Just uploaded. Watch it to the end.
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Andris Nelsons can expect a contact in the post after tonight’s vote by the town council.

Official statement:

Andris Nelsons conducting

Am Abend des 19. November 2015 hat der Stadtrat Andris Nelsons zum 21. Gewandhauskapellmeister gewählt.

Am 9. September 2015 wurde der Dirigent Andris Nelsons als möglicher Gewandhauskapellmeister der Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt. Das Gewandhausorchester hat ihn zum Nachfolger von Riccardo Chailly gewählt, der das Amt auf eigenen Wunsch im Juni 2016 niederlegen wird.

Auschlaggebend für das Engagement ist das Votum des Leipziger Stadtrates, der den Gewandhauskapellmeister ins Amt beruft. Die Wahl wurde in der Rastversammlung am Abend des 19. November 2015 durchgeführt. Andris Nelsons wurde einstimmig zum 21. Gewandhauskapellmeister in der Geschichte des 1743 gegründeten Gewandhausorchesters gewählt.

 

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has picked Lionel Cottet, 28, as its new solo cello.

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Geneva born, a graduate of the Mozarteum and Juilliard, Lionel has played concertos with major orchestras.

He plays an 1852 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) has just named Brian Alegant, Oberlin Conservatory Professor of Music Theory, as 2015 U.S. Professor of the Year.

Alegant is a 12-tone specialist.

Schoenberg lives.

Story here.

 

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Gareth Malone, the BBC choral conductor (and ex-LSO animateur), has gathered a group of New Yorkers who, for one medical reason or another, literally cannot draw breath. In some cases, the conditions are life-threatening.

All they want to do is sing.

So Gareth takes them there.

Watch. Weep. Live.
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First Chen Reiss pulled out as Gretel with a chest infection.

Then Daniela Sindram missed the dress rehearsal as Hansel (she’ll be fine tonight).

Now Adrian Eröd had to cancel tonight with tracheitis; Clemens Unterreiner will sing Peter in the première.

Vienna State Opera has not done Hansel and Gretel in 70 years.

Maybe it’s spooked.

 

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The busy Russian conductor has been named artistic director of Romania’s Enescu International Festival, starting now.

Vlad, 43, is already principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Artistic Director of the Svetlanov State Academic Orchestra of Russia; principal artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and, most recently, chief conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

So he has got time on his hands.

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press release: The Enescu International Festival has announced that Vladimir Jurowski is appointed its next Artistic Director. Jurowski, who is currently Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Artistic Director of the State Academic Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov”; Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Designate of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; will assume this honorary mantel immediately in preparation for the 2017 edition of the festival, working with the festival management as an artistic consultant on their future strategy and programming. Maestro Zubin Mehta has also been announced as Honorary President. 

Held every two years in Bucharest, and in tribute to the treasured Romanian composer George Enescu, the festival is Romania’s largest cultural event, presenting performances by more than 2,500 internationally renowned artists and orchestras.

 Jurowski’s relationship with the festival began in 2005, when he conducted the London Philharmonic’s festival appearances. They returned in 2013, with an acclaimed performance of Enescu’s Third Symphony. He will open the 2017 festival with Enescu’s Oedipe. Additional programme highlights include concerts with Lang Lang and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala.

Our social affairs correspondent reports that the American heartthrob singer, whose occasional fancy is attempting opera arias, marched up the Western Wall in Jerusalem and asked to have the barmitzvah he missed out on at 13.

A rabbi was available to fulfil the request.

 

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It is reported that the award-winning jazz singer Cassandra Wilson refused to leave her hotel room to perform at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday. By the time she was coaxed out, half the audience had left.

Cassandra later went on social media to blame the ‘unprofessional and disrespectful’ promoter.

The promoter said: ‘Cassandra is an artist I still have huge respect for as a singer. I just have very little respect for the way she behaved. She treated the audience with contempt. I understand people who are too sick to perform or are very unhappy and need looking after but the first mention of any illness was when she went on stage. The things she has said simply don’t fit together.’

More details here.

 

CassandraWilson-poster

After a minute’s silence and a (rather feeble) singing of La Marsellaise by MEPs, Vladyslava Luchenko gave a rapt account of the Adagio from J.S. Bach’s Sonata in G minor, BWV 1001.

Fast-forward to 15:00 in the video.

Luchenko, Kiev-born, is artist in residence at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Brussels. She plays the Piatti Stradiarius, on loan to her from the Michael Guttman foundation.

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The Ankara State Theatre has sacked all its freelance musicians, among them several who had worked without contract for years. Read here.

 

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