The composer David Lang and the cellist Maya Beiser are among 37 United States Artists announced today.

Details here.

A post by Kyle Gann alerts us to the death of Martha Herr, a lustrous American modernist who transferred herself and her gifts to Sao Paolo, Brazil, for the last thirty years.

Martha premiered works by Morton Feldman and, later, by Brazilian composers. She was just 63 at her death.

We are sad to report the death of Theodore Cyrus (Ted) Karp, an expert on medieval monophony and a prolific contributor to New Grove.

Ted, who was 89, was a well-liked professor at UC Davis and Northwestern, where he became department chair. Unusually for a medieval musicologist, he was a devoutly religious Jew.

Here’s a riff from one of his students.

(pictured in 2009 with Bonnie Blackburn)

Sexi Soprano has developed strategies for coping with the thanks-but-no-thanks opera letters that flood in at this time of year. For instance:

My teacher in undergrad told me a story about how as a young singer living in New York at the start of her career, she was rejected so often that she was able to use her rejection letters to wallpaper her bathroom. Though I loved the quirkiness and irreverence of that idea, in my opinion, it was lacking in actual pay-off. I’m someone who enjoys attaching special meaning to things. I am also someone who loves researching and dreaming about exciting purchases. If there is anything that excites me almost as much as getting hired to sing opera, it’s jewelry. I decided that I would begin collecting my rejection letters, start saving a little extra cash for every rejection letter, and when I reached 50 rejections, I would purchase a special piece of jewelry for myself.

Discover more remedies here.

Stéphane Lissner’s regime at the Opéra, under siege for removing walls between boxes at the Palais Garnier to create extra seats, has published documents purporting to show that the partitions were always intended to be removable.

In his book “The new Paris Opera”, published in 1878, Charles Garnier describes the “removable partitions that can be installed or withdrawn at will” in order to accommodate audiences as circumstances required.

From 1875 onwards temporary partition removal was regularly carried out for decades, for example in the case of official visits or hiring out of the auditorium.

Read the full Lissner defence (with new pictures) here.

András Keller has been named Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music, starting January.

Keller was head of the Chamber Music Department at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, 2012-2015.

From the press release:

András Keller commented: ‘I’m extremely pleased to join Guildhall, where I will do my best to build up a great violin class. In the past few years, I’ve met several exceptional young artists from Guildhall, and besides their great technical ability, I find all of them have great musical sense, commitment, interest, and understanding. So I said to myself, this could be “my school”! I can’t wait to pass on to them what I have learned from my great masters, Sándor Végh, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados.’

The elusive new chief of the Berlin Phil is in China, apparently.

Rudolph Tang caught sight of him on a sentimental visit to the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra (pictured with its director Nie Bing). Kirill once conducted in Shenzhen as a student.

Berlin won’t see much of him before 2019.

The Mahler-Rosé Collection at the University of Western Ontario has begun the process of digitisation and should, in due course, be entirely searchable online.

This is a very positive development. The collection, the largest resource of Mahler material in North America, contains vital information about the composer’s early ears, his relations with his siblings, and theirs with his wife. Some of the material has been published in documentary studies but there is much still to be examined and not every researcher can afford the trip to London, Ontario.

So here, for starters, is the inventory. And here‘s where the rest will appear.

James Cuddeford, Australian concertmaster of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, has popped up on social media to assure us that there are no lasting effects from his alarming fall from the stage during Saturday’s concert.

James, feeling faint, rose from his chair between movements of the Schumann concerto, but fell off the stage onto his precious 1769 Nicolo Gagliano instrument. James was taken to hospital and sent home the following day.

James messages: ‘I am recovering well. Amazingly, no surgery required – however, my violin does require extensive surgery….’

The violin is believed to have suffered  a crack at the centre of the soundboard but the neck is intact.

Eight years ago, Jeff Beal was told he had multiple sclerosis.

His response is an a cappella work, The Salvage Men, ‘a meditation on suffering and catharsis’, which receives its U.S. premiere on Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Beal has also composed a symphonic work based on House of Cards. ‘Those lines between utilitarian music and art for art’s sake are starting to blur,’ he believes. ‘But I do feel something that was missing from my life, for sure, was this idea of a pure piece of music. It doesn’t need a picture. It can exist on its own terms.’

The airline cancelled 930 flights today.

It’s orchestra’s doing fine.

Seems there is some disconnect between total harmony after-hours and total conflict on the job.

Read here.

Elizabeth Braw reports from Leipzig that auditions have begun for the post of Cantor at St Thomas’s Church.

This week begins the auditions of four finalists from a pool of 41 applicants. The candidates are Markus Teutschbein, 44, who currently conducts the boys’ choir in Basel, Switzerland; Clemens Flämig, 39, who conducts the city choir in the city of Halle, near Leipzig; Markus Johannes Langer, 44, who leads the music at a church in the northern German city of Rostock and conducts a concert choir in the city; and Matthias Jung, 51, who conducts the Dresden Boys’ Choir as well as an adult concert choir. Each one has a week to sell himself in the job.

“It’s an immense pressure,” admitted Stefan Altner, a member of the search committee. “If we don’t find the right candidate among the finalists, we’ll start over again.”

We’ll try to keep you posted on the outcome.

At Bach’s grave