David Teie, a cellist in the National Symphony Orchestra, creates music specially for cats. It’s based, he says, on scientific research into how to make pussies happy.
Unlike humans, says David, ‘felines establish their sense of music outside of the womb, through sounds heard after they’re born, like the chirping of birds, the sucking of milk, or the purring of their mother. Using only musical instruments, I incorporated those sounds and their natural vocalizations into music and matched it to the frequency range they use to communicate. The reason harp plays notes play in rapid succession (23 per second!) is because that’s the precise rate of a cat’s purr.’
So David decided to go global with a Kickstarter appeal for funds to record and promote music that cats will just love. He has passed his $200,000 target with three days to spare.
Watch:
We regret to report the death ofNorman Pickering on November 18.
An audio veteran who invented the magnetic cartridge with the sapphire needle in 1945 and paved the way for hi-fi, Norman lived to the age of 99.
He founded the audio engineering company Pickering Audio and later worked as an instrument designer for C.G. Conn in Elkhart. In later years he conducted important acoustic research on the violin and cello.
He wrestled with this problem: ‘Sound is created by the displacement of air. But the string itself has so little area that it doesn’t displace enough air to be heard at any significant distance. Try a string without an instrument and you’ll find you can hardly hear it, it’s just not moving enough air. The whole point of the violin is a means of converting the mechanical motion of the string to the movement of something that is big enough to create audible sound.’
We are delighted to report that Bernard Labadie, music director of Les Violons du Roy, will make his return to action next month in Handel’s Messiah with St Louis and the Chicago Symphony orchestras after an 18-month battle with cancer.
Labadie, 52, tells the CSO site he’s lucky to be alive. ‘Almost against all odds, it did work out,’ he said.
A week after his 2014 concerts with the CSO, the French-Canadian maestro fell ill in Germany and was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma — a kind of blood cancer. He was in the hospital there for a month before returning to his hometown, Québec City, for what became a grueling medical odyssey. He began with the usual treatment for this disease, a transplant of his own blood-forming stem cells, but this approach did not work. So he required a more complicated and more dangerous stem-cell transplant from someone else; one of his three siblings — a sister — proved to be a compatible donor.
The procedure took place in October 2014, but things did not go well. “Basically, I got every complication that is possible and then some,” Labadie said. Along the way, he had to be placed in an induced coma for a month, and when he was finally awakened, he faced severe muscle loss. “So when I woke up, I couldn’t hold a glass of water,” he said. “I couldn’t turn in my bed. Of course, I couldn’t stand by my bed or get up.” Thus he began an arduous rehabilitation. Labadie finally left the hospital in April, and he has continued a range of physical therapy and physical training since. “But things are going well,” he said. “It’s just a very long process.”
Joyce DiDonato, ever an online pioneer, has created her own video channel Opera Rocks, as a place for shy high school students to share their opera passions. She believes kids who love arts can be isolated at school. Here they can meet in secret.
Joyce is funding the site herself and will run it for the students and will be a constant presence on it with posts, videos, diva interviews, photos and messages.
She says:
‘I’ve noticed a fabulous trend from social media about young opera lovers: often times in high school, they will feel as if they are the only person on the planet who likes opera because they may be the only one at their school who (secretly!) has a passion for it. Through social media, however, they can connect across cities, states, even countries. Many times a group of 15-20 of them have saved up and made the trip to their “first live opera”, and they meet at the stage door to complete their experience full-circle. It’s been one of the most encouraging things I’ve seen in this business. I am simply giving back to them, letting them know they are not alone, and providing a platform for them to connect and share this wonderful, eye-opening world of opera.’
The Seattle Symphony has taken the unusual step of offering a new work for free download.
It is Giya Kancheli’s Nu.Mu.Zu for Orchestra, recorded two weeks ago before the Paris and Beirut atrocities. Kancheli, a displaced Georgian who has lived since 1991 in Germany and Belgium, has experienced more than his fair share of political violence and turmoil.
You car stream or download the 23-minute recording for free, here.
Nu.Mu.Zu means ‘I don’t know’ in the ancient Mesopotamian language of Sumerian. Kancheli says: ‘What is happening in the world is gradually, step by step, destroying the last hope in my consciousness, without which, for all of us, life loses its meaning. ‘I don’t know’ what will happen in the future. However, having lost hope, I keep dreaming about a world in which fanaticism, sectarian strife and violence are no longer the dominant features of world order.’
Fascinating confessions on Mumsnet. Full of vital statistics.
It has been announced that Daniil Trifonov, winner of the last-but-one Tchaikovsky Competition, has become a director of the New York Philarmonic.
The rest of the board represent big money. Daniil has all the notes. And a raincoat.
Release below.
Pianist Daniil Trifonov, the 24-year-old Russian pianist who is beginning his final week as the spotlighted soloist in the three-week Rachmaninoff: A Philharmonic Festival, has joined the Board of Directors of the New York Philharmonic, elected on November 13, 2015.
The Philharmonic’s relationship with Daniil Trifonov began with his Philharmonic debut in the 2012–13 season, when, at the age of 21, he performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert. The Philharmonic invited Mr. Trifonov to return in the 2014–15 season to perform Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1, led by Juanjo Mena. Mr. Trifonov is the featured soloist in Rachmaninoff: A Philharmonic Festival, taking place throughout November 2015, in which he performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2, 3, and 4 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, in addition to a chamber program featuring Mr. Trifonov alongside Musicians from the New York Philharmonic.
“Daniil Trifonov will be an outstanding addition to the New York Philharmonic Board of Directors,” said Chairman Oscar S. Schafer. “He is a brilliant pianist who, since his debut in 2012, has thrilled our audiences and established a strong rapport with our musicians that critics and audiences have noticed. His insights as a young musician who travels the world will bring an immensely valuable perspective to the Board at a time of growth and expansion for the Orchestra.” Daniil Trifonov joins Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, and Itzhak Perlman as musicians on the Board with whom the New York Philharmonic has closely collaborated.
The Romanian soprano has launched an appeal for victims of the Bucharest nightclub fire. Among its first supporters is the mass-market Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, who sent this message:
My dearests,
I was in the United States, when I heard about the terrible misfortune that has destroyed so many young lives in Bucharest.
That day, I thought about your country, that I love, I visited and which I feel emotionally close, thinking about how much suffering, how much despair had caused this tragedy, involving many families, throwing them in anguish, not denying that, for a moment, my faith threatened to falter. Because in times like these it is so easy to feel disoriented, while searching for a plausible explanation as to why the sky would allow to leave so many young lives without a future.
The existence often puts us dramatically on contradictory aims, and it is heartbreaking to have to admit that the mind of men is not made to understand the logic of God … But He – as a priest told me, a dear friend of mine – has an eternity to make amends, and the time on earth (and any pain it marks the way), is drastically reduced, when compared to perpetual life.
No wonder that a heart as big as that of my dear friend Angela Gheorghiu, has reacted immediately… Unfortunately I can not be physically present at the Romanian Atheneum, but I will be with my heart with you, and pray with you, and I wish to send to the families touched by this tragic event and to all the people of my beloved Romania, my closeness and my most affectionate embrace. ”
Andrea Bocelli
Angela invites everybody to join her efforts to raise funds for all the victims of the fire from Club Colectiv in Bucharest. The collection and distribution of funds are made by Fundatia Pretuieste Viata, led by Andreea Marin.
INTERNATIONAL DONATIONS can be made into the following account:
IBAN : RO13BRDE445SV33742314450
SWIFT: BRDEROBU
BANK: BRD, SUCURSALA DOROBANTI
BANK ADDRESS: CALEA DOROBANTILOR, NR 135, SECTOR 1, BUCURESTI
Word is out that this year’s $100,00 Grawemeyer Award for music composition has gone to Hans Abrahamsen.
The announcement of the award is not due until next Monday but, as we said, word is out.
If there’s such a thing as a happy Dane, Hans is it.
The award is for his song cycle, ‘let me tell you’, with texts by Paul Griffiths.
UPDATE: It appears Musical America has been obliged to take down its leak of this award.
2nd UPDATE: It has just gone live.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Nov. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — let me tell you, a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, has earned Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen the 2016 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.
**Note: Due to a news embargo break this information, originally scheduled for Nov. 30 @ 10 p.m., is being announced early**
Abrahamsen’s half-hour work presents a first-person narrative by Ophelia, the tragic noblewoman from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The libretto by Paul Griffiths is adapted from his 2008 novel—also titled “let me tell you”—and consists of seven poems created using only the minimal vocabulary that Shakespeare originally scripted for Ophelia.
The veteran critic and broadcaster Martin Bookspan has written for Slipped Disc a beautiful memoir of his friend, concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, who died at the weekend.
“Extraordinaire!” That’s the word Charles Munch used when he told me about his newest hire for the violin section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And Munch knew a thing or two about playing the violin: he served as Concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Furtwangler from 1926 until 1933. As is customary, the new violinist was assigned the last seat in the last row of the violins. I quickly learned the name of the new member of the orchestra: Joseph Silverstein.
Weeks after the start of the season Mr. Silverstein did what some thought was sheer chutzpah on his part: in a small auditorium in Boston he played a concert of unaccompanied violin works, some Bach as well as the Bartok Sonata. Those of us who were privileged to have attended went back to Munch’s word, “extraordinaire”.
When the orchestra’s venerable Concertmaster, Richard Burgin, announced that he would retire at the end of the 1961-62 season, the floodgates opened for aspirants to succeed him. Among those applying was the young Mr. Silverstein. Another act of chutzpah?
In the meantime I had become friends with Erich Leinsdorf, whose home in Larchmont was a ten-minute drive from mine in Eastchester. When Leinsdorf became the chosen successor to Munch, it fell to him to chose the successor to Burgin. After the auditions were concluded, I received a phone call from Leinsdorf. “It’s Silverstein!” were his first words, before he went on to rave about his chosen second-in-command. By then Silverstein was known to everyone as “Joey”.
In the Fall of 1983 we bought a summer cottage in Stockbridge, minutes away from Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We formed a little kibbutz: the cottage up the road just before ours was the summer home of the family of Victor Alpert, the beloved librarian of the BSO. And just behind ours was the summer home of Joey and his family. We were a raucous but supremely happy group whenever we got together—which was often!
When I think of him, I remember all those wonderful times we spent together. Rest in Peace, Joey………. (c) Martin Bookspan/Slipped Disc
The Georgian bass Paata Burchuladze has cleared his diary to run the Georgian Development Fund, which is expected to become a political party. He is also head of a charitable foundation, Iavnana.
‘I never thought of becoming an opera singer, but life brought it to me, or better to say, I was given a chance and I used it,’ he told journalists. ‘I never wanted to be a philanthropist, but life offered me the conditions to become one.’
Next step: government.
The international cellist (l. in picture), a neighbour of ours, wonders why he keeps putting in the hard hours.
A question that my girlfriend Joanna asked me the other day got me thinking. I was preparing the cycle of Beethoven’s sonatas and variations for piano and cello, which I was playing for perhaps the tenth time with Robert Levin on fortepiano; and Joanna wondered what it was that I was focussing on when practising works I know so well. It’s true that I could sit down, not having played any Beethoven for six months, and play any of the pieces almost as accurately as I do in concerts – anyone could, having played them so often.
But that isn’t the point. I do spend a lot of time focussing on intonation, as well as bow articulation – it’s essential, in order to reach a level at which one isn’t distracted by technical problems during performance. Even more vital, though, is to remind oneself of the exact position of every note in the work as a whole. One can read a novel many times, and know the plot pretty well; but will one remember every word? Unless one has a photographic memory, I think that the answer will be no. (And even if one has such a memory, will one remember the true meaning of the sentences?)
As an interpreter, one has to know, as it were, every word of the story – not just who are the main characters (or in musical terms, themes), but also the contrasts and similarities between them, how they develop and inter-react, and what journeys they experience. Reminding oneself of all this, and listening to the new messages that great music will send us each time one comes back to it, takes time. It’s not enough just to understand the basic structure (although that is of course essential; if you hear a performance that seems to go on forever, it is generally because the interpreters have no idea of the overall shape of the music, and are groping their way through the poor piece – it happens too often, unfortunately).
I find that the music of Bach, Beethoven and other works of true complexity (as well as, usually – and paradoxically – true simplicity) take far longer to reintroduce to my fingers and mind than, say, Shostakovich’s first concerto, which I was also playing on this same trip. I would certainly not call the latter superficial in any way – it’s a masterpiece! It is certainly not lacking in complexity, either. It is wonderfully cinematic and comparatively clear-cut, though, each note representing something pretty definite; returning to it is like a reunion with an old, very familiar friend. I have always to re-examine the score, of course – there are still surprises in store, details I have missed.
But I don’t think that my view of the essential nature of the concerto is likely to change radically. The last Beethoven sonatas, on the other hand, demand constant basic searching and revision, an open mind about the profound secrets concealed beneath the surface; there is more information per note, in fact, than in the Shostakovich. That is why I, in common with every other musician, have to keep practising the Beethoven sonatas so hard every time – both at my own instrument and away from it. And if I were to tell myself that by all those hours of work I have fully probed the depths of the music – I would be deluding myself!
