It’s my very last Album of the Year for sinfinimusic.com, which is being wound down, and I found myself reflecting critically on the ones I had missed.

At this time of year, my thoughts always turn to the ones that got away. Allowed to choose just one release a week for review, I find myself regretting the fantastic works and performances that, for one reason or other, missed the cut.

Leo Ornstein, for instance. Ornstein was a Russian-Jewish composer who migrated to the US in 1906 and died in 2002 at the age of 108. After a couple of decades of frenetic modernist composition, he went against the grain, recommitted himself to melody and was shoved rudely into obscurity. A pair of 1920s chamber works on Hyperion, scintillating performances by the Pacifica Quartet with Marc-André Hamelin, have been among my most-played pieces of the year.

No, it’s not that one. To find out which 2015 release will, in my view, last the test of time, click here.

A performance of the great choral masterpiece at the Tirol Festival was twice disrupted by external manipulation of the lighting system. The music director, Gustav Kuhn, stopped the concert and apologised to the audience.

The Festival says its systems were hacked and has called in the police.

Just in from Opera Nederland:

The Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek and her dog Ruby were refused by KLM due to the increased weight of the dog.

Eva-Maria Westbroek had the intention to fly to the Netherlands for Christmas. She had booked a flight with KLM to travel from London Heathrow to Schiphol after the matinee performance of ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ on 21 December 2015 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

But her dog Ruby was not allowed on board by the KLM because of her increased weight. Due to recent surgery she appeared to be heavier than the permitted eight kilos. For a world famous soprano as Eva-Maria Westbroek the KLM did not wish to make an exception. The devastated Westbroek said she was laughed at by the ground crew. She stated that she will not fly KLM ever again.

UPDATE: Read KLM’s response here.