The orchestra’s crowdfunder for its purchase of a disused inn for Syrian refugees is still short of target.

With 11 days to go, it has raised 58,430 Euros. It needs 75,000.

You can help them reach the required amount by donating here.

The Detroit Symphony has an unusual event coming up this week.

A cello concerto commission it awarded to the US composer Mohammed Fairouz, who is of Palestinian and Gulf origin, will receive its world premiere in a Detroit synagogue, Congregation Shaarey Zedek. And the soloist will be Maya Beiser, who was born in Israel.

‘Desert Sorrows’, a half-hour work for amplified cello and large orchestra, draws its themes from Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The protagonists discuss the work here with Detroit critic Mark Stryker.

We’ve received clarification from Milan about the background for Graham Vick’s removal from Fanciulla del West.

In the first place, it was not a gay bar the director wanted but a miners’ bar. Reports of a gay bar that appeared in Austrian and Italian publications (quoted by Slipped Disc) are being sternly contradicted.

The official position is that the music director, Riccardo Chailly, is asking all directors to discuss their ideas about the staging with him before contracts are signed.

In this instance Chailly and Vick, meeting several months ago, found they had different views and decided not to go ahead with this project. According to La Scala, they parted on good terms and have spoken again since then.

The famously shy incoming music director of the Berlin Philharmonic has published a letter to the Danish authorities expressing his concern at plans ‘to permanently decimate the orchestra’ of the royal opera.

He adds: ‘It seems to be the beginning of the deconstruction of an orchestra with an enormous tradition and artistic experience.’

No reply from Schloss Borgen.

It’s going to be bleak if you live south of the river.

Fairfield Hall, the only concert venue on the less fashionable side (except the South Bank Centre, which hugs the river), is to be shut for two years for much-needed refurbishment. At least two years, the authorities say. And no alternative venue is being booked.

Campaigners are up in arms. South London deserves better.

For some reason, no-one is considering it as a site for the Simon Rattle vanity hall.

Jonas Kaufmann has pulled out of his only appearances at the Met and Covent Garden this season.

Now he has cancelled the Teatro Real in Madrid. Acute sinusitis is the given cause.