The Detroit Symphony, seen not long ago as a welfare case in a ruined city, is regenerating with real talent.
Latest recruit is Eric Nowlin, 35, currently associate principal viola at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Over recent months Leonard Slatkin has added a concertmaster and principal clarinet, flute, bass, timpani, percussion, cello and oboe.
The Iceland Symphony Orchestra has extended Osmo Vänskä’s position as Principal Guest Conductor through to the 2019/20. Vänskä was Chief Conductor of the orch from 1993 to 1996, and conducted its Carnegie Hall debut in 1996.
Osmo said: ‘Harpa is a fantastic concert hall and its importance for cultural life in Iceland cannot be overestimated. I am extremely impressed with how the orchestra has improved in quality since moving to Harpa, and it is always a joy to make music with them. I love this orchestra and look forward to our continued collaboration.’
His other orch’s pretty good, too.
Some good careers have begun in Glasgow’s gofer slot: Christian Kluxen, James Lowe and David Danzmayr.
Now the RNSO need a new assistant conductor.
Details below.
maestro in waiting
Scotland’s national orchestra is inviting applicants for the position of RSNO Assistant Conductor, commencing in the autumn of 2016. Successful candidates will be invited to the RSNO Centre in May for audition with full orchestra, where applicants will be invited to conduct a mixture of repertoire. Following the audition three candidates will be invited to the final round of interviews, from which the new RSNO Assistant Conductor will be selected.
Applicants are invited to send a covering letter, CV, repertoire list, video work sample and full contact information for three professional references by email only to amy.glover@rsno.org.uk. Deadline for applications is Monday 8 February 2016.
The Castleton Festival, founded on his own Virginia estate by the late Lorin Maazel, has been suspended. This year’s event will not take place while the conductor’s widow, Dietlinde, takes stock and decides whether it has a future.
At the moment, there isn’t the money.
Lorin, at his last festival
Here’s Dietlinde’s open letter:
Dear Friends of the Festival,
It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you about some major adjustments to the offerings of the Castleton Festival for the Summer 2016. Despite every attempt to adapt our budget to continuous financial challenges while trying to preserve the excellence of our performances and training program, we have come to realize that it is the right moment to pause, regroup and work toward a solid future.
In 2015, we were humbled by the outpouring of support from our community through donors and patrons like you. This allowed us to mount an extremely well received 2015 season, which celebrated the life of the Festival’s founder and largest supporter, Maestro Lorin Maazel. From the Castleton Artists Training Seminar and a highly successful orchestra under the baton of Principal Conductor Rafael Payare, to world premieres, board leadership and new partnerships, all aspects of Castleton pulled together to further Lorin’s legacy going forward. This summer we celebrated yet another milestone as our live-streamed performances reached over 1,000,000 viewers in over 100 countries around the world.
With your support, we were inspired to move forward with the planning of a brilliant 2016 season, which when announced this past Fall, was again received with your enthusiasm and generosity. However, as time went on we found that availability of financial support was not sufficient enough for us to proceed, even with a modified model of a shorter, inspiring integrative arts festival with the inclusion of Wynton Marsalis’ Summer Jazz Academy.
Your support and generosity has not been in vain nor will it be forgotten. We will continue to host our Castleton in Performance series throughout the summer and beyond, and the ongoing Educational Outreach programming will carry on our mission of nurturing the arts in the lives of children. With an increased focus on education and outreach, we are revisiting our roots and renewing our emphasis on the original mission of nurturing young talents and fostering the arts through integrative mentoring, world-class performances and the building of communities. And as we continue to refine that mission, it is clear that we need time to take stock, strategize and ensure the evolution and growth of the Festival so that Lorin’s vision doesn’t merely survive, but has the roots and strength to blossom for many years to come.
In that spirit, it is our hope that we can count on your ongoing support. I am sure you will agree that classical music can make our kids smarter, ignite hope, strengthen self-esteem, and provide respite from a stressful world.
Please join us in creating a new sustainable future for the Festival!
With my sincere gratitude,
Dietlinde
From a Conservative Home interview with Ed Vaizey:
‘Why would a Conservative like Tracey Emin? First of all she’s an artist who came out in support of the Conservatives, very prominently, in 2010 and in 2015. Secondly she comes from a modest background and has become a hugely successful artist.
‘Thirdly she’s an entrepreneur: she runs her own business, she employs people. She not only sells her own art but there’s a wider Tracey Emin brand. So she grows people and pays her taxes. And she raises millions for charity, particularly the NSPCC, every year. Which of those traits would a Conservative dislike?’
Ed goes on to say: ‘I’ve never hidden the fact that I think the arts community as a whole is left-wing. But to be serious for a second, I wanted to do this job because I grew up in a cultural world and I care about it, and to be fair to them, they have met me half way.’
Our lobby correspondent adds:
A favorite parlour game in Westminster Circles is ongoing Reshuffle Speculation. And Ed Vaizey’s future has now become somewhat of a conundrum for regular players.
Vaizey first shadowed the Arts portfolio in 2006 whilst in Opposition, (a political lifetime ago) However, after 9 relentless years of Westminster Hall, and adjournment debates on Library funding; BBC Governance; Superfast broadband and mobile connectivity; Spectrum policy and even Digital Radio Switchover; anyone could be forgiven for being bored and wanting a fresh challenge.
Certainly, he looked bored last year and throughout many of the ‘creative industries’ hustings that were organized for the General Election campaign. Back then, the clear consensus was that Labour would probably take power in a hung Parliament. And if the Tories somehow clung on in government (via another Coalition with the Lib Dems) then Vaizey would leave the Department of Culture, Media & Sport to do something else…
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!
Cameron won a majority government and Vaizey returned to DCMS…and a little over a week ago, Vaizey apparently became the longest serving arts minister in British political history. Vaizey now has a strong claim to know the Arts & Culture brief better than his civil servants – and certainly better than his current Labour Shadows.
During his ministerial career, the genial Vaizey has been titled and re-titled several times. He’s currently styled ‘Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and Culture, Media and Sport’.Importantly, he’s been promoted from Parliamentary Under-Secretary level to Minister of State level…slightly more responsibility, and a higher salary.
But this is mere detail. For the purposes of ‘Slipped Disc’, it’s the same man, in the same Arts job – and the continuity has been useful in a small department which has seen no less than four Secretaries of State in just over 5 years.
He has served loyally (and successfully seen off) three Cabinet bosses:- i) the hapless Jeremy Hunt distracted by the Olympics and the Leveson Inquiry, ii) the besieged Maria Miller, caught up in press regulation until undone by historic expenses, and iii) the ambitious Sajid Javid, who barely had time to find his coat peg, before the election campaign last May. Post-election, Vaizey now finds himself reporting to the former Chairman of the Select Committee; the fiercely-ideological and highly-experienced John Whittingdale.
But as SW1 begins another round of “Speculation”… this time over ‘Whitto’s’ future post a EU-Referendum, watch out for the whispers on whether ‘Lazy Vaizey’ will ever get the top job…
press release:
The ONE Music Group, creators of The ONE Smart Piano and The ONE Light keyboard, announces a long-term partnership with world-renowned concert pianist Lang Lang. As formal investor and supporter of The ONE Smart Piano, Lang Lang is a strong believer in making music education more accessible and enjoyable for people of all ages and skill levels.
“Music education of the future is what’s needed to help kids find their love for playing piano and allow them to grow their potential in music,” said Lang Lang. “The ONE represents the future of music education. Learning piano starts with The ONE.”
The violinist Stephanie Chase has been working with a gifted pianist of high pedigree. At age 9, Josh Cullen recorded a Mozart concerto. Later he recorded another with hs mentor, Paul Badura-Skoda. He attended masterclasses with Menahem Pressler and Andre Watts.
But after the 9/11 attacks Josh signed up for the US Army. He served for 12 years, part of the time as an interrogator of al-Qaeda suspects. Here’s what he tells Stephanie in an interview:
Josh Cullen: I was seventeen on September 11, 2001. I had been at Juilliard for less than two weeks and I was sitting in an 8:30am ear training class when the World Trade Center was attacked. I wondered what impact I would have on the world as a classical pianist, a re-interpreter of the great canon of piano repertoire that had already been perfected and recorded for eternity by all the piano greats of the 20th century. I remember going to the American Red Cross in the days following September 11th and volunteering to help, but they didn’t want my help. Did I speak foreign languages? Did I have medical skills? Did I have universal donor, O negative blood? We had just been attacked, and New York City wasn’t looking for any more concert pianists. They needed real people with real skills. …
I joined (the US Army) initially as a translator, learning Korean for a year and a half before learning that my first deployment would be to Iraq, not to Korea. Although my degrees were in music, the army saw that I had a master’s degree and quickly promoted me to the rank of sergeant and had me oversee interrogations at a detention facility in Tikrit, Iraq for my first assignment. The learning curve was steep and the adjustment to the culture of the U.S. military was challenging, but after a couple of years I developed “competence”…
One of the things I didn’t expect to learn on my first deployment to Iraq was how much the U.S. troops relied on music and movies for comfort and to maintain their sanity. Whenever the infantry troops were resting between missions, they were listening to their iPods and watching DVDs. Of course, some of them played video games too. But for the first time in my life I realized how music universally speaks to people, and it wasn’t just something they did to kill time. I saw how it restored their interest in life, how it renewed their energy and improved their mood – it might sound ridiculous, but it really fed their souls. And some of these soldiers actually listened to classical music. I remember one infantry sergeant I served with in the 82nd Airborne Division had brought his violin with him. I was astonished. This was an important realization for me as it validated the idea of being a musician as a profession.
Read the full interview here.
Visit Josh’s site here.
Edmonde Charles-Roux, war heroine and president of the Aix-en-Provence festival from time immemorial, has died at 95. She recorded her mrmories of the festival here:
She was a founding editor of Elle magazine, editor of Vogue and winner of the Prix Goncourt for her novel To Forget Palermo.’
After midnight in Moscow, that’s what they’ll be playing.
And the buses will be equipped with free wi-fi, says bus company CEO Yevgeny Mikhailov.
London is so far behind. In your dreams, New York.
Marina Rebeka and Tareq Nazmi have called in sick on tonight’s Don Giovanni at the Staatsoper.
Their last-minute replacements are Jacquelyn Wagner (ex-Manattan School of Music and Steven Humes (ex-New England Conservatory).
Toi-toi.
Musicians at the Fort Worth Symphony have voted unanimously to authorise a strike, a union spokesman said.
They have been in pay negotiations for seven months, with no end in sight.
Pay at Fort Worth is poor to appalling. One recent principal was hired ( we heard) for $30,000 a year.
Orch President and CEO Amy Adkins says there is a $4 million gap between what the musicians want and what the organisation is prepared to pay. The music director is Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
This looks like another disaster scenario, deep in the heart of Texas.
