The Kansas Symphony has a program for playing in prisons. They tried it out this week.
Gives a whole new upbeat dimension to the term ‘orchestral lockout’.
Watch here.
Just in from the LA Phil:
LOS ANGELES, January 28, 2016 – Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), led by LA Phil Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, will perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show on Sunday, February 7 on CBS.
The show will echo elements of the NFL’s On the Fifty campaign – honoring the past, recognizing the present and looking ahead to the next 50 years. Global superstars and winners of seven Grammy Awards Coldplay will perform, among other acts.
“This is a wonderful honor and an extraordinary showcase for YOLA, as well as a tribute to youth orchestras worldwide,” said Dudamel. “When we play, it will be for the youth of the world so they can be inspired to create both a better life for themselves and a better future.”
The death is reported of Jean-Louis Martinoty, director of the Opéra National de Paris from 1986 to 1989.
He died on Wednesday of unknown causes, a few days after his 70th birthday. Martinoty was a prolific stage director, coming to attention with a celebrated Rameau Boréades for John Eliot Gardiner and working at many opera houses, including Mozart productions in Vienna.
Our sympathies to his loved ones.
Austrian police say they have found the body of Lauren Mann, from Paonia in Western Colorado, in an apartment on the Wiedner Hauptstrasse.
There were no external injuries but tests are being carried out to see if she was possibly poisoned. No other cause has been indicated.
Lauren, who studied at the College of Music at the University of Colorado-Boulder, went to Vienna to improve her German and was working as an au pair. Her employers reported her missing earlier this week.
Her family say: ‘We are heartbroken to tell you our daughter and sister Lauren Mann has been found dead in her apartment in Vienna, Austria. An investigation is in progress. It has been released in Austria to the media and is being sensationalized. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.’
Nathan Chan, the cellist whose instrument was bumped off WestJet and had to be flown separately at great inconvenience, has been refunded the cost of the extra seat he purchased.
That’s $248.74.
But there’s no apology or policy shift from WestJet, so he’s running a petition to change their stubborn attitude.
Click here.
The Lebrecht Album of the Week is now being published by another of its former sites, the brilliant US-based Open Letters Monthly, probably the best guide to literary form in the English language. Review here.
What caught our eye on a browse of the site was a recommendation by the OLM editors of the new books we must – simply must – read over the course of the coming year.
No sneaky clues.
Read the short list for yourselves here.
It’s a delicate etiquette point.
The concert’s over. It’s been pretty good. Some flunkey or fan comes on and gives the conductor a bouquet of flowers. Which he then thrusts on you.
What to do. Do you:
(a) blush
(b) blush and curtsy
(c) say thank you
(d) say thank you and dismantle the bunch, sharing it around your section?
Definitely not (d) we hope, though we have seen it done.
The question was prompted by this:
A lovely tour post by Melanie Kupchynsky of the Chicago Symphony second violins, titled: “Oh no. He’s going to give ME the flowers!”
Melanie writes:
I think I know why it happened. Right before the last note of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, as I was watching him for the final cue, our eyes met for a split second, and I could tell that he was pleased. I’m not sure if everything I was thinking and feeling showed on my face, but it went something like this: “Russian music sure sounds different to me when it is performed closer to Russia, without an ocean in between…..I wonder how the Chinese people feel about Russian music……Wow, I love how Maestro is really firing up this last page, it’s faster than last time but it’s like the orchestra isn’t even breaking a sweat……the percussion section sounds fantastic…..let’s see where he is going to put this last note….BOOM! applause……
Read the full post here.
It’s the sound of a happy orchestra.
The Ernst von Siemens prize for 2016 was awarded today to Per Norgard, 83.
Good composer. Nice top-up for his pension fund.
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has announced plans to play in every European Union member state in the course of two and a half years, starting in Ireland in August. New principal conductor Daniele Gatti will be in charge.
The tour patron is EU president Jean-Claude Juncker, something of a stranger to the concert hall.
Let’s hope there will still be 28 by 2019. And that the orch won’t be delayed too long at post-Shengen border controls.
Fabio Luisi is now officially music director designate of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, succeeding Zubin Mehta in 2108… oops, 2018. He will conduct three operas and several concerts a year.
The company has undergone a management and financial overhaul. Franceso Bianchi is the intendant.
Fabio is music director of the Zurich Opera and becomes principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO) next year.
Margaret Pardee, who died on Tuesday aged 95, taught violin and viola at the Juilliard School for 60 years until her retirement in 2008. She was a legend at the school, less formidable than Dorothy DeLay but no less devoted.
The pianist Karen Schwartz, a student at the school, served as accompanist at her classes from 1983 to 1988.
She contributes this personal memoir to Slipped Disc.
Everyone addressed her as Miss Pardee, the perfect name for a Southern lady. She had a lovely lilt of an accent.
Always seated at her desk, Miss Pardee focused intently on each and every student. She was present, diligent and prepared with index cards reminding her what pieces everybody was playing. Her demeanor could be serious. She was slightly taciturn.
The cat-eye glasses were a little unnerving.
Then as a smile emerged, her whole face would immediately light up. The environment in her studio was audition-like, focused, so professional. Yet there was always a warm feeling, because it was evident Miss Pardee truly loved her job.
Occasionally a student would saunter in, playing one scale for an entire hour. R E A L L Y S L O W L Y.
“No, honey, that’s just out of tune,” she’d say in a singsongy tone.
Other students would waltz in, bursting into song with an entire concerto from memory, a good 30 minutes worth.
“Do it again, but this time hold your instrument up higher,” she’d say in a soft voice. Another 30 minutes elapsed, barely a word said. Lesson over.
Next.
Clearly she was preparing her students for the real world, the one beyond the walls of the Juilliard School. Students practiced, perfected and polished their auditions, concert, and jury repertoire with the support of a woman who clearly believed in them.
Steadfast and always supportive, she was revered as a mentor, coach and friend. The ultimate teacher, Margaret Pardee was a pillar of strength to many.
(c) Karen Schwartz/Slipped Disc
The acoustician Derek Sugden, who achieved superb sound at Aldeburgh, Buxton and Glyndebourne, has died at 91.
An amateur in the highest English tradition, Derek was a structural engineer with a passion for music and buildings. He never acquired a qualification in acoustics, relying on his innate sense of what works in music.
Out of working hours, he was a habituee of chamber music at the Wigmore Hall.
Fine obit here.
