The Board of Carnegie Hall have posted the following notice in Sunday’s New York Times about their late colleague Gilbert Kaplan, who died on Friday. Gil was a board member for just under half his life.
The Board of Trustees and staff of Carnegie Hall mourn the passing of our dear friend and colleague Gilbert Kaplan, passionate music lover and devoted and beloved husband of Lena. Gil joined the Carnegie Hall Board of Trustees in 1980, and served the Hall with devotion for more than thirty-five years. Gil brought his financial acumen and keen insight to Carnegie Hall’s management as a longstanding member of the Finance and Operations Committee, where he helped govern major institutional advances from the restoration of Carnegie Hall to the creation of an education center. Following his successful career in business and journalism, Gil became a celebrated scholar of Gustav Mahler, establishing the Kaplan Foundation and conducting Mahler’s Second Symphony with leading orchestras around the world. Gil was invited by the Vienna Philharmonic to conduct the original version of Mahler’s Second Symphony and his recordings of the Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic were very successful. Gil demonstrated his deep love and knowledge of music every season as a frequent concertgoer, and many members of the Carnegie Hall’s family were honored to be guests on Gil’s acclaimed radio program “Mad About Music.” We will always remember Gil for his warmth, musical scholarship, and his love of Carnegie Hall. We express our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Lena, and his devoted children Kristina, Claude, John, and Emily, and their families and loved ones. Sanford I. Weill, President; Mercedes Bass, Acting Chairman; Clive Gillinson, Executive and Artistic Director
The Allegri string quartet, founded in 1953 by Eli Goren and William Pleeth, has changed its first violin.
Ofer Falk makes way for Martyn Jackson, who becomes the quartet’s sixth leader in as many decades.
Gilberto Mendes passed away on January 1 morning in Santos at the age of 93.
A pioneer of Bossa Nova, he founded the Musica Nova Festival.
As a young man he studied in Darmstadt with Boulez and Stockhausen.
Hanna Munitz has announced her retirement after 21 years as chief executive.
She kept the company running but was unpopular with artists, especially conductors, some of whom she fired with extreme acrimony. She lacked charm and was not renowned for gratitude.
Apparently 120 candidates applied for the vacancy the day it was advertised.
Munitz will depart in the summer of 2016.
The American Guild of Musical Artists has announced the death of Alan Gordon, a union official whose firmness and patience with the Metropolitan Opera and its general manager Peter Gelb averted a lockout in the summer of 2014. Alan, who was 70, was well-liked on all sides of the tables.
Message from Jimmy Odom, President of #AGMA:
It is with great regret and deep sorrow that I must inform you that on Friday, January 1, AGMA National Executive Director, Alan Gordon, passed away. Alan suffered a stroke on Wednesday and passed quietly in his sleep Friday morning. Arrangements for services are still pending. I know that you will join with me in offering thoughts and prayers for Alan’s family at this difficult time. Fraternally yours, Jimmy
Announcement: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has invited Gustavo Dudamel to conduct the New Year’s Concert 2017.
Gil died at 0230 this morning New York time, surrounded by his family. He was 74 years old and had been diagnosed in October with an aggressive cancer.
Gilbert Edmund Kaplan was a brilliant publisher who, aged 26, shook up Wall Street with a forensic, gossipy, must-read monthly called Institutional Investor. Before 1967 was out, he made his first million.
In the same year, he became obsessed with Mahler’s Second Symphony, to the point where he had to conduct it.
After organising a New York concert in September 1982, he became recognised as the world expert in the work. He acquired the composer’s autograph, published it in facsimile, and found so many errors in the printed score that he obliged Universal Edition to reprint it.
More than 60 orchestras around the world invited him to conduct the work. Contrary to rumour, he never paid for any performances after the first four. A centennial performance of the symphony with the New York Philharmonic in December 2008 was criticised in a blog by the orchestra’s second trombone player, but musicians on the whole learned from his interpretations and many maestros from Georg Solti onwards became close personal friends.
He was a lovely man: warm, funny, loyal and brave. I spent time with him last month and treasure every moment of our friendship, which lasted half my life.
He lived the second half of his life mostly for Mahler.
photo: Deutsche Grammophon
This is Stewart French’s newest video of musicians in action, released first on Slipped Disc.
He gets so close you see the sweat dripping of Boris Giltburg’s nose.
