The 2016 Klara Carrièreprijs for being Belgian and internationally recognised has gone to the early music violinist and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken.

The annual prize has been running since 2001. Can’t imagine why they need it.

Sigiswald Kuijken

HET symfonieorkest, the financially troubled orchestra of East Netherlands, has dropped its chief conductor Jan Willem de Vriend and will not replace him.

Guest conductors will fill in until the new admin finds out whether the orch can be kept afloat.

De Vriend was in the podium for ten years while the orch overspent wildly and tried to steal a name from a rival ensemble. His chief exec partner, Hans Mannak, was forced out in November.

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In an interview here, the conductor says he’s leaving of his own accord.

UPDATE: It is further reported that several of the musicians are being reduced to part-time contracts.

Cellist Nathan Chan writes to us with a simple message: ‘Cellists: Never. Fly. WestJet’.

Here’s his horrible experience:

nathan chan drew alexander forde
When I read about the latest debacle between violinist Ari Vilhjamsson and Norwegian Air and the success that followed in having the company change their stance on instrument transportation, I thought it was important to share a travel experience I had this past January with my cello and WestJet.

I always purchase a seat for my cello because of the fragility and risk associated with checking in a cello and having it damaged (either from baggage handling or non-temperature controlled climate in the cargo hold, among others). This holiday, I booked a red-eye flight from Vancouver to New York through Toronto using American Airlines… but the first leg was operated by WestJet.

WestJet has a super strict, no cellos in extra seats policy that put me in a difficult and hopeless situation. I discovered this while checking in, and was given an ultimatum. Check the cello or abandon the extra ticket.

Let me explain the “thinking” behind this company-wide policy, as described by WestJet representative Robert Barron. They don’t allow cellos on board because they do not have “specialized tie downs” for the instrument. They claim that this is for the “safety… of the instrument”.

If this be the case, I have no idea why they’d want to put it in cargo, where there is turbulence combined with lack of temperature regulation.

The industry standard for strapping in a cello is to use a seatbelt extender to loop the belt through the handle of the cello, as shown here:

cello airline

In what was a very stressful moment, I had to abandon my instrument and leave it with family in Vancouver and board the plane on my own. This was a “sold out flight”. I hope the person on the standby list wasn’t mad that there was an empty seat on the plane due to WestJet’s frustrating policy.

Because of this, I’ve had to spend nearly $1,000 to have a third party fly the cello to me in New York using airline companies that allow cellos as cabin baggage. I filed for a refund through American Airlines but still have not been issued a refund for the abandoned seat.

I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage a discussion to enact change on a company-wide level with WestJet that would greatly enhance its musical travelers’ experiences as well as show the best of intentions in adapting with the current needs of modern transportation.

With best intentions, I would urge that WestJet reexamine its policy regarding musical instruments. When a company like WestJet that specializes in service encounters customer discomfort over a purely business-driven policy, especially one that stands as a distinct industry outlier, it is necessary for that company to reexamine the policy in question. WestJet’s closest competitor, Air Canada, not only allows instruments in extra seats, but even offers a 50% discount. Click here.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week on scena.org:

What you really need to start 2016 – what you never imagined you’d ever need – is a piano concerto by Neil Sedaka.

Absolutely no irony here. Anyone who can write a novel or concerto start to finish without falling on his/her plot deserves all the credit going and a fair ride from reviewers. Sedaka, 75, made his name with a stream of teen hits in the late 1950s after attending Saturday classes at Juilliard. He hit the #1 jackpot with Oh, Carol, a tribute to his ex-girlfriend Carole King, and never looked back.

Except, perhaps, for a hankering to do some of the stuff he learned at Juilliard.

Read the full review here.

Neil Sedaka at-Red-Piano

 

Leif Solberg lived much of his long life in the Norwegian provincial town of Lillehammer. Our eclectic colleague Martin Anderson recalls that ‘when he turned up at the Christmas party of the Norwegian Composers’ Union in the early 1980s, they didn’t know who he was.’

But Martin heard a local tape of Solberg’s neo-classical symphony and decided over time to produce a recording on his label, Toccata Classics. The conductor Paul Mann called it ‘undoubtedly one of the most compelling symphonies of the post-War years’.

Leif died this week, aged 101. He lived just long enough to achieve recognition.

Here‘s Martin’s appreciation.

solberg
pictured: Solberg, Anderson

You can listen to Toccata tracks here.

January 27, the anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, is widely commemorated as Holocaust Memorial Day, a moment to remember the victims of Hitler’s regime.

In Iran it is the occasion of the annual Holocaust Cartoon Contest, under the patronage of the nation’s ‘moderate’ president, Hassan Rouhani.

Let’s remember for a moment who we’re dealing with in Teheran.

holocaust cartoon

Paul Hamilton, was awarded a doctorate at Birmingham University last July for his thesis on Shakespeare’s influence on American literature in the 19th century.

On January 17, he was arrested at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon and informed that he was to be repatriated.

Dr Hamilton, 42, a US citizen, has been held since then in a cell at Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre in Lincolnshire.

He tells the THES:  “All they had to do was serve me papers and say: ‘I’m sorry your application was rejected – you need to leave the country.’ But to be arrested is just unbelievable.”

It had been “absolutely heartbreaking to be arrested and thrown into a cage…in the back of a police vehicle in front of my neighbours”, he added.

There are several layers of injustice to this case. Dr Hamilton had applied for an extension to his stay. He was not in the UK illegally. His arrest and humilation appear to be excessive. A petition for his release is being rallied here.

shakespeare

A truly shocking stat on this week’s Nielsen Soundscan classical charts. The Monks of Norcia on Decca sold more than 5,000 copies in the US last week. No classical release has done so well in months.

Almost equally shocking: the next-best ‘classical’ seller is … Downton Abbey, with just under 500 sales.

After that, Yo Yo Ma with … 200.

Five places down is the Vienna New Year’s Day concert. Fewer than 90 copies sold in the second week of release.

Why bother?

new-years-concert-2016-neujahrskonzert-2016

With the slow demise of sinfinimusic.com, we have relocated the widely-read review to its former homes, on www.scena.org in Canada and www.openlettersmonthly.com in the US.

First review coming up shortly. Thanks for reading.

sinfini

An Antonio Domenicelli cello that was left in the owner’s car, which was stolen last November in Glendale, California, has been found safe and well in the car, which was parked on a residential street for two months.

Neighbour called the police, who identified the vehicle and returned it to Hollywood session musician Cameron Stone with the cello unharmed.

There must be a lesson in there, somewhere.

glendale cello

 

Announcement on the ROH website: 

Amanda Echalaz has had to withdraw from Tosca on 25 and 29 January due to illness.

The Royal Opera is extremely grateful to Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, who will now sing the role for these performances.

Tickets are, as they say, still available. Word at the box-office is that ROH is having a tough season.

 

 

angela-gheorghiu-cancels-carmen

The retreating conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra has been named Honorary Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, where he has made 150 appearances over 51 years.

A consolation prize.

Eschenbach_Christoph11__credit_Eric-Brissaud_