From tomorrow’s Daily Mirror:
Dr Andrew Preston, 50, a former maths teacher at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, shared ‘graphic’ fantasies about underage girls online.
A National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) misconduct panel found he had shown a ‘disrespectful and repellent’ attitude towards young people and banned him from teaching for life.
Chetham’s suspended Dr Preston as soon as the police made the school aware of his online life. Today, he was banned from teaching for life.
Chetham’s is seeking to draw a line beneath past trials, convictions and suicides.
The German budget airline has surreptitiously changed its carry-on policy and is enforcing new rules.
As of last month, they want you to buy an extra seat to take a small instrument on board.
Below are complaints from two violinists:
Adrien La Marca: For all my musician friends playing string instruments, I invite you all to blacklist AIR BERLIN from your flying companies since they changed their policy with instruments last december (violin and viola included), making people buy an extra seat if they want to travel with their instrument in the plane. Like maybe many of you have experienced it (usually cellist), you have to face people not willing to understand and happy to use their power not letting you entering the plane. No matter arguing about the value of instruments and that you can’t check it in, how many times you flew or explaining clearly that the instrument case do fit in the cabin compartments, nothing will do. The arguing made me miss the flight, had to buy a new one, + an extra one for my instrument. I would have been happy to give all this money to an other company but at last minute it was of course even more expensive. Please spread the word and share it: AIR BERLIN is the new Norwegian or Ryanair. #blacklistAirBerlin
Jakob Lehmann: Liebes Team von airberlin,
eigentlich bin ich ein Freund von Eurer Airline und bisher habe ich nur positive Erfahrungen gemacht – günstige Preise, sehr lohnende Flugstrecken und guter und freundlicher Service. Als freischaffender Berufsmusiker bin ich viel unterwegs und genau darauf angewiesen. Bisher bin ich sehr gerne mit Euch geflogen und habe es nie bereut. Bis jetzt. Wie gesagt, bin ich Berufsmusiker, um genau zu sein Geiger. Mit seinem Instrument unterwegs zu sein hat viele Nachteile, und vor allem im Flugverkehr ist es nicht immer einfach, wie zahllose Erfahrungsberichte und “Horror”-Geschichten, die man ohne weiteres im Netz finden kann, beweisen. Bestimmte Airlines muss man auf die Blacklist setzen, weil ihre Bestimmungen mit den Anforderungen des sicheren Instrumententransports nicht vereinbar sind. Dass airberlin auf dieser Blacklist landen würde, hätte ich nicht gedacht. Seit ein paar Tagen jedoch kursiert im Netz der Erfahrungsbericht eines Musikers, sowie der Hashtag #blacklistAirBerlin. Warum? Weil ihr Eure Handgepäckbestimmungen geändert habt, und von nun an alle Instrumente, deren Kästen größer als 55 x 40 x 23 cm sind, einen Extra-Platz im Flieger gebucht haben müssen. Bei wirklich großen Instrumenten, wie Violoncelli, ist das ja sehr nachvollziehbar, und sämtliche andere Airlines handhaben das ja auch genau so. Warum aber Instrumente wie Violinen oder Violen jetzt einen Extraplatz haben müssen, entzieht sich meines logischen Verständnisses. Müsst ihr Euch auf ein Niveau mit Airlines wie RyanAir begeben, die von Musikern deshalb gemieden werden? Weshalb? Wie oft ist es vorgekommen dass wegen einer Geige oder Bratsche ein Gepäckfach zu voll war? Die Kästen sind bequem ganz hinten in den Gepäckfächern zu verstauen, meist kann man sogar, wenn mehrere Streicher in einem Flieger reisen, mehrere Instrumente übereinander stapeln und somit noch mehr Platz sparen. Ich bin gerade mit einem Profiorchester über 50.000 km durch die ganze Welt gereist, und nirgendwo gab es ein Problem – hunderte von Airlines, wie zum Beispiel EasyJet, haben Sonderbestimmungen für Musikinstrumente, die genau dies gewährleisten und für einen schnellen, unkomplizierten und sicheren Transport dieser wertvollen Instrumente sorgen.
Weshalb ihr Eure Bestimmungen geändert habt, kann ich nicht nachvollziehen. Eine andere Airline, die in letzter Zeit genau deswegen in den Schlagzeilen war, Norwegian, hat aufgrund der vielen Beschwerden und Missfallensbekundungen ihre Bestimmungen erneut zugunsten der Musiker geändert – bravo an dieser Stelle! Bis Ihr das gleiche tut, bleibt mir und tausenden anderen Berufsmusikern, deren Alltag vom Fliegen abhängig ist, nichts weiteres übrig als airberlin als keine Option des Reisens mehr anzusehen. Habt ihr das wirklich nötig? Ich finde nicht!
Mit vielen Grüßen,
Jakob
The person succeeding Kathy Schumann as artistic administrator next month is called Liz Mahler.
She’s presently executive director of a Brooklyn ensemble, The Knights. She’s married to a man called Strauss.
That’s all.
The New York Philharmonic has announced the farewell season of its departing music director.
Sets pulses racing?
OPENING GALA CONCERT: New York Philharmonic Premieres Past and Present THE NEW WORLD INITIATIVE: Season-Long, Citywide Immersion in DVOŘÁK’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
THE NEW YORK COMMISSIONS: Works on NEW YORK Theme by New York–Based WYNTON MARSALIS, SEAN SHEPHERD, and JULIA WOLFE
THE ART OF THE SCORE: Film Week at the Philharmonic Celebrates New York MANHATTAN & WEST SIDE STORY. SPRING GALA: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
ALAN GILBERT’S FAREWELL SEASON HIGHLIGHTS SEVEN PREMIERES, FINAL EUROPE TOUR, WAGNER’s Das Rheingold, MAHLER’s Fourth Symphony, BEETHOVEN’s Ninth Symphony with SCHOENBERG’s A Survivor from Warsaw, JOHN ADAMS’s 70th Birthday, LIGETI’s Mysteries of the Macabre, HANDEL’s Messiah, and More SEASON FINALE: A Program Exploring How Music Can Effect Positive Change and Harmony in the World
Full press release here.
We have been informed of the death of Saulius Sondeckis, founder of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra in 1960 and its conductor until closure in 2004.
Sondeckis guest conducted widely across the world and made numerous recordings. He was 87.
Norwegian, buffeted by strong headwinds on Slipped Disc, has revised its instrument policy in line with general European standards. See here.
It’s safe to fly Norwegian once more.
It has been confirmed today that 532 will lose their jobs, amounting to 7.4 percent of the workforce.
They include professors, administrators and support staff. The first 209 will be fired arbitrarily next week.
The rector describes it as ‘a huge loss of knowledge and competencies.’
We have not yet heard how the music department will be reduced. Let us know if you are affected.
The irrepressible violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja has opened a trash bin on her website to deal with bad reviews.
Yes, deal with them.
She responds to factual errors in reviews and rebukes lapses of taste. She demands gently to know who – herself or the reviewer – has spent longer studying the score or living with the composer. She gets personal.
We like that. Read Pat’s trash bin here (in three languages).
More performers should do this.
Slipped Disc’s exclusive list of longest serving orchestral players has finally seen a change at the top.
After four years and dozens of comments and contributions, someone has finally beaten Frances Darger’s 70 years in the violin section of the Utah Symphony.
This week marked the eighty-seventh birthday of Jane Little and her 71st year in the bass section of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She joined from high school in 1945 while the ASO was still a youth orchestra.
We’ve updated the ultimate list to acknowledge Jane’s remarkable longevity.
The popular British baritone, who has suffered more than a year of ill-health, made a welcome return at Wigmore Hall on Sunday night, without attracting press attention.
From social media responses, it seems to have gone well.
However, Simon has announced his withdrawal from all Munich performances of Un ballo in maschera for the rest of this year.
We wish him a continued recovery.
When we reported yesterday that Bavarian State Opera had sold out the entire run of a new opera two weeks before its world premiere, there were grunts and shrugs of couldn’t-happen-here from most other opera capitals around the world. So what makes Munich audiences so loyal?
Richard Hartmann has some answers for us:
Munich has an opera tradition of over four centuries.
The Nationaltheater, which was one of the first grand opera houses in the world (first construction 1811-1818, reconstructed after burning down between 1823-1825), has seen many world premieres.
“Tristan und Isolde”, “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, “Das Rheingold”, “Die Walküre” by Richard Wagner or “Capriccio” and “Der Friedenstag” by Richard Strauss had their première in Munich.
Great conductors – named “Bavaria General Directors of Music”ensured and ensure ongoing highest quality: Joseph Keilbert, Bruno Walter, Carlos Kleiber, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Metha, Kent Nagano and Kyrill Petrenko are the names in the Hall of Fame of our Theatre.
The Names of the Managing Directors are equally glamorous: Rudolph Hartmann, Wolfgang Sawallisch, August Everding, Sir Peter Jonas and now Nikolaus Bachler have ensured that the Munich Opera ranks amongst the top 5 Opera houses in the world.
However all of that would not help, if there wasn’t an audience willing to fill the 2.103 seats per performance with an average of 280 performances per year! There are alone 25,000 subscribers who attend 6 performances per year and the waiting list is sometimes up to 5 years.
The Bavarian Education System includes teaching of Music from 1st class. Tradition of making Music at home is still very common. The Hochschule für Musik und Theater and the “August-Everding Theatre Academy” ensure a high quality in education of musicians, singers and artists. In addition to the opera house we have two more opera houses, two orchestras of world reputation (Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio and Munich Philharmonic), in addition 8 large orchestras of high quality and more than 50 Choir-Associations who regularly perform in other concert halls or churches during high-mass. The international ARD-Musikwettbewerb ranks amongst the highest competitions worldwide amongst young musicians ensuring that young artist have a challenge to perform.
My lengthy explanation just should show the reader that an continuous education can lead to a high level of art supporters on either side: spectators who listen (being gourmets and gourmands) and artists who perform to an well educated audience. The State of Bavaria invests a lot of money to ensure this highest quality of supporting fine arts as part of the Bavarian Constitution.
This is the key to the success of our Opera House and a sold out World Premiere – not only recently, but surely since decades.
A performance of Benjamin Godard’s rarely-revived Dante at Versailles was halted last night after the French soprano Véronique Gens collapsed on stage.
A critic for forumopera.com, Laurent Bury, writes that Véronique, 49, appeared to lose her voice during a climactic aria. She then collapsed onto a desk, her head on her chest. A mezzo-soprano signalled for medical assistance, the performance stopped and the house was cleared.
Bury reports that the cause was a sudden drop in blood pressure.
We wish Véronique a speedy recovery.
