The Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury is stepping in last minute to sing the title role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Seattle Opera after Serena Farnocchia fell sick.
The opening night is February 27 and it will be Joyce’s role debut.
Trouble is, she was already down to sing the matinee on February 28. Problem?
No problem. We hear she’ll sing both.
The new leader of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchesatra cellos emerged from auditions this week.
She is Hee-Young Lim, 28, a finalist at the last Tchaikovsky Competition.
Boulez was a man of many parts. From my current essay in Standpoint magazine:
Pierre Boulez is showing me around his subterranean Ircam labyrinth beside the Pompidou Centre when we come to a locked door marked “private”. “What’s in there?” I ask.
“I can’t tell you,” says the boss, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Ircam, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, was the ransom a president paid to bring Boulez home from self-imposed exile. “President Pompidou asked me outright: would you come back to France? I said: if I return it will not be to conduct an orchestra when I have better opportunities abroad. For the idea of Ircam, though, I would leave everything.”
On the phone to the Elysée, he described an idyll where scientists and composers would work with computers to invent music of the future. Without further detail, Pompidou signed on to the vision, and the cheque.
Was there more here than met my ear? That day, deep beneath the Paris pavements, Boulez whispered that behind the locked door his technical team was developing acoustic warfare devices for the French navy. I asked him to repeat that secret, to make sure I had understood him correctly. He did. I wasn’t sure whether to gulp or to giggle.
Beside me was a leader of the musical avant-garde, a man so dangerous that mothers threatened infants with a blast of Boulez if they didn’t eat their soup, a composer of idées fixes and doctrinaire ideology who, by some twist of French logic, was apparently applying his brain to making weapons for a navy whose only current war was against Greenpeace nuclear saboteurs.
Read on here.
The archive holds 450,000 LPs.
They will start by selling 4,000 by auction on June 19 at the Maison de la Radio.
Among the stock are some rare early electronic music releases.
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, the professor who provoked a musicology war by writing about teaching in prisons, has contacted Slipped Disc to clarify his position.
He writes:
I am grateful for the support I received on slippedisc.com. I am also concerned that this debate, on this site, has turned into a critique of musicology. The accusations against my blog are in part related to how we write and how we read. It is a risky enterprise and it is easy to make rhetorical mistakes, as I did. What is disturbing, in a few cases of people who attacked me most vehemently, is that we see clear signs of a degeneration of PC language practices affecting every discipline in the humanities and social sciences. The risk of deploying PC language irresponsibly is to devise a new technology of power through the control of heavily policed language. It appears to combat institutionalized racism, but it perpetuates a culture of apartheid by forcing incommunicability. The people called me a racist silenced the voice of my African American student.
Read on here.
The Bavarian state orchestra is going on a Europe-wide tour in September with its music director Kirill Petrenko, incoming chief of the Berlin Philharmonic.
The tour will take in Milan, Lucerne, Dortmund, Bonn, Paris, Luxembourg, Berlin, Vienna and Frankfurt.
Why not London?
Because the BBC Proms turned it down and neither South Bank nor Barbican was interested.
Fog over Channel. Little England reigns eternal.
Aleksandar Marković, outgoing music director of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, has been appointed music director in Leeds, in succession to Richard Farnes.
Marković, 40, will open in September with Rosenkavalier.
He says: ‘I can honestly say that when I first worked with Opera North it felt like love at first sight, and ever since my admiration and affection for the company has continued to grow and grow.
‘For me Opera North’s trademarks include the highest standards in performance, exceptional creative focus in rehearsals, and a unique, warm, and supportive working atmosphere. The motivated and talented orchestra, soloists and chorus reach for new heights every single time they perform, bringing enormous pleasure to their appreciative audiences.
‘Opera North is exactly where I want to be right now and I am very excited by the prospect of working with them much more closely. This a brilliant new chapter in my life and a bright challenge to which I commit myself fully.’
This year’s Hindemith Award (10,000 Euros) goes to Christoph Eschenbach.
He may have to give it back for lack of space on his mantelpiece.
Not to mention the bank charges for small change.
After years of ongoing turmoil, the Radio France boss Mathieu Gallet has wheeled out his latest pen-pusher.
Michel Orier, 57, appears to be one of those all-purpose political-cultural functionaries that France throws up in such limitless profusion. He has been head of the maison de la culture in Amiens and grenolbe, a cultural advisor to the Jospin government and recently inspecteur général des affaires culturelles au Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.
Almost as perfect a head of radio as our own dear Radio 3 chief.
The Ulster Orchestra, on the brink of collapse for the past two years, has named Richard Wigley as its next managing director.
Richard, a New Zealander, spent ten years as head of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester. He starts work immediately.
He inherits an orchestra saved by Sinn Fein from disaster.
And one whose two chief execs tend to vanish overnight without a word of official explanation.
We wish him every success.
press release:
The Ulster Orchestra has announced that its new Managing Director is Richard Wigley. Having worked for the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, he spent a decade as the General Manager of the BBC Philharmonic before going most recently to act in a consultancy capacity primarily for the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.
Richard will take up the post in Belfast at the end of February and his first priority will be to lead a new entrepreneurial drive as the Ulster Orchestra plans its 50th Anniversary Year. Warmly welcoming the appointment, Ulster Orchestra Chairman, Sir George Bain said; “We are delighted that Richard is joining us. He brings with him a wide experience of orchestral management at the highest level, and has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors and soloists.
“An expert artistic planner, skilled at managing change and achieving world-class results under challenging financial conditions, Richard will be invaluable to the Orchestra. The combination of his experience in delivering innovation and interdisciplinary projects, together with developing new audiences and helping artists and managers to achieve excellence, will enable him, in partnership with our internationally-renowned Chief Conductor, Rafael Payare, to lead the Orchestra into a new era of managerial and performance excellence. I would also like to pay tribute to Trevor Green, who has been our Orchestra Consultant since Autumn 2014 and is moving on after making an immeasurable contribution to the restructuring of the organisation. We wish him every success and thank him for his dedication and unwavering support.”
Ulster Orchestra’s Chief Conductor, Rafael Payare commented; “I am very pleased to welcome Richard to his new position at the Ulster Orchestra. His wealth of knowledge and experience will be a huge asset to the Orchestra and I know he is going to love working with this wonderful group of musicians. I look forward to working with him in developing a strong future for the Orchestra.”
The Catalan tenor, who is 69, has told a Berlin press conference that he’s on the way out. His ‘Final World Tour’ will run for a year.
Menahem Pressler last night received the Victoire d’Honneur Lifetime Achievement Award from Les Victoires de la Musique Classique in Toulouse.
