Among the highlights of the 2016/17 season, just announced:

Reykjavík Festival – curated by Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen with Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason, a festival which includes a Green Umbrella performance of newly commissioned works, orchestral performances, popular and world music concerts, interdisciplinary collaborations, visual and installation art, chamber music, a TSFY program, lectures and film.

It’s a lot more interesting than the average US orch.

Full season here.

iceland-private

The Orchestra Mozart of Bologna, founded and conducted by Claudio Abbado, for the last ten years of his life, has announced that, after more than two years of ‘suspension’, they are trying to make a comeback.

The ‘suspension’ was caused by the withdrawal of funding, rumoured to be 3 million Euros a year, by a Bologna bank foundation, Fondazione CaRisBo.

They pulled out when Abbado was in his final bout of illness. The orchestra players will try to replace those amounts by crowdfunding, with a view to relaunching in 2017.

Next month, Soloists of Orchestra Mozart will play a chamber concert in Bologna to support the relaunch.

We hear that they have approached Bernard Haitink to conduct the opening concert. None of the Abbado family appear to be involved.

AbbaMemor-DCH_0

alex frankel

Alex Frankel tells us: ‘This was the Scenes concert for Marlena Malas’s program at Chautauqua.  It was originally planned that I would stand on the table for the end of the duet, but the chair had other plans…  It all happened in slow motion, and once I realized I wasn’t going to get splinters in my ass I remembered that I had to SING.”

The campaign to force a German airline to respect musicians’ rights has made it onto ORF News.

Daniel Auner tells us: ‘The ORF was in our Quartet rehearsal today, making an interview with us for airberlin/flyniki and violins. They will broadcast it on national television at 18.30h in the News at ORF 2. The spokesman of airberlin then kindly asked to wait until tomorrow 11h, as they are really trying to change on their regulations.’

We’ve heard that promise before…

 

daniel auner

The Juilliard String Quartet played last night at Alice Tully Hall for the last time in its old formation.

Joel Krosnick, the cellist, bowed out after 42 years with a performance of the Schubert C-major quintet, involving the ensemble’s new cellist, Astrid Schween. The group has been quartet in residence at the Juilliard School since 1946.

They will continue to perform together until the summer, but never again at Alice Tully.

Sic transit harmonia mundi.

juilliard quartet

photo: Sylvia Kahan

 

Arts Council England has maintained throughout that its chairman Sir Peter Bazalgette, former chair of English National Opera, ‘recuses himself’ from all discussions to do with the company which ACE is seeking to shrink and threatening to eliminate.

A Freedom of Information request by a Slipped Disc reader yielded the following response:

bazal

 

You requested:
 
Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, please supply me with a list of the information which you hold about English National Opera (ENO), including file names relating to English National Opera; emails, faxes, letters, phone logs and records and notes of phone conversations to and from Sir Peter Balzagette (Chair of the Arts Council) and Dr Harry Brunjes (current Chair of the ENO Board) from 1st January 2015 to 12th February 2016 (inclusive); and emails, faxes, letters, phone logs and records and notes of phone conversations to and from Darren Henley (Chief Executive of the Arts Council) and Dr Harry Brunjes from 1st January 2015 to 12th February 2016 (inclusive).
 
Also please supply me with full notes and minutes of meetings between either Sir Peter Balzagette and/or Darren Henley, and Dr Harry Brunjes (including meetings at which others were present) from 1st January 2015 to 12th February 2016, inclusive.
 
Our Response:
 
Please see below a list of all meetings between Dr Harry Brunjes, Darren and Baz.  Please note that there are no minutes or notes for any of these meetings.  The attached email train is the only correspondence we hold between Harry Brunjes and Darren or Baz.
 
Meetings with Dr Harry Brunjes and Sir Peter Bazalgette or Darren Henley:
 
23 April 2015: Coffee – Dr Harry Brunjes and Sir Peter Bazalgette
 
11 June 2015: Meeting – Darren Henley, Joyce Wilson, Dr Harry Brunjes and Cressida Pollock
 
2 July 2015: Meeting – Darren Henley, Joyce Wilson, Dr Harry Brunjes
 
10 October 2015: Lunch – Sir Peter Bazalgette and Dr Harry Brunjes
 
16 October 2015: Meeting – Darren Henley, Joyce Wilson, Dr Harry Brunjes
 
You will notice that some information has been withheld in the attached email.

Not involved, then? Up to his elbows.

There were triple standing ovations last night for Georges Pretre, the French conductor who has cancelled most engagements in the past year but was determined not to miss his Scala gala.

Elegant as ever, gorgeous George may have received the highest classical ratio of applause to instrumental music: 17 minutes of ovation for 41 minutes of music.

georges pretre

Corriere report here.

A violinist called Matteo Fedeli is touring the 1715 ex-Bazzini – De Vito, with a price estimate of $16 million.

He plays it on CBC television.

Judge for yourselves.

matteo fedeli

The Staatsoper says it cannot afford to instal seatback surtitles in its renovated house.

The building work is running way over schedule and budget. The extra million Euros for surtitles, administrators say, would wreck the finances.

surtitles

It’s a petty and ridiculous decision, one which will limit the company’s appeal to foreign visitors. They need to think again.

The death is reported of Ove Verner Hansen, Denmark’s premier Leporello at the Royal Opera in the 1960s and 1970s. He had a parallel career as the mighty villain ‘Bøffen’ in the Olsen Gang movies.

He was 83.

ove verner hansen
photo: Scanpix

A stagehand was seriously injured this weekend at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe.

During a scene change of Handel’s Arminio, the man was trapped in rotating machinery and badly hurt. He was freed by emergency services and rushed to hospital where he is said to be out of danger.

The performance continued after a short delay.

The theatre is due for extensive renovation in two years’ time.

arminio karlsruhe

A petition has been launched this morning to persuade the European Union to oblige airlines to accept smaller musical instruments on board free of charge.

The US Congress has already passed this requirement into law. It’s time for the EU to be as fair to musicians as the US is.

The endless anxiety faced by musicians while waiting to board is demoralising, dehumanising and probably in violation of the EU charter of fundamental rights.

It is time to bring rogue airlines like Norwegian, Ryanair and Airberlin to book.

Read and sign the petition here.

katie melua

Reminder: These are the worst airlines for musicians to fly.