Olga Rostropovich has been forced to call off this year’s tribute festival to her father in his birthplace, Baku.

She blames Russia’s all-pervasive economic crisis and hopes to reinstate the festival next year, which would have been Slava’s 90th birthday.

rostropovich festival

Queen NYO

She was over the age limit, but they let her attend today’s rehearsal anyway. So long as she didn’t tell anyone.

 

press stuff: The Queen today witnessed the power of peer inspiration as she attended an NYO Inspire session at Lister Community School in Plaistow, London, as part of a day to showcase the work of charities funded by The Queen’s Trust.

Talented and committed musicians from National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain – the world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers – led a rehearsal with young instrumentalists from the Lister School Orchestra for The Queen before performing a specially-arranged excerpt of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in front of the entire 1350-strong school audience.

The Royal showcase followed several sessions where NYO musicians have worked alongside the less experienced players in the school as part of NYO Inspire, a nationwide programme in which players from the orchestra share skills and inspiration with committed young musicians who lack opportunities to advance their playing, and bring workshops and performances direct to teenage audiences in schools.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is about to announce a visit to Mongolia as part of a bilateral memo of understanding between the two states to be signed today in Washington.

Not many international orchestras touch down at Genghis Khan International Airport. This may be a first.

Chinggis Airport

Yannick will conduct.

The last Soviet leader is 85 this week.

Two years ago, on his birthday, he broke into song during a Steve Rosenberg interview.

Not a bad baritone. Click to watch here.

gorbachev sings

Two professors at Indiana University have run an employment survey among music graduates at 150 institutions, testing their employability on graduation. They covered two disciplines, music and music education.

Here’s what they found: More than half the students in music performance found related work within four months of graduation, as did 75 percent of music-ed grads.

That’s great. It compares to a national average of 25 percent of graduates finding jobs within their field.

The downside? Pay.

Most people with a music degree wound up earning between $20,000 and $60,000 a year.

Very few earned more.

Read more here.

jacobs school of music indiana

The Bibliothèque nationale has announced the acquisition of a long-lost voice-and-piano manuscript of Hector Berlioz’s massive opera, Les Troyens.

The score had not been seen for more than a century.

It turned up when a private individual offered it to Sotheby’s and the auction house called Paris. The BNF has the world’s largest Berlioz collection.

berlioz ms

Violin maker Jens Stenz writes from Aarhus, Denmark:

Svend Asmussen 1 1992
photo (c) Jan Persson/Lebrecht Music&Arts

 

On February 28th Svend Asmussen celebrated his 100th birthday.

Born in Copenhagen in 1916, Asmussen began playing the violin around the age of seven.

After some lessons with classical music-teachers , he decided that jazz was his main interest… although he names Fritz Kreisler as a main inspiration for sound quality and expressiveness. And in Asmussen’s playing there are certainly Kreisleresque qualities.

Other influences were Louis Armstrong, whom he befriended in Copenhagen in the early 1930’s, the Mills Brothers, Fats Waller, Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington,Eddie Lang and Joe Venutti.

Asmussen began playing professionally at 17, when he made his first recording with his own band.  Over 75 years he toured the world as a bandleader and soloist, playing with big bands, at church concerts and in studio.

During World War Two he was incarcerated by the Nazis and spent time in a prison in Berlin. Asmussen used the time to rehearse choreography for cabaret shows while writing ‘mindful and intriguing arrangements” for his violin concerts.

In 1945 he declared ‘jazz is dead’, rejecting ‘non-danceable’ performance and overly intellectual styles.

He joined the Swe Danes trio with jazz singer Alice Babs and guitarist Ulrich Neumann, making the US charts.   A close friendship arose with composer Hoagy Carmichael and jazz clarinet virtuoso Benny Goodman. In the 1960s he played with such jazz greats as Stephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith whom he called his black brother and Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson.

Even at the wildest moments when playing electric violin with wah wah pedals and electronic sound boosters, Asmussen maintained hs hallmark elegance which has always been his hallmark.

About 5 years ago a minor stroke forced his bow-arm to give up playing, but he still enjoys life going to concerts and living together with his wife Ellen Bick Meier. In a recent interview he claimed that he was up and ready to take another 100 years.

The Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie, who made his comeback this year after an 18-month cancer ordeal, has cancelled the London leg of his return.

The Barbican has posted:

Unfortunately Bernard Labadie has had to withdraw from this concert [March 24] for health reasons. The concert will now be directed by Pavlo Beznosiuk.

bernard labadie

The Korean conductor Han-na Chang, who walked out on the Qatar Philharmonic the the middle of a European tour over ‘persistent administrative difficulties and irreconcilable artistic differences’, has landed another job.

She has been named Chief Conductor and Artistic Leader of the Trondheim Symfoniorkester in Norway.

han-na chang

Askonas Holt have announced the retirement of Jilly Clarke, one of the most courteous and hardest -working agents in the biz. Jilly is to be replaced on the AH board by Andras Schiff’s manager, Gaetan Le Divelec. She may have picked a good moment; two of her key pianists are heading off on sabbatical.

Press release follows.

jilly clarke

 

Askonas Holt today announced that Jilly Clarke will retire from the company and that Gaetan Le Divelec will succeed her on the company’s Board of Directors. Since joining Harold Holt in 1989 as Martin Campbell-White’s assistant (prior to Harold Holt’s merger with Lies Askonas in 1998, to form Askonas Holt Ltd), Jilly has become a highly regarded manager to some of the company’s leading talent, including Piotr Anderszewski, Evgeny Kissin and Viktoria Mullova.

A passionate supporter of young talent, Jilly’s current roster also includes Jonathan Biss, Vilde Frang, Alexander Gavrylyuk, the Heath Quartet, Yevgeny Sudbin and Alisa Weilerstein. Jilly commented:

“I have loved every moment of working for Askonas Holt and having the privilege of working with some of the greatest artists of our time. I have enjoyed partnering with each and every one of them as their careers develop. I arrived at Harold Holt thinking I’d just be there for a few months, but one of my earliest jobs was involved with the planning of the 1991 Japan Festival, which saw the first ever Sumo tournament take place outside of Japan – I was hooked! I leave the company in great shape under Donagh Collins’ leadership and I’m particularly thrilled that Gaetan will be taking my place on the company’s board. I’ll miss everyone, but my garden and other adventures await.”