The national orchestra of Belgium has shown artistic director Jozef de Witte a quick route to the door.
The media have been informed of irreconcilable differences.
De Witte, a political appointee, had no recent orchestral experience. For the past 11 years he had been running an anti-racism organisation.
The position is presently critical since the orchestra is under threat of being merged with La Monnaie opera orchestra.
Vadym Kholodenko, the pianist who found his two children dead and his wife stabbed at their Benbrook, Texas, home on Thursday, has issued the following statement:
‘The loss of my children will be with me forever. I feel the support of the Fort Worth community and all people who are sending me messages all over the world … Wherever I go after this tragedy my heart will stay with the people here of Fort Worth and my daughters will rest in this soil.’
Vadym’s statement did not mention his estranged wife Sofia Tsygankova, who is recovering in hospital and s under mental health evaluation.
The police say they are not seeking a suspect.
ACE said its Grantium portal is designed to be a money-saving way to apply for subsidy.
Its clients say it’s ‘intimidating, off-putting and inaccessible’.
They’re furious.
Read here.
The Seoul Philharmonic, abandoned by its music director after a hate campaign by the former CEO, is still being refused by more artists than it can sign.
It has announced a list of four conductors to replace Myung Whun Chung next season.
They are: Eliahu Inbal, Christoph Eschenbach, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Alexandre Bloch.
Draw your own conclusions.
Geoff Edgers has written a fine feature in the Washington Post on how a misfit student stole a teacher’s violin and carried on playing it for the rest of his miserable life.
Philip Johnson’s fingers are no longer strong enough to play any violin, never mind one so unforgiving. So he keeps the Strad in a plastic crate. The instrument is the only thing he has of value. It is also his biggest secret.
When he’s gone, the news will shock them all, from the FBI to his family to the daughters of Roman Totenberg, who stand to inherit the instrument. They will ask how this once-promising, later penniless eccentric stole an 18th-century violin worth millions — and got away with it. After all, he was the only suspect when it was taken in 1980.
Read on here.
pictured: Roman Totenberg
