Strings magazine has a lovely interview with Stuart Canin, who was concertmaster for Seiji Ozawa at the San Francisco Symphony and Kent Nagano at Los Angeles Opera, while also leading orchestras for John Williams soundtracks in Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump.
Do you still play every day?
Oh yeah, I do. I play an hour and a half every day. I just gave a concert at Old First Church [on Sacramento Street in San Francisco] a couple of weeks ago and I have this documentary thing at Lincoln Center, so I have to play.
Read on here.
Further to the latest crumblings at IMG, we hear all is not well at the other mega-agency.
Jean-Jacques Cesbron, who runs the profitable CAMI Music part of the business – Lang Lang, Cameron Carpenter, Einaudi and some film composers – is planning to move out of the CAMI offices in Columbus Circle and down to the Flat Iron district.
CAMI will need to find another tenant fast, or move to smaller quarters.
Lang Lang between brand man and Cesbron (r)
Before rehearsal today, the veteran conductor was named an honorary member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
pictured: Seiji Ozawa, Knut Weber (Berliner Philharmoniker chairman), pianist Peter Serkin (c) Martin Walz
An avowed lover of English National Opera (and a former singer, it appears) has posted a long, thoughtful and anonymous reflection on all that has passed at the company over the past 40 years, bringing it to the present crisis.
The author has allowed Slipped Disc to republish it under his name, Jonathan Peel. He makes a lot of cogent points and we will not cherry-pick them for rapid reading.
Just sample the opening paragraph and you will judge his serious intent.
So, why do we bother? Why are so many people incensed at the actions of ACE in devising a rescue plan for ENO that involves reducing the number of performances and performers, rather than seeking other ways to cut costs? It isn’t that this apparently elitist art form has to pay an inordinate wages bill to the chorus after all even with a 4 singer reduction in numbers from 44 to 40. The introduction of a forced layoff for 3 months a year is hardly going to replace the £5 million pound cut in subsidy, nor is it going to achieve any part of restoring this once great company to a level of fiscal security and prosperity.
Now read on here.
Benevenuto Cellini at ENO
The slightly overheated website of the BBC Symphony Orchestra has posted a panegyric to the instrument by former Berlin Philharmonic player, Brett Dean.
The BBC are about to perform Brett’s new concerto next week.
Being economically minded, they have asked Brett to play in the viola section in Elgar’s first symphony after the interval, thereby sparing one of the other violists from paying childcare costs.
See here.
Over the coming weeks, the following American-themed operas will receive world premieres:
This weekend, Opera Ithaca presents the world premiere production of Billy Blythe, an American folk opera about the childhood of President Bill Clinton.
On April 23 Fort Worth Opera presents JFK.
Minnesota Opera’s The Shining, based on Stephen King thriller, opens on May 7.
Opera Colorado presenting the world premiere of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, also on May 7.
Some kind of trend?
It was bound to happen somewhere.
Two boys were taken to hospital after receiving neck wounds during an opening night performance of Sweeney Todd at a school in Auckland, New Zealand.
More here.
Amazing the surprises that spring from announcing a new music director.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has just announced a half-million pound ($700,00) gift, one of the largest in its history.
press release:
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has received one of the largest single gifts in its history from the Rachel Baker Memorial Charity.
The funding of up to £500,000 over five years will enable the CBSO to build on its tradition of world-class excellence in the run-up to its centenary in 2020. It will enable the Orchestra to present major concerts which would not otherwise be possible, and will also support initiatives to build the next generation of audiences for classical music.
Simon Fairclough, CBSO Director of Development, said: “We are extremely grateful to have received this important gift from the Rachel Baker Memorial Charity. It will help us to continue to present the best possible concerts for our audience members, and to ensure that more people experience the thrill of live classical music in the Midlands.
“Having recently appointed Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as our Music Director we are at an exciting moment in our history. But we receive 51% less funding from Birmingham City Council in real terms than we did six years ago, and to achieve our ambitious plans with Mirga we will have to raise well over £1 million per year from the private sector. Now more than ever, private funders like the Rachel Baker Memorial Charity play a vital role in maintaining the international excellence of the CBSO’s work on the concert platform, in our local community and around the world.”
Robin Daniels, trustee of the Rachel Baker Memorial Charity, said: “My fellow trustees and I are delighted to be able to support the CBSO in this way. The Rachel Baker Memorial Charity seeks to support organisations with a reputation for excellence in classical music and a commitment to broadening audiences and nurturing talent. Few organisations achieve these objectives as fully as the CBSO. We look forward to seeing the Orchestra thrive in the period leading up to its centenary in 2020”.
That’s the claim from Opera North. Has Wagner’s epic never been sung on the South Bank?
Opera North presents its eagerly awaited performances of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in five UK cities, alongside a programme of celebratory events designed to bring the Ring to as many people as possible:
Power of Power festival at London’s Southbank Centre takes inspiration from Opera North’s
Ring cycle.
Special events for children and families, including over 1000 schoolchildren taking part in the Opera North Big Sing
A deeper insight for audiences into Wagner’s work with talks and debates in every city
Live big-screen relay of sold-out performances of the Ring at Southbank Centre (28 June – 3 July) – the first complete Ring cycle to be performed at the Royal Festival Hall
This monumental work will be performed in its entirety by a leading cast of top British and international Wagnerian performers and conducted by Richard Farnes, giving audiences a rare opportunity to experience the breath-taking scope and dramatic power of Wagner’s masterpiece over the course of a few days or weeks:
Leeds Town Hall (23 April – 21 May; 24 – 29 May)
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham (6 – 11 June)
The Lowry, Salford (13 – 18 June)
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre (28 June – 3 July)
Sage Gateshead (5 – 10 July)
We have been alerted belatedly to the death of Henrike Grohs, a former education staffer at the Berlin Philharmonic who was murdered during the terrorist attack in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, on March 13th.
After leaving Berlin in 2009, Henrike joined the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg, co-founding digital concept of Music in Africa with support from the Siemens Foundation. In December 2013 she was appointed head of the Goethe Institute in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan.
Henrike was 51.
Tomorrow’s concert by Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion honours the 90th birthday of bassoon player Mordechai Rechtman, who will step up to conduct Beethoven’s fourth symphony.
Rechtman, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, was principal bassoon of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra from 1946 to 1991. He went on to become music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra Wind Ensemble. He is a widely performed composer and a teacher of practically everyone in Israel who makes a living on the basoon.
Zubin Mehta will be sitting front row tomorrow.
The Minnesota Orchestra is coming to Europe this summer, its first long-haul tour since the 2012 musicians lockout that almost destroyed the organisation.
The resilience of the musicians and the steadfastness of music director Osmo Vänskä (pictured) have given the orchestra a gloss of legend. Their Carnegie Hall visit last month drew unqualified raves.
It will be good to hear the Minnesotans in Lahti, Finland (August 21st) and at the Edinburgh International Festival (23rd), Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (24th) and the Tivoli Festival in Copenhagen (26th).
But not at the BBC Proms.
Why not? The tour will surely have been offered to the BBC, which must have turned it down. Just as it turned down the chance this summer to hear Europe’s most sought-after conductor, Kirill Petrenko.
Next week, we’ll find out what else is missing at the 2016 Proms.
