A boy of 14 claims his eye was damaged when a tuning peg broke free from his violin and was hurled into his eye by force of the string it had held in place.

His mother is suing the school.

Story here.

tuning up violin

The death has been announced of Christoph Schmökel, legal adviser to the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras and to many leading musicians and music companies. Most recently he advised the top-selling German-American violinist, David Garrett.

Christoph died suddenly on April 4, his Berlin law firm has announced.

In 1998, when the record industry was in deep trouble, he was made executive vice-president of Deutsche Grammophon.

His name was on innumerable contracts.

 

Dr. Christoph Schmškel, SozietŠt Boehmert & Boehmert

Ten months ago, we directed you to a beautiful article by Katie McAdam, explaining how she coped with being forced  to give up her singing career.

kathryn-mcadam-soprano-headshote1

I miss it every day. The joy that comes from expressing yourself by letting that sound out I so often crave for. Still wanting to support my wonderful friends, I attend their performances and silently sigh inside. I don’t even listen to opera in my spare time anymore; when I hear it, I feel betrayed.

 In the grand scheme of things, it’s no big deal and I do know that. People start new careers every day, but I still feel hard done by. I never really acknowledged it as being akin to a pro footballer breaking his leg and never being able to play his beloved game again but I guess it’s pretty much the same. So now I teach singing, because I’ve done it on the side for years anyway, but it doesn’t satiate my love for performing. I’m also retraining to be an interior designer because I love the creativity side of things, but it doesn’t yet quench my thirst for expressing myself in the visceral way that singing that money note did. In my own eyes, I’ll always be the one that failed; didn’t make it; fell by the wayside. I do, though –  despite my ramblings here –  have perspective on it all and am forever grateful for all the wonderful things I do have in my life, and the fact that I even got to live my dream for a relatively short while was a blessing.

Katie’s blogpost was read by more than 10,000 people in a matter of days.

She has gone on to record a late-night, 15-minute radio talk on the BBC about what singing meant to her and how hard it was to give up. The talk is even more moving than the blog.

You can listen to it here.

This weekend’s orchestral talking point appears anonymously on the Guardian website. We cannot vouch for its authenticity or which orchestra is involved, but the general tone of the piece sounds fairly London-typical:

I work most weekends and holidays, then have random weekdays off. The freelance pay structure and low fees keep my nose glued to the grindstone, with almost zero opportunities to develop broader interests or a social life outside. People fraternise exclusively according to instrument, reinforcing the incestuous lifestyle…

one man orchestra

Read on here.

The Russian-based Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis has picked up another award – 75,000 Euros from the Kairos Prize of the highly controversial Alfred Toepfer Stiftung.

Currentzis, 44, was honoured as a ‘thinker and creator’.

 

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There was doubt whether performances of Macmillan’s Manon would go ahead in Bucharest after the peremptory dismissal of the company’s artistic director, Johan Kobborg.

But there have been developments.

Here’s a message from Johan:

johan kobborg

I am so grateful to all of you who supported in past few days and to those who kept asking questions today, I thank you for your patience.

It has today been a priority from the moment I entered the theatre to make sure tonights performance would take place, for our audiences and for the artists, and tonight I think anyone watching the performance enjoyed it as much as I did.
Congrats Dancers/Musicians and Technical crews.
You showed me again the very reason, why I have chosen and always will continue to chose, to never allow myself to be intimidated or manipulated as an artist.

I do due to the massive amount of questions, send to me today, feel I need to clarify the situation as it stands at this very moment.

After the Minister of Culture made the proposal for me to return to the Bucharest National Opera House as the institution’s Artistic Director of the Ballet Company, I have this morning met with the interim General Manager, Mr. Vlad Conta, and discussed how we can further look into the possibilities related to this proposal.

Given my only focus is on maintaining activity standards, as I have believed in for the last couple of years, we will meet again next week to see if the exact specifications of such a collaboration can be found in this new set up, and my function within the institution can be continued as has previously been. And as such, I am open to the negotiations needed and to see if mutual ground can be found.
So to clarify, I have at this time not signed any contract, nor seen or accepted a proposal, but only theoretically approved the idea of becoming the Artistic Director of the Company.

The theater will perform its scheduled Manon performance tomorrow, even if unfortunate cast changes have occurred, due to the recent events causing stoppage of rehearsal time for the two lead dancers involved.

Best regards,
Johan Kobborg