The country hasn’t paid its bills, apparently, since 2007.
It is the first to be banned by Eurovision since its foundation in 1955. A rare distinction.
Tomorrow, Vasily Petrenko makes his conducting debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, at the invitation of its music director, Kirill Petrenko.
The two Petrenkos, unrelated, are both products of late-Soviet educational values. One is music director in Liverpool and Oslo, the other is incoming chief of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Andrew Powell has compiled an entertaining chart of comparative qualities in his blog here.
Sample:
Placing the two Petrenkos side by side here, like baseball cards, meant compiling at least some personal facts along with the musical. So, three questions went to the conductors’ handlers. How tall is he? Where does he live (part of town)? What’s his favorite sports team?
This proved awkward, however, especially on one side, and hitherto-cordial staffers turned as cool as, well, trademark attorneys. Vasily’s people cooperated with partial answers. Kirill’s, deep inside Bavarian State Opera, stonewalled: “Mr. Petrenko generally does not wish to answer any personal questions.”
Read on here.
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The violinst Nikolaj Znaider, president of this year’s Carl Nielsen violin competition, has openly dissented from the choice of finalists.
Znaider said: ‘There was a clear majority for the three participants who ended up in the final. However, it is just not a decision I can support…. I support the result, because I’m jury president and has overall responsibility. In such situations you just have to agree to disagree.’
The three finalists are:
Luke Hsu (25) USA
Ji Yoon Lee (23) South Korea
Liya Petrova (25) Bulgaria.
But the result has been maimed in advance by the presdient’s announcement that he does not think any of them is worthy of the prize. This contest has been turned into a shambles.
The other juru members are:
Nikolaj Znaider, Denmark, President of the Jury (Violinist and conductor)
Noah Bendix-Balgley, USA (1st Concertmaster, Berlin Philharmonic)
Mats Engström, Sweden (Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra)
Kathryn Enticott, UK (Znaider’s agent)
Charles Hamlen, USA (Artistic Advisor, Orchestra of St. Luke’s | DiMenna Center)
Werner Hink, Austria (Violinist, Vienna Philharmonic)
Kathryn Stott, England (Pianist)
Eugen Tichindeleanu, Denmark (Concert Master, Odense Symphony Orchestra)
Jian Wang, China (Cellist)
A man will appear in court today in Zionsville, Indiana, charged with four counts of child seduction.
Michael Plewa, 33, is accused of sending sexual innuendos, photos and suggestive comments to a student while he was the orchestra teacher at Zionsville West Middle School. The student is now 16. The contacts began when she was in 8th grade.
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Report here.
From the musicians of the CSO:
The Musicians of the Chicago Symphony will present a benefit concert for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, GCFD, on Monday, June 13th at 8:00PM at the Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Our musicians have always been involved in the community through chamber, educational, and community concerts. This concert, undertaken as an orchestra and conducted by our Music Director Riccardo Muti, will be the first time such a collective effort has been made. Collaborating with the Food Depository, our musicians can offer support in direct ways, by raising funds. This concert will bring attention to two of the most difficult problems our society faces: hunger and malnutrition. The concert is entirely produced by the musicians. All of the proceeds will be donated to the GCFD.
Chicago Symphony Musicians Express Gratitude to Maestro Muti:
The Chicago Symphony Musicians have the highest regard for Riccardo Muti. He has also been recognized as an international humanitarian. We are most grateful to him for agreeing to lead us in our first independently produced concert that benefits the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
About the Greater Chicago Food Depository:
The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank, is a nonprofit food distribution and training center providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community. The Food Depository, founded in 1979, makes a daily impact across Cook County with a network of 650 pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, mobile programs, children’s programs, older adult programs and innovative responses that address the root causes of hunger. Last year, the Food Depository distributed 68 million pounds of shelf-stable food, fresh produce, dairy products and meat, the equivalent of 155,000 meals every day. For more information, visit chicagosfoodbank.org or call 773-247-FOOD.
Muti visits food bank (photo: Todd Rosenberg)
The orchestra has named the two winners of its Huberman Scholarship, who will join its academy.
The two are both Israeli violinists – Ori Wissner-Levy, 25 (pictured), and Ohad Cohen, 25.
photo: Foppe Schut
press release:
Orchester-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker vergibt Huberman-Stipendium
Das Huberman-Stipendium der Orchester-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker wurde 2008 unter der Schirmherrschaft von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel in Erinnerung an den polnisch-jüdischen Violinisten Bronislaw Huberman ins Leben berufen. Im Sinn seines Namensgebers unterstützt es die deutsch-israelische Begegnung auf künstlerischer und menschlicher Ebene. Das Huberman-Stipendium richtet sich an junge israelische Musiker/innen bis 27 Jahre, die bereits eine Hochschulausbildung für ein Orchesterinstrument absolviert haben und die israelische Staatsbürgerschaft besitzen. Diese bewerben sich auf eine der offenen Stellen der Orchester-Akademie um das Huberman-Stipendium.
Unter der Leitung des philharmonischen Geigers Alessandro Cappone sowie des Stimmführers der zweiten Geigen Christophe Horak fand am 19. April in Jerusalem ein Probespiel mit Anwärtern für ein Huberman-Stipendium der Orchester-Akademie statt. Zwei junge Geiger gingen als Gewinner hieraus hervor, Ori Wissner-Levy (25 Jahre) und Ohad Cohen (25 Jahre).
Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker Awards Huberman Scholarship
The Huberman Scholarship of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker was established in 2008 under the patronage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in memory of the Polish-Jewish violinist Bronisław Huberman. The aim of the scholarship is to promote German-Israeli understanding on an artistic and personal level in the spirit of its namesake.
The Huberman Scholarship is open to young Israeli musicians under the age of 27 who have completed a degree from a university or conservatory in an orchestral instrument and hold Israeli citizenship. They are eligible to apply for the Huberman Scholarship for one of the vacancies in the Orchestra Academy.
Auditions for applicants for a Huberman Scholarship from the Orchestra Academy were held in Jerusalem on 18 April, conducted by members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, first violinist Alessandro Cappone and principal second violinist Christophe Horak. Two young violinists were chosen as winners: Ori Wissner-Levy and Ohad Cohen, both age 25.
Before the curtain rose last night at English National Opera, some members of the audience shouted and demanded their money back after it was announced that the star of Sunset Boulevard, Glenn Close, was unable to appear.
People had paid a lot of money and come a long way to see the Hollywood legend. No refunds were offered. Glenn Close is 69 and was described by ENO as ‘indisposed’. Her future appearances have yet to be confirmed.
At the final curtain, however, the audience cheered her stand-in, Ria Jones, for fully five minutes.
Good show.
The latest Nuit Debout – Up All Night – protest in Paris involved a performance by 300 musicians of Dvorak’s New World Symphony on Wednesday night in the Place de la Republique. Most of the players were amateur. The performance is rather good.
Photo © Matthieu de Martignac / Photo PQR Le Parisien / Max PPP
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Slower even than one-horse EMI, Deutsche Grammophon was the last label of consequence to adopt stereo recording in the late 1950s. Its circumspection is, in retrospect, comprehensible. In austerity-minded Germany, a second living-room speaker would have been deemed an anti-social luxury and DG’s mono quality was, by any criterion, world-class. Under the leadership of camp-survivor Elsa Schiller, DG had buried its Nazi past beneath a blaze of new talent and high performance. The DG represented in this massive box of rarities is a label under post-War reconstruction, fascinating in its rigour and frugality.
This is DG in the age before Herbert von Karajan.
For 37 years, Guy Woolfenden was director of music for the Royal Shakespeare Company, composing 150 scores of intermezzi and incidental music. His music was indispensable to Peter Hall’s series, The Wars of the Roses.
Guy has died, aged 79.
As a boy, he sang at the Queen’s wedding to Prince Philip. He played horn in the Sadlers Wells orchestra and conducted here and there, including three productions at Scottish Opera, one of which was the UK premiere of Nielsen’s Saul and David.
In 1995, he founded the English Music Festival.
We have been notified of the death of Stewart J Warkow, executive director of Carnegie Hall from 1978 to 1982.
Stewart, who was 81, started out in the accounts department of NBC, became Leopold Stokowski’s assistant at the Symphony of the Air and helped for the American Symphony Orchestra, acting as its first artistic director. He became house manager at Carnegie in 1968, rising to the top job ten years later.
For the remainder of his career he headed the conductors’ division of the ICM agency, looking after such artists as Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Zdenek Macal, Peter Maag, Gary Bertini, Charles Mackerras, and Bobby McFerrin—as well Andres Segovia, Ruth Laredo, and Eliot Fisk.
He was old-school, unflappable, respectful of artists and art, a perfect gentleman.
