It has been announced that next month’s Lugano festival of Martha Argerich and friends will be the last.

The BSI bank said it was pulling out after 15 years and no other sponsor has been found.

Martha, who is 75 next month, made the festival a unique setting for informal music making, far into the night. It’s a sad way to end.

The last six are:

Ji Won Song (South Korea)

Fedor Rudin (Russia – France)

Minami Yoshida (Japan)

Ayana Tsuji (Japan)

Bomsori Kim (South Korea)

Petteri Iivonen (Finland)

Ryanair is currently ranked world’s worst airline for musicians.

This just in from the violinist Abraham Brody:

I am a professional violinist based in London. I travel all the time and sometimes fly with Ryanair. Since a year ago or so they changed their cabin bag allowance so that my violin fit as a carry on. I flew roundtrip with my violin as my carry on to Budapest, Seville, and Lisbon all this year with no problems. But when I flew from Paris Beauvais airport to Barcelona on Wednesday the woman at the Ryanair check in desk stopped me immediately and said ‘You won’t fly with that’.

I showed her that my violin fit the carry on requirements, showed her I bought priority boarding which means they cannot ask me to check my bag, and told her about all my previous flights with violin. She replied ‘ I don’t care, I am the boss here and what I say, you do.’

I was at Beauvais airport far away from Paris, and I had to get to Barcelona that day, so I had no choice but to do what she said and buy an extra seat for 200 EURO for my violin, as checking it would of course be extremely dangerous. She seemed completely out to get me. She then took so long to re-issue me a boarding pass that I almost missed my flight, and when I got on the plane, it wasn’t even full, and the overheads had plenty of space for baggage.

I wrote a complaint letter to Ryanair, stating all the facts and quoting their own rules. All I got a robotic reply stating that basically the people at the check in desk can order you to do whatever they want and you have to follow it, even if the airline rules are different. I got no refund and no sympathy.

The Ryanair policy states that if your cabin baggage fits the size allowance, and you have priority boarding, they cannot ask you to check your bag (or buy a seat for it). Nowhere on their website does it say that if a violin or other instrument is within the cabin baggage size allowance that you must buy a seat for it or check it.

I want to advise all my fellow musicians not to use this terrible airline with both complete disregard for its own rules, as well as its passengers. I would also strongly advise never to use Paris Beauvais airport, where this incident happened, as the service there by staff was both extremely rude and inept. I will never again use Ryanair.

This week’s Ring cycle in Leeds this week will be dedicated to the memory of Sebastian New, who died in the past few days of cancer, aged 57.

Sebastian had been principal bassoonist in the Orchestra of Opera North for around twenty-five years.

By brilliant Wagnerian tenor Ben Heppner.

The self-congratulating 10-year speech given by the Metropolitan Opera’s manager at the Opera America convention has gone down like cement trainers at the company he manages. Insiders at the Met have analysed the speech and one of them compiled the following factual and perceptual contradictions.

You can watch the full speech here.

Peter Gelb’s Opera America address was an embarrassing mishmash of defensiveness, insecurity, and pablum. Slippedisc readers deserve to have the record set straight on some key points:

– (~6:50) Frayda Lindemann, a member of the Met Board’s executive committee, states that the board “is universally in support of our general manager.” Well-placed sources have hinted to me this is far from true, and that even the executive committee is beginning to splinter.

– (~17:20) Gelb says “I spent many months trying to convince our unions that the cost structure of the Met had to be reduced in order to create a more sustainable business model.” Aside from this being a gauche subject two years after a contentions negotiation, it bears repeating that the musicians’ contention all along was that the Met’s budget had exploded due to bloated management spending, and that is where the cuts needed to occur. The Met’s FY15 budget proved exactly that: of the total $18m savings, $11.25m came from “management expenses,” with only $6.75m coming from labor, all of which I have been told has been confirmed by the contractually mandated independent financial analyst (Eugene Keilin).

– (~20:38) Gelb begins a defense of spending on and quantity of new productions in order to attract new audiences. I have yet to see this proven with box office data. Does it not make more intuitive sense that new opera audiences are enticed to the Met the classic ABC’s – the Aidas, Bohemes, and Carmens? Gelb then tries to defend the notorious LePage Ring and insults all critics by invoking Eugene O’Neill, “God bless every bone in their heads.” He refuses to acknowledge the direct correlation between the quality of reviews and ticket sales, implying that Gelb’s is the only opinion that matters.  Basically put, the evidence suggests that poorly reviewed operas on average don’t sell well, and Gelb’s productions are on average poorly reviewed.

– (~37:18) Gelb feebly scapegoats an aging audience and the broken subscription model for the Met’s box office woes. Gelb personally takes  credit for broadening the audience base, yet at the same time accepts no responsibility for the steady decline of their box office. It’s worth noting that the average age of opera goers stays basically the same over time. They get replenished. And they’re currently being  replenished by the largest 50-70 year old population in history (i.e., boomers). And yet Gelb cannot answer “Why is your core audience abandoning you?”  Are these the actions of a good leader?

– (~52:44) It’s suggested that the Met’s pricing structure is ineffective, and Gelb is asked “Opera has to have certain level of ticket price; is there a sweet spot yet to be discovered at Met?” Gelb replies “we’re looking for it, but nobody really knows.” This is an astonishing abdication of managerial responsibility which ignores the Met’s own data showing that 1) their average prices are still too high, and 2) dynamic pricing schemes are driving away their ardent fans.

Even addressing a sympathetic audience of his peers, Peter Gelb cannot explain away his profound failings. There are plenty of smaller innovative performing arts institutions that are doing just fine in the U.S.

All evidence suggests that maybe it’s time for change at the Met, and I don’t mean in the Music Director position. When will the Met Opera Board wake up and realize that the supposedly “hip and cool” Peter Gelb — who proclaims “this job is impossible,” and denigrates his own audience base on a wearying basis — is a sorely lacking General Manager for America’s greatest musical cultural institution.

From the Manchester Camerata:

We are very sorry to announce that Nicola Benedetti has been advised by doctors to withdraw from Manchester Camerata’s season finale at The Bridgewater Hall (3 Jun) and further concerts in Harrogate (1 Jun), Crewe (2 Jun) and Malvern (4 Jun). We are delighted that Ray Chen will replace Nicola Benedetti for all four concerts. Manchester Camerata’s Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy, will conduct all four concerts, replacing Andrea Marcon.

Benedetti’s Mozart project with conductor Andrea Marcon, which was part of a wider European Tour, will now be programmed in a future season.

We wish her better.

Anthea Kreston, American violinist in the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet, barely paused for breath this week, what with premiering a new piece, connecting every Curtis alumnus in Germany and embracing a hostile Slipped Disc reader.  Read her latest diary instalment below….

Things grow on Anthea’s balcony

When we (Jason and I, I suppose) decided to take this adventure, I decided to do several things.

1- lower my expectations in every way

2- refuse to think in the present – think two years in the future

3- expect the worst from rehearsals and the potential for huge egos

4- anticipate the probability of taking a back seat in musical/organizational/business decisions

Number 2 is vital – and I don’t want to get overly-optimistic here, but I can say that this group is made of people with absolutely no egos – they are without exception open, supportive, sensitive, and are as flexible as can be.  They want to draw out my ideas, both musically and in terms of larger group decisions – and because of this we have begun to craft a new sound – a sound based on and respecting the foundation of the Artemis – but something again new and vital. And I am glad to see that the reviews are noticing this too.  Not that we should read reviews – I once had a teacher who said “if you read reviews, you have to believe the bad ones as much as the good ones – it is best to rely only on yourself and ignore all outside noise”.  But I can’t help myself from reading….

The Curtis Institute of Music is an incredible institution – I like to think of it as a living museum – a collection of the greatest living musicians – who teach and mentor the next generation. It has the lowest acceptance rate in the United States – clocking in at 4.8% – following Curtis is Stanford (5.1%), Harvard (6%) and Yale (6.3%).  The auditions are grueling – a recorded round, and two live rounds in Philadelphia, where the school is based in a mansion (with surrounding buildings) facing the beautiful down-town Rittenhouse Square. World-renowned violist Roberto Diaz has taken the helm as of 2006 and has since opened the doors of this institution – beginning programs which reach out to communities, a variety of camps (including adult amateur) and many other things including Curtis on Tour.

It was through this that I re-connected – I attended a concert at the Konzerthaus in Berlin (incredible concert) and went to the alumni post-concert event. Curtis recently received one of the largest-ever gifts made to an American music school – $55 million from the departing board president  Nina Baroness von Maltzahn, who I believe lives in Berlin. This gift funds both the quartet program and their global touring program. When we lived in Oregon, I contacted Curtis to get a full list of musicians who lived between San francisco (South), North to Vancouver, and East to Boise. The list was very, very small. It wasn’t really even a list. When they sent me, last week, the list of alumni in only Germany – it took two pages of small-type. What a fun thing to mull over – the possibilities are endless.

The Artemis selected Eduard Demetz, a composer from the German-speaking part of the Italian Alps, for the winner of their quartet competition, which had hundreds of applications. We worked on this piece last month with Eduard, and again this week before the Premier at the Philharmonie in Berlin. I have put together many new works with groups before, and the integrity and depth to which the Artemis goes in preparation was incredible. Every note is spoken about – each person’s ideas tried out – characters clarified, a complex web of cuing is put in place and continually modified. The result, I believe, was stunning. “Broken Islands” (based on the composer’s kayak trip through the islands off of Vancouver Island) is a 5 movement work with three smaller movements nestled in between. It is honest and emotional music – it falls well on the hands and is easy to connect with. We will be playing the piece many times in the coming months. Between now and June 20 we play in Vienna (2 times), Düsseldorf, Gauting, Bensheim, Frieberg, Homberg, Leipzig, Gent, Schwartzberg and Istanbul (Schubert Cello Quintet with Gautier Capuçon).

Here are two videos from Chapel of me teaching two wonderful young groups – in case you want to see my crazy hair.

RW2013 is a frequent commenter on this diary’s comment section. Let’s not mince words here – I don’t think it would be too much to say this person has a seething hate for me. Take a peek. They shoot from the hip and go for the heart.  But – in my mind it was smart writing and clearly from an intelligent and passionate person. When it started to become clear that this person lived in Berlin (in fact in my neighborhood) I started to put aside tickets for our concerts under RW2013 (the box office certainly raised a collective eyebrow at the request).  This past week, RW took me up on the offer. After the concert, a somewhat shy-looking person came to me and showed me their ticket with their name on it. I was so happy that they came I gave the person a huge hug without even considering that they might not want a huge hug from someone they might really not like at all. But – of course we connected – of course I knew we would. We talked, we walked, I was late to the cd signing because of it, they met the quartet, they tried to apologize (I think?) but I would have none of it – it is all good clean fun, a coffee date is being arranged, and they even offered me their beautiful antique desk to help us because they know we don’t have furniture yet!  Talk about the cherry on my weekly Kuchen.

Tobias Picker, 61, presently writing a new work for New York City Opera, has been named artistic director of Tulsa Opera, starting now. Read here.

The competition, one of the most distinguished, had very little media coverage this year outside of Belgium and the online profile was exceptionally thin.

The results, announced after midnight, are:

First Prize : Lukas Vondracek (Cz)
Second Prize : Henry Kramer (US)
Third Prize : Alexander Beyer (US)
Fourth Prize : Chi Ho Han (S Korea)
Fifth Prize : Aljosa Jurinic (Croatia)
Sixth Prize : Alberto Ferro (Italy)

The audience prize went to the pianist placed sixth, which suggests a considerable gulf between the judges’ markings and the public perception.

You can watch video here.