Jun-Hyuk Choi studies doublebass in Seoul. He saw a vacant instrument in a long-established Florentine and asked, respectfully, if he could join in.
Almost four million people have now watched the video.
An impromptu survey by Kelly Butler:
Some of my fellow opera singers, when asked, gave me a huge list of jobs taken to support the in-between times. Zuly Iniro taught school and tutored; Michelle Trovato and Anne Slovin both extolled their work found via temp agencies; Christine Thomas and Joshua Hughes teach voice and music classes, ranging in ages from pre-school and up.
Without fail, we all have ‘church jobs’ – we get paid to come in and sing for congregations to round out their choirs, do more difficult solo pieces like Requiems and Messiahs, and so on. In addition, many more of my performer friends, across all disciplines, work in catering, waitressing, and bartending. Even with taking these rather temporary jobs, many of us find ourselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes time to leave for a contract; many times, we face unemployment upon our return….
More here.
The Russian diva has told the Met she won’t sing three of the eight Manon Lescauts she has agreed to next season. The reason? ‘In order to conserve her vocal energies’.
Gelb has got Kristina Opolais to cover, which is fine, but Trebs can now do as she like at the Met. Gelb is in no position to deny any of her whims.
Netrebko tweeted: ‘Life is pretty good right now.’
Rudolf Bing would be horrified.
A memoir by the Czech-born composer Alexander Goldscheider:
Elise Wiesel died yesterday and I shall leave to others to disseminate and fully appreciate his unique legacy.
But hardly anybody will know that Elie Wiesel would have died already back in 1945, had he not been, like so many others, saved from being sent to death in Buchenwald by a Czech co-prisoner, Jiří Žák.
Jiží Žák, a journalist, writer, jazzman and forever a prankster, grew up with my dad in Pilsen. I can think of a dozen great stories from the life of this larger-than-life character, but I shall restrict myself to his remarkable role in Buchenwald, where he was imprisoned throughout World War II as a Trotskyist. Not only did he manage to survive, he started a jazz band there and, above all, worked in an office as a copyist – lucky for him as for many others…
I knew and admired him since I was a child, he was like closest family that I never had, as I lost it in other camps. He introduced me to jazz and involved me in many of his pranks, let me read forbidden books and many a time offered me his binoculars to watch a young lady living across a courtyard, who liked to appear naked by her window.
He emanated such power, had such integrity, ever present sense of humour and vast and varied experience with women which he was always ready to share with me. I knew there were dark moments in his life, too, but I learned well from home not to ever bring up the camps, and in his case the persecution in the 1950’s as well.
When I first travelled to the West, to France in 1967, he took his business card, tore it in halves and instructed me to hand one to a lady working at the Eiffel Tower and the other to a man in a restaurant not far from it. They will know what to do, he added.
The Frenchman in the restaurant asked me how I happen to know Jirka, how he was, was there anything he could do for me, would I care to choose from the menu or would I leave it up to him, and soon one plate after another started landing on my table. An hour later I was in panic knowing that all of my money would not be enough. Two hours later it no longer mattered. I probably never ate so much and so well. The gentle, somewhat mysterious Frenchman next asked me, whether I already visited the Tour Eiffel? I must see his wife, she will let me in and take care of me, and I am more than welcome to come to, as it turned out, his restaurant again and again, and eat as much as I like, always his treat, of course. Overwhelmed by the food and knowledge there would no bill, I just wondered how I deserved it, what sort of connection, deal was there between him and Jirka Žák?
A deal, he laughed! Jirka never told you, did he? If it was not for Jirka, I would not be here, nor would my nowadays extended family, the restaurant and so much else! Jirka saved my life and so many others, he continued, and tearfully explained that Jirka with admirable bravery systematically managed to ignore instructions and omit as many names as he could from being added to the book of those condemned to death and add them to the book of life, so to say.
Elie Wiesel, a pitiful 16-year Romanian, was one of those names.
When Wiesel came to Prague at the invitation of President Havel half-a-century later, Jiří Žák was the first he wished to find and contact. Given a telephone number, he could only speak and thank Jiří’s wonderful wife Jarmila: Jiří Žák died 29. 1. 1986, 68 years old and miserable as an émigré in Hamburg.
I am admittedly so glad that I can share this story, albeit on such a sad day.
Jiří Žák is pictured here (left) with my dad, probably around 1950.
(c) Alexander Goldscheider
How did they do that?
The East Neuk Festival specialises in images in the sand.
This one accompanied Memorial Ground by the American composer David Lang, premiered yesterday at Cambo Potato Barn by Theatre of Voices, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and singers from Fife choirs, conducted by Paul Hillier.
We have been notified of the death on July 2 of Sergio Miceli, one of the most widely-read analysts of film music.
Sergio, who was 72, had been suffering from a prolonged, degenerative illness.
The Union by Louis Moreau Gottschalk contains all the nation’s favourites – The Star-Spangled Banner, Hail, Columbia” and Yankee Doodle!
Played here by former Claude Frank student Martin Leung.
Happy day, everyone.
The Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, normally based in Vienna, migrated to Cape Town for its latest edition – not that you would know.
Although the contest was live-streamed, there has been no international coverage, not even of last night’s final round – except on one Dutch-language music site.
The winner was American bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee.
Second was South African soprano Noluvuyiso Mpofu. Third was American mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis.
The popular Welsh mezzo has been promising for years to sing Carmen in concert as proof that she is entitled to be considered an ‘opera singer’.
Not the whole role, mind, just the big arias. It was planned for a festival in rural Wales this week.
But she has pulled out of the show, ‘absolutely gutted’, with a virus.
Some things just aren’t meant to be.
A new breakthrough on social media. When you’ve finished writing a post on Facebook, decide in which other languages you’d like it to appear.
Facebook’s ‘multilingual composer’ launches this weekend.
Go to language preferences in your account settings and click ‘multiple languages.’
Let’s see how it works.
The Mariinsky Theatre has announced a Concert for Navy Day on board the flagship of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, Varyag.
The concert, conducted by Valery Gergiev, will be transmitted from the missile cruiser to the entire fleet. It will take place on Juy 31, the second night of the Mariinsky’s Far East Festival in Vladivistok.
Gergiev is expanding rapidly in the Far East. Putin has other designs in the region.
It is always regrettable to see an important musician acting as an instrument of military policy.
First in Syrian, now on the Chinese front.
A report by consultant Michael Kaiser, commissioned to appease anxious musicians, has highlighted dangerous structural flaws in the high-flying Philadelphia Orchestra.
Kaiser warns that the orchestra is overly dependent on large donors, any one of whom could trigger a crisis by pulling out. He says smaller donors have been neglected and the organisations communication skills are minimal (we could have told you that).
He recommends town-hall meetings, improved fund-raising in the $25,000 to $250,000 bracket and tighter coordination between artistic plans and financial realities.
A earlier recommendation for the orchestra tom merge with the Kimmel Center where it plays has, for some reason, been dropped.
Read Peter Dobrin’s none-too-encouraging report here.
