Spaking at the press tour of the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin, the conductor said:
‘When you’re sick and you realize your medicine isn’t working, you have to try something different. That’s what we are doing right now. What has been done over the years in the Middle East had not been productive and has not brought peace. That’s why we are trying something else….
I believe education is much more important than we assume. Today, everyone tends to focus on the economy. Of course, the economy is important. People need to have enough to eat, and have work and money. But there are other things that are important. In the Gaza Strip for example, the average age of the population is 16 or 17. If you don’t do anything to educate the people there, what kind of future will they have?’
A Charlotte Bronte opera that occupied twenty years of composer John Joubert’s life until its completion in 1997 is to receive its world premiere on 25 October 2016, at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre in Birmingham.
Joubert will turn 90 next year.
A previous Jane Eyre opera by Michael Berkeley and David Malouf was stolen from the composer’s car in 2000. He rewrote it with lighter instrumentation.
press release:
From its first publication in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre has inspired innumerable theatrical interpretations for both stage and screen. To mark the 200th anniversary of Brontë’s birth in 2016, and in anticipation of British composer John Joubert’s 90th birthday in 2017, Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestrawill premiere Joubert’s opera based on Brontë’s first and most popular novel.Jane Eyre will receive its world premiere in a concert performance on 25 October 2016, at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre in Birmingham. The SOMM label will be on hand to capture a live recording which is scheduled to be released in March 2017 to coincide with Joubert’s birthday.
Joubert’s Jane Eyre has been over two decades in the making, yet the seeds were sown as far back as 1969, when the composer penned his song-cycle Six Poems Of Emily Brontë. He became drawn into the world of the Brontë sisters and, perhaps inevitably, Jane Eyre. The result is a major operatic work with “a score of translucent beauty – Joubert’s undoubted magnum opus,” comments conductor Kenneth Woods. For the premiere, soprano Katherine Manley will portray the title character and baritone David Stout – who previously collaborated with Woods on a SOMM recording of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen – will take on the role of Rochester. They will be joined by a full supporting cast. The librettist is Kenneth Birkin, a post-graduate student of Joubert’s at Birmingham University whose Ph.D. focused on the libretti of Strauss’s post-Hofmannsthal operas.
Joubert’s output has been frequently inspired by great literature and he has set song cycles to the words of William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, among others. His two other major operas are Silas Marner (George Eliot) and Under Western Eyes(Joseph Conrad). Joubert explains, “The criterion I use for the selection of operatic subjects is that they should comment in some way on basic human issues, thus bringing them into line with the Enlightenment idea of theatre as a ‘School of Morals’.”
Here’s a spot of glasnost:
The European Composition Prize at Young Euro Classic in Berlin wants an audience vote on the winner.
Interested? Call Berlin (030) 884713963
Santa Cruz Symphony has recruited Nigel Armstrong, 26, as its new concertmaster.
A contender at international competitions, Nigel went ‘to live with and learn from the Plum Village community founded by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, where he spent a year working on their organic farm and taking part in their daily life.’
Not your average circuit fiddler, then.
Maralin Niska, who died on Saturday in Santa Fe, sang more leading roles at New York City Opera – 29 – than anyone else.
She made her debut in 1967 in Marriage of Figaro and was the go-to soprano for two decades. She was a standout Salome.
She also appeared at the Met and with other US companies. Maralin would have been 90 in December.
Shelley Moore, who as a child entertained Londoners sheltering in the Underground during the Blitz, has died in the US at the age of 84.
She enjoyed international success with a 1961 album, For the First Time.
Enrique Carreón-Robledo is the new general and artistic director at Opera San Antonio, starting next month.
He succeeds the composer Tobias Picker, who quit at the start of the year.
Enrique has previously conducted Scottish Ballet, West Australian Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet.
Not to be outdone by the Germans, President Hollande has announced in Arles that culture will be ‘a budget priority’ in 2017. He expects to approve an increase in state funding of seven percent.
This is the sort of thing Britain is leaving behind.
According to the latest statistics from Eurostat, more than six million EU citizens work in the cultural industries.
Of these, Germany unsurprisingly has the most with 1.2 million.
The UK is just behind with 1.1m. (Or was.)
The country with the highest percentage of cultural employees in the workforce is Austria, with 3.1%.
Fridemann, 53, had been suffering from a depressive condiction.
For two months, the quartet went into mourning. A year later, they are still coming to grips with the loss of a friend and a partner. Here’s Anthea’s moving reflection on that solemn anniversary:
We (Jason and I, and the girls) are a week into our two-week festival in the Dolomites (Northern Italy). Nestled in this UNESCO World Heritage region, we are finally having some time to decompress and spend some time together as a family, with old friends from Oregon, and to play together (Jason and I with a terrific pianist, Amy Yang) as a trio again. The Music Academy International is a wide-reaching festival which has everything from Chamber Music to Opera, as well as Suzuki.
We have scarcely had time to breathe since mid-January, when I travelled to Berlin to audition for the Artemis Quartet, only to turn around, liquidate our lives in America, and return together to Berlin to begin our new lives together. We have been enjoying the wonders of Berlin – initially overwhelmed by the ever-present reminders of WWII, we have settled and now have begun to appreciate the richness of this experience – the chance to raise our young daughters in a wonderful culture and to travel the span of Europe and beyond.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of the beloved violist of the Artemis Quartet, Friedemann Weigle. It was this tragic event which eventually led to our move here, and to the new formation of this quartet. Friedemann is often spoken about during rehearsals and out, and I can not imagine the constant triggers which must affect the members of this quartet, as they rehearse and perform the repertoire once played together with this warm and generous soul, and hear his voice emanating from his instrument, now being played by Gregor, who has taken his spot as violist.
As the new member of a quartet, in any circumstance, the road to full integration requires sensitivity, observation, and patience. There are many reasons that a quartet needs a new member, and many reasons that a spot opens up. A new job, desire for change, wanting to spend more time with family, personal injury or illness, need for stability – all of these and more. Recently, the venerated Pacifica Quartet announced that their first violinist would be stepping down after 22 years leading the ensemble. But a suicide – this is something without reason – it is something without explanation.
I am not sure what my role is in this – I cannot and would not want to replace this missing person – but I do need to fully occupy my quarter of this group. It is not my place to speak of it, but to listen when it is referred to, and try to find my path through this impossible maze. I can’t imagine what this quartet is going through, and I don’t know how I fit in, or how to think about it, or what to expect, or how to act. But I do feel an incredible warmth and sadness from this quartet, and they speak about their beloved violist often. I just listen and admire their strength.
Message received:
Dear Dart Music Customers,
We have made some business decisions that will impact you in the coming days. We will be winding down our music distribution business.
Long story, short… If you choose, your music will be transferred to CDBaby at no additional cost to you. More details below…
A bit of history:
Dart Music was founded to solve one very specific problem: eliminating the complex metadata issues that made it nearly impossible for classical composers and musicians to get their music distributed and then to be compensated appropriately.
We met this goal and our unique metadata solution is working really well.
In fact, Dart’s approach is so effective, it quickly opened the door to partnerships with the biggest players in the industry – Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify, to name a few. Classical artists worldwide were finally getting recognized and paid for their work. Big win!
Where we’re going:
As it turns out, classical music wasn’t the only place where metadata could make a huge difference. The companies we partner with began talking about other uses for perfect metadata for all musical genres as well as different industries – books, film, movies.
It seems that by solving one problem, we have created a way to solve many others. The game-changing potential of this work is simply too important to ignore. So moving forward, Dart will begin to shift focus to our core mission: Perfect Metadata.
As of August 15, 2016 we will no longer be in the music distribution business.
What this mean to you – our customer:
We have a plan for a smooth transition. After looking at all available options, CD Baby stands out as the clear choice for taking over our distribution catalog. So, we’ve created a special arrangement with CD Baby to make sure you don’t miss a beat – or royalty payments. In fact, we will be able to transfer all accounts without losing ratings or reviews.
If you choose to make the transfer to CD Baby, you don’t have to do a thing, we will take care of the details. Once you are transferred, charges from CD Baby will begin each time you make a sale.
