The Irish conductor and games composer Eimear Noone has won judgement in Los Angele against Jason Michael Paul Productions Inc. for firing her from the production of “The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses” after she got pregnant.

A jury awarded Eimear $647,000 in compensation, having decided that the company acted with malice.

Report here.

eimear noone

 

The German pianist and conductor Justus Frantz had a lucky escape after a shark bit his leg as he was swimming in waters off Hong Kong.

He spent several days in hospital with severe lacerations. Justus says he got off lightly. The shark was a small one.

He ‘s back conducting this week at German festivals.

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From the review:

This is one the world has been waiting for. The Minnesota Orchestra’s partnership with the Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä is a treasure of our times, especially when they play music of the frozen north. Minnesota is sufficiently remote from the rest of musical America to maintain its own sound and Vänskä, ever the iconoclast, has his own particular way of refreshing familiar scores. The start of their Sibelius cycle hit the decks with a whoosh five years ago.

Then, disaster…

Read on here. Or here.

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Peter Dobrin reports:

….It seems impossible, but with the closing of F.Y.E., Center City may be without a brick-and-mortar store selling new classical releases for the first time since the dawn of the recording era.

F.Y.E. put considerable care into its classical department, and for years after it took over from Tower in 2007, the store was a place where you would bump into other classical lovers. Much of the city’s arts sector today is concentrated along Broad and up Walnut Streets. Record stores had tentacles that reached into local music schools and concert halls. There you might spy a pianist performing that night for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, or get seduced by a clever bit of album art….

More here.

 

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We have been notified of the death of Fred Tomlinson, a very active session singer and a strong member of Equity’s Concert & Session Singers Committee, working with John Noble, Les Fyson, Meryl Dickenson, Edgar Fleet, Terry Edwards and others. As leader of the Fred Tomlinson Singers, he provided vocals for the Two Ronnies and other TV shows.

He also made a major impact as Chairman of the Peter Warlock Society for about 25 years, and author of several books about this oddest of English composers.

Fred’s funeral will be next Wednesday at Breakspear Crematorium, Breakspear Road, Ruislip, HA4 7SJ at 1.15pm.

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Among other unsung triumphs, we learn that he wrote the lumberjack song for Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Amazing grace:

A long lost copper engraving by German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) has found its way back to the southern German Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. The graphic work dating from 1520 was thought to have been lost during the Second World War and had been registered in the specialized “Lost Art“ database.

More here.

 

The BIS owner Robert von Bahr has sent us this reminiscence and fond farewell from his recent meeting with the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, who has died aged 87.

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Interesting that Norman would mention the Flute Concerto from 1975. It is a work, with which I feel particularly at home, since it was I, who commissioned it (and paid for out of my own pocket). It is dedicated to my first wife, Gunilla, who premièred it in the Nordic Music Days in Reykjavík, Iceland, but never recorded it. Composed for a flautist with all four flutes, from piccolo to bass flute in C, it is an intensely personal work, setting many moods, all very typically Finnish. It was later re-written as a version for a flautist without the rare bass flute, using “only” the upper three.

As chance had it, Sharon Bezaly von Bahr recorded it (both versions!) and I had the immense pleasure of presenting the brand new SACD:s to Einojuhani a couple of months ago. He was then in a rather bad shape and had difficulties in talking, but there was no hiding away the fact that he immensely enjoyed the record and the about one-hour long visit from a friend that went back over 40 years.

Robert von Bahr

 

 

The first review in the Salzburger Nachrichten acknowledges frenzied applause for The Exterminating Angel, but finds the plot boring and lacking in surprise: Wer Intention, Stück und Aufführung so zu lesen versuchte, musste sich wie im falschen Film wähnen. Wen das nicht anfocht, jubelte aus seiner Sicht womöglich zu Recht.

Der Standard notes that the Thomas Ades premiere, based on a Luis Bunel film, was a substitute for an intended opera by the late György Ligeti.

BR Klassik decides it is ‘doomed to failure’. Es bleibt der Nachgeschmack: Buñuel zu vertonen, ist im Grunde zum Scheitern verurteilt.

First social media reactions from British spectators are considerably more enthusiastic.

The opera will be seen at Covent Garden next April.

 

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Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith made their recordings with the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra because they loved its principal trumpet, John Gracie.

Yesterday, after 35 years, John blew his last notes with the orchestra and went into retirement.

TF15805 RSNO Portraits Day Three

He remains Professor of Trumpet at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and a member of the Paragon Ensemble, Chamber Group of Scotland, and the RSNO Brass Ensemble.

The London violinist Krysia Osostowicz, who got her precious violin back within a day after it was stolen, has posted a note of thanks to all who helped in the search:

Dear Friends,
for those of you who haven’t already heard, I’m thrilled to report that my violin has been recovered! A woman took it in to sell at Cash Converters in Streatham, where the wonderful manager recognised it from my description and called the police. Now my fiddle is still being held at Brixton Police station as an item of evidence; I really hope to get it back today.
I want to thank you so much for all your kind messages over the past couple of days; it’s been amazing and touching to get so much moral support. Please share this message, and thank you!
Krysia x

 

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It appears Krysia  dropped off ‘missing’ leaflets at local secondhand shops and an alert assistant in Streatham High Road recognised the violin case from her description, phoning her when the ‘seller’ was unable to unlock it.

A woman, 36, is being held in custody on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

The latest to walk the Kremlin red carpet is Boris Berezovsky. He has been named Honoured Artist of Russia in a decree signed yesterday by President Putin.

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photo: Xavier Antoinet

Anthea Kreston, American violinist of the Artemis Quartet, is still adjusting to her new life in Berlin. Latest calamity: they won’t let her drive. Read her latest diary entry below.

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We finally have a car. I can’t begin to say what a sense of freedom this has brought to our lives. To move from a two-car home (although we did everything we could to go by foot or bike) in rural Oregon to the bustle of a big city has an interesting effect on my psyche. One would think that we are now bombarded by stimuli, but I miss the bombardment of Oregon – the smells of the trees, of fresh rain, of the farmers markets and birds. But – to have a car – this simple pleasure – now the city has opened to us – and I look forward to unpacking our camping gear and delving into my travel book – “Great Drives around Germany”.  Today we went to a lake and jumped in, and after – found an amazing working farm, complete with a hands-on museum and a farm-to-table restaurant and bakery. Reminds me of Gathering Together Farms in Corvallis.

As I have mentioned before, my life is a pinball game of rotating mistakes and triumphs. And, like pinball, I am sometimes fooling myself that I have control, only to make a bee-line to the clown’s mouth, my flippers defenseless against the trajectory of the ball.

The car situation is a perfect example of this.  Before moving, we had a huge list, prioritized (there was no way to get everything done), and on the final day, we ran to AAA to get international driver’s licenses. This is not necessary, but it can come in handy, and better safe than sorry. Our understanding (although, as in almost every case, we find it impossible to get a definitive view of any situation) was that our American drivers licenses were good for one year. Phew – one thing we don’t have to totally stress about. We moved it down the list of “things to get done in Berlin”.

But then, and old friend came to visit, and she sighed and said, “I wish I had known I only had 6 months with my license – now it will be around €2,000 and lots of classes to get a German license”.  Gulp. Whaaaaaat?  Turns out, you can use your American license for 12 months, unless – you are staying longer than a year. If you stay longer than a year, your license only is valid for 6 months. Yes, illogical. Yikes. I quickly looked up the information – each State has its own personal relationship with the German government – for some you have to retake the theory as well as driving, some one or the other, and a couple neither. For Oregon, it is just the theory. Ok – I can do this!  All I have to do is go to the DMV and take the test, right?  Luckily I am still 7 weeks shy of the 6 month deadline.

So – I look it up. You can’t just show up. You have to make an appointment at an office, at which time your application for a test is submitted. You then receive a letter from the government 8 weeks later telling you the time of your test. An appointment for an appointment. So – I make the appointment for the appointment. But – they don’t have any appointments available for 2 months. Wait a minute!  Aaaaa.  I would have had to start this process at least 4 months in advance. My brain can’t handle this.  I make the appointment anyway, hoping that our re-entry in April can be a bluffed start date. But, we have been registered as living here since mid-February. Oh no.

Moving on. How hard can this test be?  I am an experienced driver – I should just be able to brush up, learn some new signs, and take it, right?  Then, my friends tell me the test is totally impossible. How hard can it be, really?  Geeze. 900 questions. That is how hard. And my German is so bad.  So bad. And, you can’t just go to the DMV and pick up the study pamphlet. No siree Bob you can’t. You have to be registered at a driving school in advance of the appointment for the appointment.  And you have to buy their “software” (cd-rom – I don’t even have a computer with a cd option – that went out when we gave up our landline years ago), or you have to sign up for classes – and lots of them. Luckily, I found out we can take the test in English. But, the International Driving School is an hour away by subway (or 20 minutes by car – ha ha). If you buy their books, it comes with 60(!!!!) practice tests, which you apparently have to memorize because many of the questions defy basic logic.

In addition, we have to take a registered eye test (not like those quick ones at the DMV), and safety class, and maybe you can help me here – our “Anmeldebestaetigung”, which, when I enter into my Google Translate, comes up as “Anmeldebestaetigung”. Thanks a lot.

But – no need to worry!  The driving school has written to me – “dont worry because of your license, let me explain. You have to stop driving here in germany after 6 month, but if your license is already valid you have time to make that transscription, for the time the license is valid.”. Crystal clear.  So we just bought a car to be able to drive our daughter to first grade, and we won’t be able to drive it. So – here is what we will do – if we get stopped we will just say we are staying only for a year!  That way our license is still valid.

I know what you are saying – “another disaster brilliantly avoided!”.

In case you’re wondering, that’s John Cage in the car.