Inna Faliks, Head of Piano at UCLA, shares a tale of summer woe with Slippedisc:

american air luggage

 

I was engaged this weekend to perform the Clara Schumann Piano Concerto at the Wintergreen Festival in the mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Immediately after my second performance, I was scheduled to leave for Europe from Dulles Airport, Washington DC.

My trip originated in Chicago. From the start, I became a victim to the Kafka-esque maze of monstrous ineptitude of American Airlines. It began with a flight cancellation. Then another one. When I finally made it to my destination after two days in the airport, missing the first rehearsal of this rarely played concerto, my suitcase (packed for a month in Europe, containing allergy medication, not to mention concert clothes) went to Reagan Airport, where I had no intention of being.

The real surrealism began when I tried to get the airline to deliver my property. Each call resulted in a 2-3 hour wait, and then the “luggage specialist” on the other line usually dropped the call halfway through any process which meant another two hour wait. There was no cellphone reception in the mountains; I spent a total of 14 hrs in 2.5 days, on calls (from my host’s house). I was told a series of lies about my bag being out for delivery when it never left Reagan Airport. I had to leave from Dulles in two days, and chances of getting AA to cooperate were nil.

The unexpectedly beautiful thing here was the way the Wintergreen Festival musicians, administration, artistic director and staff came together to help. This was humanity at its finest. The musicians donated clothes for me to wear. Festival Coordinator Karyn Galvin spent as many hours as me, perhaps more, on the phone, exhausted but persistent. My host, David Litchfield (many pianists, including Angela Hewitt, know him to be a devoted piano lover and friend to pianists) patiently stayed home for days, by the phone, to guard it for an AA call back, so that I could rehearse and practice. Erin Freeman, the brilliant conductor, not only led two great, adventurously programmed concerts but lent me one of her dresses (which the audiences had seen during her Mahler 4 performance the previous week).  When we saw our efforts were to no avail, we knew we had to get the stuff ourselves. Sharan Leventhal, wonderful violinist at the festival, volunteered to drive me to DC at 5 am, to get back before the 2nd concert. Erin had a brilliant idea. She and her husband Drew Calhoon found a cab driver friend named Yossef, in DC. Karyn spent hours on hold, getting permission to release my hostage bag to Yossef. While I played my second performance of the beautiful concerto, Yossef drove to Reagan airport. There, he was told there was no bag. He proceeded to find the bag and met me at Dulles, right before I got on my flight to Geneva.

The festival’s motto this year is Expect The Unexpected. The kindness, ingenuity, patience and generosity of everyone I came across is unusual, unexpected, and truly commendable.

erin freeman inna faliks

Erin Freeman, Inna Faliks

Beware at all times of flying AA.

The Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester, has placed every last one of its students in work or further study.

That’s some achievement.

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The family home of Dinu Lipatti in the centre of Bucharest is under threat of demolition.

A petition has been put up to save it as a museum. Lipatti is Romania’s most celebrated pianist.

Click on petition here.

lipatti's home

The death has come to our attention of Geoffrey Shovelton, lead tenor with the D’Oyly Carte company.

Geoffrey died a month ago, in US retirement.

A principal tenor with Scottish Opera and Basilica Opera, until he signed for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1975, singing Gilbert and Sullivan until the company broke up in 1982.

It was another age…

geoffrey shovelton

Ilir Kerni has resigned as head of Albania’s National Theatre of Opera and Ballet after less than two years in the job.

He says the left-wing Government cut the budget to next-to-nothing, less even than neighbouring Kosovo, which is not a fully-recognised state.

Read here. 

albania national-theatre-of-opera-and-ballet

The distinctive building has announced plans for 100% environmental sustainability by 2019, recycling 85 percent of its waste and achieving carbon neutral status.

If Sydney can, you can, too.

Read here.

sydney opera evacuated

 

Musicians of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria have voted to strike from the start of September unless the city of Las Palmas fires their manager, Juan Mendoza.

Players, who have asked to remain anonymous, have been in touch with Slipped Disc to describe a poisonous working atmosphere in which staff suffer abuse and peremptory dismissal and musicians, many of whom come from other countries, feel that the ensemble’s century-old traditions are being trampled.

They call Mendoza ‘a rogue manager’. Neither Mendoza nor the city have responded to the strike vote.

gran canaria orch

Dominic Parker is to be the new Director of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

He is currently head of External Relations at Sage, Gateshead and he apparently ticks all the boxes of the bureaucratised BBC music leadership.

Here’s a set of stereotypes from his new bosses.

Alan Davey, Controller of BBC Radio 3, commented: “We are looking forward to welcoming Dominic to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the wider BBC Performing Group and Radio 3 family.  He brings with him a wealth of experience in connecting audiences to great music, and joins at a time when the BBC SSO welcomes a new Principal Conductor, Thomas Dausgaard, who will take the orchestra to new places and new heights.  There are exciting times to come for the orchestra and for the audiences who experience their work live and through broadcasts locally, nationally and internationally.  Our profound thanks and best wishes to Gavin Reid, who leaves the orchestra in great shape. “

Donalda MacKinnon, BBC Scotland Head of Programmes and Services said: “Dominic has an impressive track record in leading and motivating creative teams.  He has an excellent knowledge of musical repertoire and conductors and will make a major contribution to the artistic direction of the SSO.”

dominic parker

 

The new music director in Naples is Juraj Valcuha, head of the RAI national radio orchestra.

Zubin Mehta becomes honorary principal conductor. Valcuha, 40, has been guest-conducting the top US orchs in the past two seasons.

 

juraj valcuha

In a public conversation in Buenos Aires with the former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, the conductor said Latin American governments needed to show more initiative in the present crisis.

He was grateful to Argentina for welcoming his own parents, who came from Russian refugee families, and urged the country to rise to the hour of need. This, he said, is ‘the only country where it seems completely logical to have multiple identities.’

Barenboim is presently in BA with his West-East Diwan Orchestra and fellow-first gen Argentine, Martha Argerich.

 

barenboim argerich3

The widow and family of Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose wartime story was filmed by Roman Polanski, have won a libel action in Warsaw against the Polish author of a book which claimed that the pianist-in-hiding had previously been a member of the Ghetto police.

The author had agreed that the claim, in a dead singer’s memoir, was dubious but defended her right to free speech. Her defence, upheld by a court two years ago, was overturned yesterday on appeal.

 

the pianist

 

Anyone seen Phil Smith this summer?

The veteran principal trumpet of the NY Phil is training the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain at a summer camp in Yorkshire, heart of the brass tradition.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey (who took the picture) calls it ‘one of the most inspiring sights of my career’.

He adds:

If you’re a conductor you should come to Harrogate Ladies College tomorrow and witness this masterclass in musicality, while simultaneously observing how this great and humble man uses every minute of rehearsal to maximum effect.
If you’re a brass player, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear, see and experience how one of the greatest approaches his art.
If you’re a music lover you can simply wonder how he achieves the results he does by empowering the students he leads.
Honestly, he is extraordinary – if you ever wondered how he would cope with life after the New York Phil, well, he is Philip Smith – enough said.

 

phil smith