There’s huge fuss and confusion about the diva’s weekend interview in which she said she would not be singing Elsa – or anything else – at Bayreuth as she found the German too difficult.

The first confusion arose from differences between the FAZ print edition and the shorter online version of the interview. This has now been rectified.

But Katharina Wagner has now issued a statement saying Netrebko had behaved absolutely correctly, ‘but we’re still talking to her’.

‘Wir stehen seit längerem in Kontakt, aber es gab noch keine Verhandlungen, auch nicht für einen Vorvertrag. Anna Netrebko hat sich absolut korrekt verhalten. Und von Anfang an hatte sie gesagt, dass sie auch erst einmal Dresden abwarten und schauen will, wie ihr die Rolle liegt. Das ist doch legitim. Wir stehen weiterhin in Gesprächen.’

lohengrin-anna-netrebko-dresden-semperoper

 

The bizness guys behind the sassy 5 Piano Guys are showing more than a billion hits for their channel of quirky para-classical videos, such as this:

That would put their channel among Youtube’s top 100.

Are we excited? Can we trust those stats?

We’ll be publishing a piece shortly on how artists buy social media fans by bulk.

5 piano guys

 

press release:

The newly appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP delivered her maiden speech from Music Room at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall today.

The Culture Secretary said: ‘Liverpool – and the UK – punches way above its weight for Culture, Media and Sport’ and that it was ‘a privilege to be here at the Philharmonic.’

Speaking about the importance of the arts and outlining her plans to increase access to arts and culture, she cited Liverpool Philharmonic’s In Harmony Liverpool as an example of an incredibly successful project.

That is only possible thanks to expert tuition. You can’t get better than the Liverpool Philharmonic and their teachers and musicians have made a huge difference.’

In Harmony Liverpool was established in in 2009. From initially working with 84 children in its first year, In Harmony Liverpool now has a weekly reach to 720 children aged 0-17 and their families in 2016, all taking part in orchestral music-making of the highest quality every week, free of charge, in and out of school.

Liverpool Philharmonic’s Chief Executive, Michael Eakin said:

‘We were delighted to welcome the Secretary of State to Liverpool Philharmonic today to make her maiden speech in the City.   The cultural sector creates the highest quality art, of global significance. And also, and as importantly, is working at a deep level within local communities, able to profoundly affect the social and educational health of towns and cities; in Liverpool Philharmonic’s case through programmes such as In Harmony Liverpool.

‘Liverpool, recently achieving status as England’s first UNESCO City of Music,  recognises culture as fundamental to its future success as a place in which to invest, live, work and study and the potential of partnerships to support it for many years.  Our colleagues and partners across the sector are keen to work with DCMS to provide whatever help we can to ensure that culture has its right place on the national agenda.’

Read the Secretary of State’s entire speech here.

 

karen bradley with thatcher

The New Jersey-based composer Sarah Kirkland Snider has just won a publishing contract with Music Sales Ltd.

Her husband Steven Mackey has long been with arch-rivals Boosey & Hawkes.

Good to keep these things separate.

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Here’s the press release:

Music Sales Corporation (G. Schirmer and Associated Music Publishers) is pleased to announce an exclusive agreement with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. With the signing, Snider becomes the newest composer to join the Music Sales Group. Kathy Schuman, Vice President and Artistic Director of G. Schirmer, Inc., said, ‘I am thrilled to welcome Sarah to the Music Sales family and look forward to working with one of today’s most exciting and singular compositional voices.’

‘I’m elated to join the Music Sales/G. Schirmer musical family. Their time-honored dedication to new music is extraordinary, and I’m immensely honored and excited to join the wonderful roster of composers they support,’ observed Snider.

Snider’s works have been commissioned and performed by some of the most prestigious orchestras and soloists throughout the world, including the San Francisco, Detroit, Indianapolis, and North Carolina Symphonies, Residentie Orkest Den Haag, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra; violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, percussionist Colin Currie, and vocalist Shara Nova (formerly Worden); Ensemble Signal, The Knights, yMusic, and Roomful of Teeth, among many others.

The great vision of John Maynard Keynes in August 1946 was for an arts council that would water grass roots up and down the land ‘with modest funds … to stimulate, comfort and support’ artistic activity. The AC was to be independent of Government, protected by ‘an arm’s length’ from political influence.

That’s how it was meant to be, and that’s how it began. The largest grant in 1946 was £25,000 to Covent Garden, around £1 million in 2016 spending terms. The first orchestra to receive subsidy was given £2,000. Modest, and sufficient for the times.

What we have today is a behemoth, bossed around by the Department of Culture and whichever party is in power, bleating in tune with every political correctness, spending around £20 to £25 million on big clients like Covent Garden and the South Bank and offering little in the way of ‘comfort and support’. Only more forms to fill in.

Its chair is a Big Brother television baron. Its chief executive tweets his policies from up and down the land.

The Arts Council has just given £5.3 million in ‘Elevate grants’ to 40 organisations with a view to help them ‘improve diversity’. No-one mentions improving art.

Keynes would not recognise today’s Arts Council. Nor would he think much of it. The organisation is far too large and far too subservient to Whitehall. It has become so irrelevant that no public media have noticed its significant anniversary.

It is beyond redemption in both the structural and ideological sense. The German method works better for the arts. So does the French.

We need to take the best advice from Europe, and start again.

john maynard keynes

That’s what Keynes would have done.

Christoph von Dohnanyi, suffering complications after cataract surgery, has been ordered by doctors not to fly long-haul before Christmas.

As a result Christoph, 87 next month, has pulled out of Tanglewood’s closing Beethoven Ninth.

Happily, Boston’s Andris Nelsons is on hand to take over, enjoying free time after his Bayreuth walkout.

We wish Christoph a full recovery.

christoph von dohnanyi

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has announced that school and college students can come to all concerts for free, so long as they book tickets in time.

The announcement says they can start booking from today, on the website.

Students up to 17 need to be accompanied by a ticket-bearing adult; college students will be asked to show ID.

It’s a bold idea. More here.

saintpaulchamberorchestra

A regular director with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Teatro Colón, and New York City Opera, Kay Walker Castaldo gently steered the young Anna up a difficult stage staircase in I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

A Clevelander, Kay was associate professor at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of Michigan.

Obituary here.

kay castaldo

Robert Page, Grammy-winning Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra from 1971 to 1989 and assistant conductor of the orchestra from 1979 to 1989, has died at the age of 89.

After 18 busy years in Cleveland, where he also conducted the opera company, he moved on to rebuild the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh from 1979-2005, making it one of the country’s finest. he was co-founder of Chorus America in 1977 and its president from 1990-1993.

Among many triumphs, he conducted the US premiere of Shostakovich’s 13th symphony and made choral settings of Candide arias for Leonard Bernstein.

robert page

Fine obituary here.

First Graham Parker quit as general manager of New York’s WQXR to head Universal’s classical labels in the US.

Now Steve Robinson has quit Chicago’s outstanding WFMT after 16 years.

Steve, 69, Robinson told Tribune music critic John Von Rhein: ‘The decision was definitely mine and mine alone. I felt it was time to hand the baton off, that’s one reason. And I also feel it’s time for me to stretch my entrepreneurial wings in the for-profit world.’

Here’s the official version:

steve robinson

photo: Todd Rosenberg, at Andrew Patner’s memorial

 

CHICAGO – August 8, 2016 – WFMT, Chicago’s classical and fine arts radio station, today announced that Executive Vice President and General Manager STEVE ROBINSON will depart from WFMT, effective October 1, 2016. His last day at the station will be Friday, September 30.

“It is with great regret that we bid farewell to an indispensable member of our WFMT family,” said President and CEO Dan Schmidt of WFMT and WTTW. “It is difficult to imagine the station without his unflagging energy, endless creativity, and deep knowledge of classical music and radio operations. He will be greatly missed, and I know I speak for all of us when I wish him success in his future endeavors.”

“Working at WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network has been the greatest privilege and challenge of my career,” said Robinson. “When people ask, ‘Oh, you run WFMT?’ I always say, ‘No, I run after it.’ And that’s because everyone at WFMT is immensely creative, knowledgeable, and passionate about their work, and all I’ve really done is try to harness this incredible talent to move the station forward. If it has progressed at all in the 16 years I’ve been there, it’s because of them, and I will always be grateful.”

Steve has led WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network since 2000. Under his leadership, WFMT diversified its programming and increased its member base, and the Network became a leading producer and syndicator of music and spoken word programs. In 2002, Steve brought to the WFMT Radio Network a live broadcast of Princess Magogo, the first indigenous South African opera and the first with a libretto in the Zulu language. Steve hosted, and the opera was heard by more than four million listeners throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Steve created Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin in 2003, a daily series heard by more than 400,000 listeners a week, and he also instituted a comprehensive subscription website. Other popular WFMT series and programs created during Steve’s tenure include include Impromptu, a daytime showcase for local and visiting artists; Introductions, a unique weekly series that features promising young pre-college musician; and the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, which was launched in 2015 in partnership with Chicago History Museum. Last year, at Steve’s direction, the Network began exporting classical music radio concerts by American ensembles for broadcast in China and importing Chinese music performances for broadcast in the West, marking the first time a cultural exchange of this kind had happened between America and China.

In 2007, the Chicago Tribune named Steve a “Chicagoan of the Year” in the arts. His many other honors include two Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism; the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award; two Westbury Awards from the Red Cross of Greater Chicago for coordinating fundraising efforts among the city’s television and radio stations in the wake of the 2004 tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake; an Award of Excellence from the Chicago Sinfonietta; a special award from the Illinois Philharmonic; the first Champion Award from the Merit School of Music; and, with Bill McGlaughlin, Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago– previous winners have included Sir George Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Placido Domingo, Yo Yo Ma, Midori, Leon Fleischer, Sir Andrew Davis, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Steve currently serves on the boards of Cedille Records, the Merit School of Music, the Chicago College of Performing Arts and the Rush Hour Concerts. His past board service includes the Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Children’s Choir, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and Music in the Loft.

Previously, Steve worked at WBUR, WGBH, WCRB, KPFA, WVPR, WBGO, and Nebraska Public Radio.

Charles Dutoit, who has been conducting the Sydney Symphony for 40 years, has convinced his ex-wife Martha Argerich to join him on next year’s long-haul flight. It’s her first time Down Under.

Sydney’s other piano stars next season include Daniil Trifonov and Hélène Grimaud. Looking good.

martha argerich

 

press release: TUESDAY 9 AUGUST 2016: The Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson have today announced their 2017 season, with offerings for every concert-goer, from classical music aficionados to lovers of new Australian music and those looking forward to their first orchestral experience.

David Robertson has again invited some of the world’s greatest conductors and soloists to perform with your SSO, including Argentinean pianist Martha Argerich – who is set to make her Australian debut – and Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit in a celebration of his 40-year relationship with the SSO. Pianists Hélène Grimaud and Daniil Trifonov, violinists Baiba Skride and Janine Jansen, singers John Relyea and Susan Graham, and conductors Simone Young and Vladimir Ashkenazy will also appear in the 2017 season.

From 2014/15 Deutsche Bühnenverein statistics, just released:

1 La Traviata (Verdi)                31 productions, 286 performances

2 Die Zauberflöte (Mozart)     30 productions, 285 performances

3 Carmen (Bizet)                       26 productions, 247 performances

4 Hansel und Gretel (Humperdinck)                   207 performances

Magic Flute and H&G are targeted at children and Christmas audiences. So, no surprises here.

Among more recent works, Peter Grimes (Britten) had 35 performances and The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky) 30.

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