A Broadway entrepreneur Roland Scahill has been arrested for defrauding investors of $165,000 for a proposed musical about the life of the combustible opera singer, Kathleen Battle.
In a scheme worthy of Bialistok and Bloom, he told investors he owned the rights to Battle’s life story and had signed a Hollywood star, Lupita Nyong’o, to play her on stage and film.
He was last seen leaving the dock in cuffs.
Thirty-five years after he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra, Kazuo Tokito is playing his last concerts this weekend.
His colleague says: Even on his last day at work, Kazuo Tokito is – as always – the first one on stage warming up. Happy retirement, Kaz.
The weekly diary of Anthea Kreston, violinist of the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet:
This week we are back to quartet. Several concerts of old repertoire allow us the rehearsal time to build new repertoire – this week we begin Haydn Op. 76 #1, Schumann 3 and Rihm 3. This next week we gather for a festival at a lake – Bebersee – where we play quartet concerts. Jason and I stay for another week of mixed chamber music – from Beethoven to Schnittke.
I returned this week to lend a hand at the Mit Macht Musik program for refugees. This time I was able to see a bit more of the facility – a community garden and a large courtyard with bicycles and children playing is nestled in between the horse-shoe shaped government building. As I walked up to the entrance I took a deep breath in – the smells of cooking hit me with a pungent wall of yum. I wanted to continue up another flight of stairs just to take a look at what was on the stove.
I was greeted with hugs from a couple of the students, all of whom respond enthusiastically to the music – the pieces being taught are familiar songs from the home countries – Afghanistan, Syria, Chechnya. I was happy to see more parents this time – coming to pick up kids and ask questions. I learned that there is a hierarchy of cultures even in this small refugee village – prejudices and long-standing clashes of cultures. Some countries have a history of an established educational system, and some not. Many of the women from particular countries have never attended a school themselves – do not know how to read or write, or the importance of regular attendance. The teachers try to impart this need to them – consistent attendance is a must – a difficult concept for a parent who has never been in a formal learning environment.
Some of the things I observed gave me heavy pause – and made me think that music is indeed a tool which can help bridge cultures, all of which have different priorities. To give a child a voice – a child who may have never had the opportunity to speak her (his) mind before, is a gift which can be given through music in a somewhat gentle way. Each person who had made it all the way from their homes to that village in Potsdam has courage the likes of which we will never be able to understand. And yet, the courage to find your own voice, the pride of discovery and creativity – of collaboration between people of different genders, ages, languages – with no hierarchy – these are things that happen in music – things that you do not realize you are teaching, or doing.
Some families allow their children this freedom, and some are still struggling with this new-found freedom of choice. With love and support of the teachers, I believe they will come to that music room and allow their children the choice to discover their own voices.
Violinist Barbara Govatos messages from Saratoga Springs:
‘So proud of my colleagues in the Philadelphia Orchestra especially tonight at SPAC when the lights went out on us toward the end of Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto from the Four Seasons with Josh Bell.
No one stopped playing and it was stupendous. The audience loved it. Another great moment in Philadelphia Orchestra history! Seemed appropriate for SPAC’s 50th anniversary….’
Horacio Salgán, who turned 100 in June, died this weekend in Buenos Aires.
He composed many classics of Argentine tango, among them Del 1 al 5 (Días de pago), Entre tango y tango, Grillito and more.
Louis Stewart, a guitarist who played with Benny Goodman and George Shearing and was a member of Ronnie Scott’s quartet, has died at 72.
Ireland’s president Michael D Higgins paid this tribute: ‘It is with great sadness that I have learnt of the death of Louis Stewart, outstanding musician and iconic figure in the world of jazz in Ireland. His many admirers, of all ages, will miss him deeply – and in particular he will be missed by all those he encouraged and who, in a life devoted to music, he invited to join him in making music.’
The beautiful opera singer Daniela Dessi died in Brescia last night, August 20. She was diagnosed with cancer and began treatment only last month.
Our hearts go out to her husband, the tenor Fabio Armiliato, and their family.
Fabio messaged: ‘A short, horrible and incomprehensible illness has taken her away in these months. The greatest opera singer of the last 20 years has gone.’
Engaged by Claudio Abbado at La Scala in the early 1980s, she was quickly taken up by Muti, Mehta, Sinopoli and other leading music directors, as well as major record labels. James Levine brought her to the Met.
She often appeared with her partner, Fabio Armiliato. The pair were singing Aida together in Berlin on the night in April 2001 when their friend Giuseppe Sinopoli collapsed and died in the pit. They never forgot the horror of that moment or the nearness of mortality.
The marvellous Israeli composer Andre Hajdu, who died at the beginning of this month, was a devout and learned man who saw no contradiction between his religious immersion and his advanced musical ideas.
In this clip from a TV documentary, he takes a familiar passages from the Talmud and works it through with his music students.
Yeshiva was never this much fun.
Music starts at 0:58.
