Chris Olka, Principal Tuba of the Seattle Symphony and Opera Orchestra, has switched to the Cincinnati Symphony, it was announced tonight.
He is also Principal Tuba with Seiji Ozawa’s Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra and a teacher at the University of Washington.
The San Fran Chronicle is recalling its notable front-page exclusives, this one from August 31, 1953:
(Gaetano) Merola, founder and general director of the San Francisco Opera Company, collapsed and died on the stage of the Sigmund Stern Grove yesterday afternoon, while conducting a concert of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra…
… He was instantly surrounded by members of the orchestra and his Opera Company staff, while the audience stood, silent, anxious, and unbelieving.
After a few minutes, Dr. Henry L. Davis, who had been in the audience and had come forward to administer first aid, pronounced Mr. Merola dead.
“‘Ladies and gentlemen, the concert is over,’ said the announcer…
The Estonians are becoming the Real Madrid of classical music, winning everything in sight.
In Berlin tonight, Liisa Hirsch, 32, was awarded the Europäischen Komponistenpreis for her work, Mechanics of Flying.
Resolution: start learning Estonian.
Martin Anderson may have started a trend yesterday on Slipped Disc when he began a weight-loss programme to raise funds for his record label.
Today, Lawrence Brownlee announces ‘Larry’s September Weight Loss Challenge Autism Fundraiser’. The US tenor is asking friends and colleagues to donate to Autism research for every pound he loses during the month, in support of his son Caleb.
Larry says:
As many of you know, my six-year-old son Caleb was diagnosed with Autism as a child, and while he is doing fantastically, I still believe it’s important to raise awareness and research funds for Autism. My amazing father-in-law Kenny Wilson is going to do a Half-Ironman (1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run) in order to raise money for Autism Speaks, and I’d like to help!
Following Kenny’s remarkable example, I’ve been working to lose weight this year – 30 pounds down already, and 15 more to go! For the month of September, I’m going to go through The Whole30 diet plan (http://whole30.com/), and I’d love to have your support!
I’m asking you to pledge to donate to Kenny for every pound I lose in September – if you pledge $5 per pound and I lose 5 pounds, then that’s $25 to Autism research! You can join by filling out the form here: http://bit.ly/2c9aB72, and then following my progress on my Facebook Page (http://bit.ly/2crmABt).
You can also just donate directly to Kenny on his fundraising page here:http://bit.ly/2c4TUe4
Thanks so much for your support, and I’ll see you at the gym!
The French baroque conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, who is directing the Vienna Phil at the Lucerne Festival, has been talking about the melting ice-cap:
‘The conducting world is not easy for a woman, and certain situations are more difficult than others. Definitely, when I am asked by an orchestra to conduct them, I want to make sure that the request comes from the players of the orchestra, that it’s not imposed on them, and that they want to have this kind of experience. Because if not, then I’m not interested in coming; I’m not interested in fighting when I already have plenty of things to do. You also have to accept, as a conductor, that not everybody is going to like you, and this might not be because you are a woman. I try not to think about it and come as I am: I happen to be a woman.
‘Also, I think society is changing and progressing. If we think back, when my father died when I was five, women in France were just allowed to have a bank account, sign a contract, or make a cheque on their own. That seems to us extraordinary, no? So, I think the lives of tomorrow’s generations are really going to be quite different. The young people are building a new model and I’m just one of those who are perhaps opening the big doors for the future, which I don’t think men are against.’
More here.
It is said to be the ‘first computer music algorithm implemented on a quantum computer (and) the first live use of explicit quantum processes in an artistic piece.’
Mezzo-soprano Juliette Pochin sang across the internet into the quantum D-Wave machine at the University of South California’s Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey. Her voice was run through algorithms to make new sounds, which were beamed back to be included in her live performance.
Read here.
It’s not the first time Juliette has gone where no opera singer has gone before.
The New York Times this week quietly ended its coverage of restaurants, art galleries, theaters and other commercial and nonprofit businesses in the tri-state region, laying off dozens of longtime contributors and prompting protests from many of the institutions that will be affected. They foresee an impact not only on patronage but, in the case of the nonprofits, on their ability to raise funds to survive.
Theatres and promoters are calling it a disaster. And here’s how the writers were fired by email: “Dean Baquet and I have decided that the resources and energy currently devoted to these local pages could be better directed elsewhere. Therefore, we will publish our final reviews and features in the New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut editions on August 28. The Metropolitan section as it appears in New York City will still be published and circulated throughout the region, but it will no longer include zoned content…Sorry about this, folks. I want to thank you for all you’ve done, all the fine writing you’ve given our readers. I wish you all the best.”
More here.
A pushy father once presented his violin-playing kid to Jascha Heifetz boasting, ‘he’s so good, he knows the Beethoven concerto backwards.’
Heifetz glared at the kid. ‘So play backwards,’ he growled.
The Chiara String Quartet are making a thing in the NY Times and elsewhere about having recorded the six Bartok quartets from memory, without looking at a score.
Next time they come round, maybe let’s not look at the stage.
The six chosen by BBC Radio 3 for a career boost this year are:
Amatis Piano Trio from the Netherlands, Romanian cellist Andrei Ionita, British bass-baritone Ashley Riches, the US-based Calidore Quartet (pictured), Norwegian violist Eivind Holtsmark Ringstad and Egyptian soprano Fatma Said.
Getting chosen is a game-changer. The Iranian-US harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani writes: ‘I really mean it when I say that if the NGA offer hadn’t come when it did, I probably would have quit trying to be a musician and would have done something else.’
The international director takes his knife to a sacred cow:
The existence of education departments proclaims that opera is only for the educated or, worse, the initiated. Their statistics adorn annual reports without making any visible difference to audiences or performers; the more the outreach work, the more hermetically sealed the inner sanctum. It’s a form of protectionism.
Our charge is not opera itself but the experience opera can give. What is the difference? Well, when we talk with someone we adapt ourselves to be as communicative as possible to that person – we may even try to speak in their language or use terms that will carry meaning for them. I sometimes think performing opera in imperialistic opera houses sung in foreign languages by artists who patently do not have a command of them betrays all the effort to communicate of the Englishman abroad stubbornly speaking his own language louder and louder, expecting to be understood. The way we present our work should itself reach out and educate. Isn’t that what the guys who wrote them were trying to do?
Read his full revisionist and provocative article in The Stage, right here. 
The Romanian-born singer of opera arias has just made it into the America’s Got Talent final by a single casting vote.
It was up to the judges to chose between Edgar and Laura Bretan. Before they revealed who they want through to the finals, the judges announced that they chose the Passing Zone to come back for the second week of semifinals. But now it’s decision time for this week. Heidi Klumpicked Laura. Mel B picked her Golden Buzzer girl Laura, then Howie Mandel mixed things up and picked Edgar. So it came down to Simon Cowell’s vote, who ultimately made Laura the fifth finalist!
A major figure in Slovenia, Samo Hubad was successively music director at Ljubljana Opera (Mahler’s first job), the Slovenian Philharmonic and the radio orchestra, which in his time was considered the finest in former Yugoslavia.
Samo conducted more than 60 orchs around the world.
