First prize at the ARD goes to Quatuor Arod.

ard-musik
The 2nd prize goes to the Aris Quartett (Germany) as well as the Audience Award.
The 3rd prize goes to the Amabile Quartet (Japan) who also got the Special Prize for best interpretation of the commissioned piece.

 

Gianpiero Mastromei died on September 8 and was buried today in his home town, Camaiore.

He sang Scarpia opposite both Pavarotti and Domingo and was recorded in Lohengrin with Christa Ludwig and Victoria de los Angeles.

His greatest success on record was a 1975 Philips album of Verdi’s Il Corsar, with Jessye Norman, Monserrat Caballe and Jose Carreras.

The BBC have just released audience figures for this summer’s Proms, which end tonight.

Average attendance for the main evening Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this year was 88% with 45 of 75 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall selling out.

That’s not bad, but not good, either.

Between 2009 and 2013, uptake was consistently above 90 percent, peaking at a record 95%.

In 2014, a penny-pinch year after Wagner-Verdi-Britten extravagances, it fell back to 88%. The Proms director Roger Wright left shortly before the season began.

Last year, under interim management, audiences rose marginally to 89%.

Now, with David Pickard installed as boss, the uptake has settled again at 88%.

In another setback, fewer first-timers bought tickets than in 2015.

The heavily spun BBC press release follows its presenter-driven promo picture.

bbc proms plastic trumpets

Tonight the BBC Proms concludes with the world famous Last Night of the Proms led by conductor Sakari Oramo and starring Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez. Once again more than 300,000 people attended the Proms demonstrating that classical music is in rude health.

The fantastically rich display of world class music making this summer has included some standout moments from Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich performing Schubert’s Rondo in A major together as an encore; Quincy Jones conducting the finale of a Prom celebrating his life and work, and the Ten Pieces II Proms which brought the innovative BBC project bringing classical music to school children to life.

From Bernard Haitink marking his 50th anniversary conducting at the Proms by leading Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla making her Proms debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Christian Thielemann bringing a trio of world class German orchestras in the final week, the orchestral offering has been truly outstanding.

For the first time in 2016 an innovative new series Proms At… went to four new corners of London: the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe in Southwark, The Chapel, Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, the Roundhouse in Camden and the Bold Tendencies Multi-Storey Car Park in Peckham – the first Prom to take place in a car park!

Average attendance for the main evening Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this year was 88% with 45 of 75 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall selling out.

More than 35,500 people bought tickets for the first time. Over 10,000 under 18s attended concerts across the season. A record 57,000 tickets sold in the first hour of booking. 

David Pickard, Director, BBC Proms 2016, says: “It has been a thrill to be part of this extraordinary festival for the first time and I’m delighted that the 2016 BBC Proms has once again seen audiences embracing the huge breadth of music on offer throughout the eight weeks of the festival, from the Royal Albert Hall to a car park in Peckham. I am delighted that thanks to the ongoing commitment of the BBC, the Proms remains true to Sir Henry Wood’s founding vision to bring the best music to the largest possible audiences”

 

From a speech in the Concertgebouw by the ever-relevant philosopher, referencing Aristotle and Furtwängler: