We have received the following article from James Davis Jr., Director of Music Ministries & Fine Arts at The Abyssinian Baptist Church. The contents are self-explanatory. We publish the letter in the hope that Ms Battle will reconsider the rights of her backing singers.
On November 13, 2016, Kathleen Battle will make her highly anticipated return to the Metropolitan Opera Stage after a 22-year hiatus. She has titled the program Underground Railroad: A Spiritual Journey. She will sing a full concert of Negro spirituals (a first for the Metropolitan Opera), accompanied by a 30-voice choir of Black singers she is unwilling to fairly compensate, even though the Metropolitan Opera Chorus is being paid union scale and they are not singing the concert at all. If this program happens, the Metropolitan Opera stage will be transformed into a proverbial plantation with Kathleen Battle as overseer. This concert is already sold out and has been for several months now. And this huge financial success for the Metropolitan Opera, Columbia Artists Management Inc. (the agency that represents her) and Kathleen Battle herself, has been built on the backs of exploited black labor.
The Negro spiritual, in my view, is the soundtrack of the struggle of African peoples in the Western Hemisphere, particularly America. This music was birthed out of the fight for freedom, justice and equality that continues to this day. The music by the chorus is interspersed with quotes from Frederick Douglass & Harriet Tubman, issuing from the blood, sweat, tears and suffering of an enslaved people and their disenfranchised descendants.
There is no question Douglass and Tubman would agree that for the vast majority of black musicians working on this project to not be compensated fairly and equally is exploitation at its worst; exploitation of our music, our heritage and our people. Sometimes, we as artists have to take a stand, and in my small way as a musician born and raised in Mississippi, I have chosen not to participate in this production that shies away from liberty and justice for all.
The sound engineer and avant-garde composer Eugeniusz Rudnik, one of the first electronic exerimentalists in Eastern Europe, has died at 83.
As a sound engineer at Polish Radio, he began to produce atmospheric background music for programmes in the late 1950s. This led to more daring tapes, some of which could not be played in his own country. Rudnik worked with leading composers, including Penderecki and Nordheim, creating electronic versions of their score. He also collaborated with the Stockhausen studio in Cologne.
The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has named Alexander Prior to succeed Bill Eddins as chief conductor, it has just been announced.
Prior, 24, made his name a decade ago, composing in a late-romantic style and conducting his works in Russia. I wrote about him at the time.
Since then, the going has got a lot harder. He will start in Edmonton in 2017-18.
We hear that Philipp Bernhard is leaving the Quator Modigliani, one of the go-to quartets of the moment.
He’ll be replaced by Amaury Coeytaux, formerly with l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Tough truths from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra accounts, posted today.
1 Ticket sales reached $22.2 million for 218 CSO concerts. The CSO Main series netted $15.4 million. Single-ticket sales hit $6 million. All these figures are all-time records. But…
2 The CSO had a $1.1 million operating deficit. Income was $71.9 million, expenses, $73 million.
Go figure.
The French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch has walked out of the Chicago Lyric production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens for unspecified personal reasons. Rehearsals start today.
She has been replaced by local favourite Susan Graham.
Press release follows:
Sophie Koch receives Vienna award
CHICAGO (10/26/16) — Anthony Freud, Lyric’s general director, president & CEO, announced today that French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch has withdrawn from the company premiere of Berlioz’sLes Troyens for personal reasons. Stepping into the role of Dido will be American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, world-renowned as an interpreter of French repertoire, in general, with a special emphasis on the music of Berlioz. “Susan is a longtime favorite of Lyric audiences,” said Freud. “She has sung the role of Dido around the globe to incredible acclaim, and we are absolutely delighted that she has agreed, on such short notice, to return to the company in one of her signature roles.” Graham will begin rehearsals at Lyric on Thursday.
“It is my great pleasure to return to Lyric,” shared Graham. “I adore Chicago and Chicago audiences. The role of Dido is a role I cherish and I’m delighted that my schedule has allowed me to join the amazing cast of the Lyric’s Les Troyens.”
Richard Ortner, president of the Boston Conservatory who merged his institution with Berklee College of Music, has announced his retirement in June 2017.
Presumably, there’s no job left for him to do.
This is one of those tales of misery that arise from time to time in the lower reaches of the competition industry. We have received this complaint from a scandalised Korean contestant, Jehi Bahk and post his account verbatim. It should serve as a warning to young hopefuls never to attend an unonwon competition, no matter how famous a name it bears.
Please be aware that this is a conducting competition, not the esteemed Busoni Piano Competition.
I got invited on October 16th by e-mail and had to transfer the participation fee of 270 EUR (additional to the application fee of 50EUR) to the personal account of Alessio Cioni, via Western Union or Moneygram.
On October 18th the participants got an e-mail with the exact location – first announced as the Teatro di Vinci it was changed to a small church – and the names of the jury:
GIUSEPPE LANZETTA, director Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina
ALESSIO CIONI, pianist and president of Cultural Association Silver
SABRINA BESSI, pianist, opera singer and artistic director Cultural Association Silver (Alessio’s wife)
DAMIANO TOGNETTI, first violin Chamber Orchestra of Florence
After the first round, most of the better conductors were eliminated, a significant part of the participants who advanced to the second round were those who attended Lanzetta’s masterclass this summer, which I found out later.
During the competition, the repertoire was changed (Shostakovich concerto was cancelled, Busoni Piano concert was no longer compulsory). In the semifinal, Lanzetta wanted every contestant to sightread. He handed out music and every contestant had to conduct about 2 minutes from, as we knew later, Suk Serenade and Nielsen Suite. Totally out of the regulations.
But what happened next was the real scandal. Four prizes were announced:
JOOST SMEETS, 3rd prize ex aequo (400 EUR), one concert with the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina
ALEXEI OSETROV 3rd prize ex aequo (400 EUR), one concert with the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina
BIAGIO ILACQUA Busoni Special prize (500 EUR)
LUCIE LEGUAY No prize, finalist diploma, one concert with the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina
1st prize (had been 3.000EUR, reduced to 2.500 EUR) and 2nd prize (1.500 EUR) were not assigned.
Now the culmination of the scandal:
The location of the competition was in a small church in Empoli (Chiesa di Santo Stefano degli Agostiniani, Via dei Neri, Empoli). After the final concert, on the way to the toilet (you have to go through the side room of the church to get to the toilet) I saw a note lying openly on the table, which shocked me so much, that I had to take a picture to have a proof of it:
It clearly says:1° Premio Cioni (the president of Cultural Association Silver) 2° Premio Tognetti (first violin Chamber Orchestra of Florence)
3° Premio Jost / A Ostetrov
Joost Smeets, one of the 3rd prize winners, who also saw the note and also took a picture of it, (and got very angry about it – he throw away the small cup, which he got as a prize, into the trash container outside the church) got a message from Lanzetta which led to following exchange of messages (Lanzetta during the communication admitted that he wrote the note as “as a joke”): (see 6 screenshots with messages)
See also following 4 (somewhat comical) videos:
2016-10-23, Busoni Conducting Competition – Announcement of the prize winners
Next day Joost got following e-mail:
Good morning,
after your misconduct and unprofessionalism towards the Organization and serious offenses against the President of the Commission at the end of the Competition, the Artistic Director together with the President of the Association and with M ° Lanzetta are deciding to cancel prizes and concerts.By the time the check of the prize has been blocked from the bank.
Two hours before Sunday’s concert with the Maggio Musicale orchestra, conductor Xu Zhong called in sick.
Concertmaster Domenico Pierini arrived at the theatre with an hour to go and no conductor to be found. He was asked if he could conduct Debussy’s Nocturnes and La Mer.
Pierini said he hadn’t brought a baton.
They gave him one that belongs Zubin Mehta, the Maggio’s longstanding music director. Pierini was thrilled.
Trey Devey has stunned Cincinnati by stepping down as president of one of the biggest US orchestras to take over a camp where his kids spent the summer.
Trey, 45, is to be president of Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
He has been notably successful in Cincy, balancing the orchestra’s budgets for eight successive years, resolving its pension hole and expanding into untapped parts of the community. The CSO plays on $61 million a year, with an endowment of $143 million. Trey is also prez of the Cincinnati May Festival.
In a management field low on fresh talent, Trey Devey has been heading the headhunters’ list for a number of prospective vacancies. That he should choose a summer camp ahead of a big-city orchestra is a rebuff to the sector’s established pecking order. We wish him well at Interlochen.
Sunday’s LA Philharmonic matinee concert was dedicated by Gustavo Dudamel to the memory of Barry Socher, a violinist in the orchestra for 35 years and a life-force in the area. Barry had died the day before, at 68, of cancer.
In a busy career, he also served as concertmaster for the Los Angeles Master Chorale Orchestra, Pasadena Pops Orchestra, Fresno Philharmonic, the Ojai Festival and Oregon Bach Festival orchestras.
He was a founder of the Armadillo Quartet and a lover of the great outdoors.
I joined the LA Phil when I was 19, in 2007. The first image seared into my memory of Barry onstage at the Hollywood Bowl was that of a guy who looked like Brahms – very serious – but with a stuffed, plush armadillo peeking out from under his seat.
