Thomas Z. Shepard produced the original-cast albums of  Stephen Sondheim’s greatest shows, including Sweeney Todd, Company and Sunday in the Park with George.

He reflects, in this illutrated talk, on what he learned from working with the master of syllabic precision.

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The internationally-toured French organist Eric Dalest has died aged 42, leaving thee small sons.

The last message on his website reads: All concerts are deleted because of my cancer.

There will be a funeral mass in Marseille on Wednesday at 10 am at the church of Notre-Dame d’Eoures.

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Two years ago, he wrote: ‘Since 2013 I have cancer of the intestine and peritoneum. I underwent 15 chemotherapies and 7 surgeries in 2014. We just detected a recurrence last December. So I am treating chemotherapy again. I wrote a book called “Beating, Fighting, Surviving” explaining how I manage to hold despite the hardships. I am 40 years old, I have 3 children who are 6,9 and 12 years old. My first 2 children have lost their mother in 2012 of breast cancer …’

 

 

Our diarist Anthea Kreston, violinist of the Artemis Quartet, just can’t get enough of sharing the skills – with anyone from three years up.

What does a career in chamber music entail?  Besides an intense and personal rehearsal schedule, it involves intricate, interwoven travel plans, publicity, and teaching. Top chamber ensembles (such as the Emerson Quartet) have busy and regular teaching careers, and to have a solid, contracted teaching position is a coveted opportunity. 

As a quartet, we teach at the University of the Arts in Berlin (where we each take responsibility for 8 groups, and share responsibility for an additional 8 “Master Groups”, which often travel from abroad for short periods of intense work with the quartet).  In Brussels, we are the resident chamber music teachers at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elizabeth.  It is here that I spent the better part of this week, while members of the quartet were off recording CD’s for upcoming projects. 

Chapelle holds a unique position in the world as an exclusive training ground for today’s top soloists and chamber ensembles. There are 6 master teachers – Artemis for chamber, Gary Hoffman cello, Louis Lortie piano, Augustin Dumay violin, José van Dam voice, and Miguel da Silva viola. 66 students from 20 countries live and work at the Chapelle – a series of buildings surrounded by woods, 30 minutes outside of Brussels. 270 concerts (guests and resident artists) are presented annually, and I was able to attend a concert of the fabulous Ebene Quartet this week. 

Students at Chapelle are the elite of tomorrow – and many already have international performing careers, recording contracts, and management. One of our quartets, the very young French quartet Arod, just swept the ARD in Munich – arguably the world’s most coveted chamber music prize. 

I am picked up by the driver at the airport – luggage carried and doors opened – and dropped at my 4 star hotel. Later in the day I arrive at Chapelle, greeted by the artistic staff and executive director. Our coaching sessions are in state-of-the-art concert spaces, and last for 4 hours per group, all in one chunk – a challenge for all of us for concentration and musical commitment.

This time, I had the opportunity to work with the Busch Trio – 8 hours on the Beethoven Triple, which they are preparing for concerts beginning in one month (including Warsaw Symphony with American conductor Karina Canellakis).  This young trio, made up of Israeli brothers on piano and cello, and a Dutch violinist, plays with passion, intelligence, and sweep. The luxury of 8 hours on one work allows us to dig deep – not only about the music, but also about inter-personal relationships, career advice, and even touring stories (we enjoyed reciting the “5th Concert Group Sworn Statement” together at the large communal students’ table over dinner).

Another two trios were there this time as well – the French/American Trio Zadig (recently returned from successes at the Fischoff Competition) and a new group – Trio Sora – a young Latvian/French trio just getting their feet wet on the festival circuit. Zadig and I had worked together before – their raw energy and passion are easy to get swept away by – and our hours together slipped away before we knew it. Ian Barber, the American pianist of Zadig, sent me his thoughts today. 

“We heard about Chapelle from our friends in the Arod Quartet 4 days before the audition.  We were all very nervous and had planned to be there early but went to the wrong train station and ended up arriving right before our audition time!  Anyway, we felt a bit shaky for the audition but very happily we were accepted. It has definitely been one of the best things that has happened for our trio.  The level at the Chapel is so high and we were very motivated to improve and play our best for the lessons for the Artemis. Our first lesson with Anthea was exactly the type of coaching we were needing. We were preparing for the Fischoff competition and she was tough! She really gave us the motivation and inspiration to work hard and do our best for the competition.”

I had a fun time pulling my original parts from my library before flying to Brussels – 3 Haydn trios, the often overlooked Chausson, Schumann, Beethoven triple and Archduke, Piazzolla and a new work I did not know. I was able to share my experience and bowings/fingerings from Ida Kavafian and Isaac Stern, who I adore (their markings are often more dangerous and extremely creative).  One accidental strength of the Artemis Quartet is that both violinists were members of successful piano trios – enabling us to slip easily between teaching trios and quartets. Because I will be returning in several weeks, I was able to give specific assignments (score study and recommended reading and listening) to the groups, and several will be sending videos of their progress for review in the gap between visits. 

But – I must say, that my favorite teaching here thus far has been starting two friends of my daughters – one age 3 and one age 5.  To be able to join in the pure joy and spontaneity of discovery, aided by my extensive sticker collection, never fails to connect me with my first and deepest memories. 

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This is the speech delivered from the Hamilton stage last night by cast member Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, to Vice-President-elect Mike Pence:

‘We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.’

Donald J Trump tweeted two responses:

Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing.This should not happen!

The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!

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Proportionate response? Intimidatory?

UPDATE: Pence says ‘I wasn’t offended’.

Placido Domingo has rolled out an Aida tour that he has been planning for two years.

The highlight is a performance in the Munich Olympic stadium next August. He says it’s an initiative to bring in new audiences.

The tour opens on 27 May 2017 in Gelsenkirchen, with further shows in Hamburg, Vienna, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris and Stockholm.

Domingo will conduct most of the dates and function as artistic director. The stage director is Stefano Trespidi, the stage designer Manfred Waba.

Casts include Kristin Lewis/Liudmyla Monastyrska, Ekaterina Gubanova, and Jorge de Leon, Erwin Schrott.

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The quirky French pianist has proved so iconic that his label has splashed out on another of his ilk. Adam Lalloum will launch with the Brahms concertos this time next year.

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Press release:

Paris / New York, November 18, 2016

Sony Classical is delighted to announce the exclusive signing of French pianist Adam Laloum. A young musician of extraordinary technical prowess and searching poeticism, Laloum was awarded first prize in the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in 2009. Since then his career has included highly praised performances in the world’s leading venues and festivals.

Born in Toulouse in 1987, Laloum began to learn the piano aged 6. From the very first, his instinctive gift for lyrical phrasing and visionary intensity was matched by a remarkable independence of spirit. At the tender age of 12, having commenced studies with Daniel Beau at the Conservatory of Toulouse, he disobeyed Beau’s orders and auditioned for the National Conservatory of Paris without telling him. He was accepted, and then began to study with Michel Béroff. Beau was initially furious, but the relationship has now been fully healed, and the men are friends again…

 

The NY Phil has awarded the $200,000 Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music to the distinguished Dutch minimalist composer, Louis Andriessen.

In addition to the prize, Andriessen wins a commission for a new orchestral work to be conducted in his opening season by the incoming New York Philharmonic music director Jaap van Zweden.

Who is also Dutch.

And who has pledged to promote Dutch music in New York.

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His publisher’s press release:

The New York Philharmonic will commission a new orchestral work by Andriessen to be premiered during the 2018–2019 season, led by Jaap van Zweden in his first season as Music Director.

The Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic, which recognizes a composer for extraordinary artistic endeavor in the field of new music, has been awarded to Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. Andriessen was chosen to receive the Kravis Prize for his lasting contributions to new music by a Selection Committee of leading artists and administrators who have close ties to the New York Philharmonic and a demonstrated interest in fostering new music. One of the world’s largest new-music prizes, the Kravis Prize for New Music is awarded every two seasons, and includes $200,000 and a commission to write a work for the New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic will give the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Andriessen during the 2018–2019 season, led by Jaap van Zweden, who will then be in his first season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Of note, the Philharmonic also performed the New York premiere of Louis Andriessen’s De Staat in May 1986, led by Gunther Schuller, as part of the Orchestra’s new-music seriesHorizons.

Andriessen remarked, “It is an immense honor to receive The Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music, and I send my deep and solemn feelings of gratitude. Being preceded by such masters as Per Nørgård and Henri Dutilleux is in itself already a great inspiration. I admire them both and have known and adored Dutilleux since I was 18 years old. My father, the composer Hendrik Andriessen, used to say: ‘We are not important; the music is important, and we have the duty to write as well as we can.’ It is in this spirit that I will write for the New York Philharmonic.”

“This study gives clear neuronal evidence supporting the view that artistic music is of intelligence, while popular music is of physiology,” writes a team of researchers led by Ping Huang of South China Normal University in Guangzhou….

Huang and his colleagues created very brief musical excerpts (12 to 24 seconds apiece). Half were taken from opera, while the others were from pop songs. While in an fMRI machine, each participant listened to five classical excerpts, five pop excerpts, and seven similarly brief clips of “meaningless musical notes.”

Read on here.

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It’s the Lebrecht Album of the Week, a rare five-star find.

We’ve omitted the soloist’s name from the sample text below to keep you guessing:

In this live concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, ****** is more languorous and, one suspects, more herself. The opening phrases are so leisurely you can imagine half the orchestra taking an illicit sip of tea from an under-chair flask, knowing there is plenty of time before they have to come in. But her tempo is immediately convincing and musically coherent. It pays off with a transcendent pair of inner movements in which beauty is never defeated by melancholy, and the tremors of an old man’s regrets are laid to rest with a blessing.

So who?

Click here to find out.

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Or here.

And here.

The cellist in the picture is Beatrice Harrison, who gave the first performance of the concerto outside London.

An editor and presenter across BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4, Richard Anthony Baker was the ultimate go-to man on the British music hall, and musical theatre in general.

Richard died this week, aged 70.

Obituary here.

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This is the Berlin Phil’s irrepressible Sarah Willis in Toronto: