The Detroit Free Press is laying off 17 in its editorial department to make its 2017 budget.
Among them is the excellent Mark Stryker, who has covered music in motor city for 21 years.
Mark’s last day is December 16. He wants to write a book about jazz musicians.
Mark, never seen hatless, is unlikely to be replaced.
So who will cover the Detroit Symphony?
Mark posts on Facebook:
Public Service Announcement
I have some important news to share. Some of you will be surprised – maybe shocked – to learn that after 21 years as an arts reporter and critic at the Detroit Free Press, I am leaving the paper. Frankly, I’m kind of shocked to have just typed those words myself. The decision is entirely my own. I’m taking advantage of the voluntarily severance package that was offered to all newsroom employees. My last day is (gulp) Dec. 16.
I have been honored to cover culture in this extraordinary city for more than two decades, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done with the support of my editors, particularly the indefatigable entertainment editor Steve Byrne, who has been my direct supervisor for more than a dozen years.
What’s next? Well, my immediate plan over the next few months is to get my long-gestating book on modern and contemporary jazz musicians from Detroit to the finish line. (Yeah!) Otherwise, I’m open to suggestions, though I have started some interesting conversations. We’ll see what happens.
Shouldn’t you be reaching 1.3 million monthly readers on the world’s biggest classical music news site?
Contact Matt Newton for New Year prices and availability: matt@koo-boo.com
IMG Artists has signed the pianist Nikolai Demidenko and the rising Spanish conductor Pablo Gonzalez, ex-music director in Barcelona.
Both had been with ICA Artists whose owner, Stephen Wright, was formerly head of IMG until its takeover by Barrett Wissman. It’s dog bite dog out there.
Warner Classics has signed an exclusive deal with Anneleen Lenaerts, principal harp of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra since December 2010.
Anneleen, 29, is Belgian, bright and ambitious. She’s getting lots of solo dates.
Just landed:
The Presidium of the German Music Council has unanimously adopted the proposal ‘Fuck you 1Falt. Making musical diversity possible and usable’.
It’s a list of six demands to be presented to the German Bundestag.
The Indiannapolis Orchestra reports reported a 15 percent rise in ticket sales, its fourth consecutive increase and an all time high.
However… the ISO ended the year with a $561,000 deficit, due largely to a 78 percent increase in medical claims expense and inclement weather during the Marsh Symphony on the Prairie season, two factors out of its control.
press release:
The ISO’s 2015-2016 Financial Summary, ending Aug. 31, 2016
Total operating income from FY16 was $25.25 million, an increase of 6.2 percent over last year; however, the ISO ended the year with a $561,000 deficit, due largely to a 78 percent increase in medical claims expense and inclement weather during the Marsh Symphony on the Prairie season, two factors out of its control.
Ticket sales reached $8.49 million, an all-time record for the ISO, and were 15 percent over FY15 sales.
Overall attendance for the year totaled 275,923 people.
The ISO sold the most student tickets in a fiscal year ever, at 9,392, up by 4 percent over FY15 and double the number of total student tickets sold in FY13.
Season subscription ticket sales increased 1 percent over FY15.
The ISO raised $9.3 million in annual fund contributions, surpassing the total raised in FY15.
The ISO also received a one-time $10 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., the bulk of which was earmarked to fund the musicians’ defined benefit pension plan.
The international Italian soprano Gigliola Frazzoni has died in her home town, Bologna, at a great age.
She made her debut there as Mimi in 1953 and was soon appearing at all major houses. In 1955 she replaced Callas in Andrea Chenier at La Scala. In 1957 she sang Mère Marie in the La Scala world premiere of Poulenc’ Dialogues des Carmélites.
Her signature role was Minnie in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, which she recorded with Tito Gobbi and Franco Corelli at La Scala in 1956.
It’s an interesting selection, stacked with corporate lawyers, branding wizards and rising comets like the 26 year-old who does music partnerships for Snapchat (if you don’t know her, you are so 2015).
The only classical face in the pack is Rebecca Allen, head of Decca Records and a marathon runner who puts those deskbound males to shame.
This is Lajovic’s second term in his home town, where he first conducted in the 1980s. Musicians tell us he has yelled at them and threatened financial penalties for those who fail to show respect. They have also obtained details of his fees – 10,500 Euros, allegedly, for a regular subscription concert, which is more than guest conductors of much greater renown.
Lajovic, 72, was appointed last year after retiring as professor of conducting at the University of Performing Arts in Vienna. His star pupil was Kirill Petrenko, music director of Bavarian State Opera and incoming chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.
The musicians are also seeking the removal of general director Damjan Damjanovič, a former third trumpet in the opera orchestra who speaks no major language and has hired four music directors in a dozen years while nurturing a political career. Two years ago he ran for Mayor of Ljubljana. The voters rejected him. Now the musicians want him out.
Here’s Marijan Zlobec’s local blog (in Slovenian), canvassing the musicians’ grievances.
The death has been announced of Elisabeth Carron, who sang Mimi at the Met and Madam Butterfly at City Opera, among many other leading roles. She sang opposite Callas, Vicker, Nilsson and other legends of the mid-century.
The youngest of four children born to Sicilian immigrant parents, Elisabetta Caradonna grew up during the Great Depression, when most forms of entertainment were community-based and necessarily inexpensive. One of the most popular was the marathon dance contest, which would include ad-hoc intermission acts that popped up when the dance bands took their breaks; these entertainers were paid only with whatever money the audience cared to toss on to the stage. With her older brother Rosario as her impresario, Elisabeth began to sing at these events at the age of nine. She was a runaway hit, and soon she was doing well enough to be hired to sing with a real orchestra during intermissions at a Newark movie house, where she and her brother could make ten dollars a week.
And later in life…
We hear that the Baltimore Symphony has hired Peter Kjome from the Grand Rapids Symphony as its next chief executive. He replaces Paul Meecham, who left in June to join the Utah Symphony. UPDATE: The appointment was confirmed today; he starts work on February 1st.
Kjome, 49, is a Grand Rapids lifer, graduating from principal oboe to CEO in 2008. He had some business experience before his music career, working eight years for 3M after graduation.
In 2011, Kjome negotiated four months of turbulence in a difficult contract negotiation wit the Grand Rapids musicians. This year, he appointed the Brazilian Marcelo Lehninger as music director.
In Baltimore, he faces a dying contract – it ends next September – and an unsettled organisation.
