Walter Huff has told the company he’s stepping down after 28 years in charge of one of the strongest choral ensembles in US opera.

He has given no reason, other than his teaching commitments, and he’s leaving this weekend.

That’s a big pair of shoes to fill – and fast.

photo (c) Jeff Roffman

Our diarist Anthea Kreston is an American violinist in an international German quartet. Down the year, she has been robbed of her precious instrument, missed breakfast most days, was separated for long periods from her family and was exposed at close hand to the terror attack on a Berlin Christmas market.

As 2016 ends, Anthea counts her blessings.

 

As our touring came to a close this December, I was exhausted on many fronts – emotional, intellectual and physical. I could see the two-week vacation on my google calendar – I could almost smell it – and I was ready. The last several weeks, in which new repertoire was being learned at the same time as old repertoire was being performed, I found myself with an ever-increasing number of small injuries. First, a split thumb on my left hand (knife), then my razor slipped and carved a deep chunk out of my right thumb (directly where I hold my bow) – I had to triple band-aid it for that night’s performance to dull the pain, and it took 2 weeks for my phone to recognise my thumb print again – then an old, seasonal injury resurfaced. 

Every fall and winter, my second finger on my left hand becomes sensitive. When I was 14 years old, I fractured my finger, going in hard for a football tackle in school. It was the same day that the school competition was being held to play the solo in the spring state festival, and I knew I had it. Rondo Capriccioso. I didn’t want to tell anyone about my finger, because I knew it would take me out of the competition. All I had to do was play, simply not using my second finger. As the day wore on, my finger became larger and larger. But, because of my inherent competitiveness, I pushed through, and won the competition. 

After the competition, I quickly went to the school nurse, then to the hospital, where I was put in a cast. We were lucky to live around the block from the famed doctor Alice Brandfonbrener, a pioneer in the field of Performing Arts Medicine. We called, and dropped be her home that evening, where she immediately cut off the cast and made an appointment for the following day at the Medical Program for Performing Artists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  There, I was outfitted with a removable splint – I was to begin an exercise program immediately, and worked with the physical therapists in her office numerous times over the next months. At subsequent appointments, I brought my violin, and she devised specific exercises to help me recover. Also during these intervening months, I continued my two lessons a week with Roland and Almita Vamos, but this time focusing solely on my right arm. Sevcik bowing exercises, playing my solo pieces on all open strings – measuring and planning bow distribution, bow pressure, proximity to the bridge. 

Although every year, during the cold and dry months, I must be vigilant with my old injury (it swells, becomes stiff, and can re-injure easily if I don’t watch it), I now look back at that year of injury as a magical time where my right arm became the focus of my work, and which was the beginning of my personal development of planned strengthening and injury avoidance. 

When I began teaching, I soon realised that I could spot future injury in my students – and was able to guide them towards a healthy approach and even back from injury, if they came to me already in trouble. I know that every injury-free day is a gift, and that anything (chance, overuse, improper posture, genetics) can take this away from any of us at any time. My periods away from my instrument (Women’s Studies Degree, baby years) have taught me not to fear this – time away can always enhance a person’s life. But, nonetheless, I do change my fingerings from November to February every season, and my signature “Anthea Kreston 2nd finger slide into home” also disappears, and reappears in the spring. Boy do I love it when that comes back!

The composer Elizabeth Bell has died, at 88.

Everyone called her Betty.

A radio conversation (actually, a monologue) with Bernard Zaslav, who played viola in several major quartets.

Bernie died yesterday, aged 90.

Listen here to some great memories and the most infectious laugh in the business.

Eliane Rodrigues came on stage in Rotterdam and opened her recital with Chopin, only to find that the pedals on her Steinway were dead.

No-one can play Chopin without sustained notes. Eliane called out for help – in Dutch.

Nobody backstage seemed to hear.

So she sat at the keyboard and started playing non-pedal pieces.

Eventually, stage crew came to take the piano away. Eliane carried on playing, even as it disappeared below stage. She was not giving up without a fight.

You have to see this performer.

UPDATE: The famous pianist who fixed his broken pedal

French media report the death on Wednesday of Pierre Barouh, lyricist of the theme song for Claude Leouche’s film, A Man and a Woman. Pierre was 75.

At 90 years old, Bernard Zaslav was among the last survivors of a tremendous generation of string quartet players.

He played in the Fine Arts quartet, the Vermeer and the Stanford.

He also taught at Stanford and elsewhere, raising untold numbers of accomplished viola players.

UPDATE: The viola in all our lives.

The singing actress, co-star of Singin’ in the Rain, has died in Los Angeles at 84. Debbie Reynolds suffered a strike after the death two days ago of her daughter, Carrie Fisher.

She was 19 when she landed the Singin’ in the Rain role in 1952.

Emmanuele Baldini, Italian concertmaster of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil, has been named music director of the Orquesta de Cámara de Valdivia (OCV), in Chile.

Congratulations all round.

The Nielsen Soundscan sales figures are in for the crucial Christmas week.

Top of the pile at Il Volo, with almost 5,000 sales for Sony.

Next are Decca’s Benedictines of Mary, with 800.

Third are the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, boosted by their booking to open the Trump White House. The Mormons have two further hits at numbers 6 and 8.

Reasons to stay cheerful? Share one…

The Hamburg and Montreal music director Kent Nagano walked out on his agent just before Christmas to join HarrisonParrott.

Nagano is a huge earner and a coup for any agency. He is the third conductor to leave Stephen Wright’s ICA this month.

From Bankrupt Company News:

On December 22, 2016, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Steinway Musical Instruments,Inc.’s corporate family rating to Caa1 from B2, probability of default rating to Caa1-PD from B2-PD and $300 million first lien senior secured term loan due 2019 to Caa1 from B2 due to the Company’s weak operating performance and the risk that metrics will remain soft for an extended period.

More here.