Rupert Lev Prokofiev was a gifted young Englishman who suffered from Ataxia-Telangiectasia, a neurodegenerative disorder that strikes in childhood and limits life expectancy to the teens.

Rupert, a grandson of the great composer, was 31 when he died on January 2.

His funeral will take place on Tuesday in Greenwich. Details here.

Donations can be made to the A-T Society here.

Sympathies to his brother Gabriel and the rest of the Prokofiev family.

Glen Roven conducted both inauguration concerts for President Bill Clinton and was on standby to repeat the honour for Hillary. When that dream failed, he decided to set two of Hillary’s speeches to music and have them performed by some of the leading names in opera on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Here’s what Glen tells us:
You don’t know it but I conducted both Clinton Inaugurations.

I felt I had to do something for this nightmare and obviously it couldn’t involve you know who!

So I set of two of Hillary’s powerful speeches, and I asked some of the greatest singers in the world to each sing a section, then we’d shoot it as a movie with everyone performing their sections  and run it on January 20, 2017 at noon.

We are almost done shooting and starting to edit. It’s coming out very well.

National Sawdust is hosting an event for us at noon and they will stream it from their site.

Here’s the list of singers:

Nathan Gunn

Patricia Racette

Lawrence Brownlee

Matthew Polenzani

Lauren Flanigan

Lester Lynch

Kyle Ketelsen

Laquita Mitchell

Camille Zamora

Sidney Outlaw

Arianna Zukerman

Eve Gigliotti

Dominic Armstrong

Blythe Gaissert

Andrew Garland

Michael Kelly

David Adam Moore

Glenn Seven Allen

Gilda Lyons

Donna Lynne Champlin

Chilina Kennedy Adrienne Danrich

Jonathan Blalock

Annie Potts

Detroit’s musicians have agreed a new deal eight months ahead of target. It looks good on both sides:

Musicians’ base pay will rise over four years from $91,259 now to $96,096 in 2020.

They will also get an extra payment so they don’t have to sign on for the dole during 10 nonperformance weeks.

In return, the musicians will play 38 weeks, up from from 36, and will share any rise in health-insurance premiums.

The DSO will continue to employ 87 musicians, down from 96 in 2011.

More here.

 

Musicians of the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen have volunteered to cut their wages by ten percent in order to save the threatened jobs of several colleagues.

The opera house’s artistic director Sven Müller resigned last week over budget cuts.

An opera, The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, composed by Justine F. Chen with a libretto by David Simpatico, opens tomorrow in New York.

Shawn E Milnes reports:

David Simpatico, librettist for The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing explained, “One of the things I had trouble with, the film (The Imitation Game) and the screenplay, was that it completely asexualized him. He was not a sexual creature in this movie. He was in the closet. That couldn’t be more opposite. He was completely out. He was out upon meeting people. He would say, ‘How are you doing? I’m a homosexual. Will you have a problem with that? No.’ He was out to everybody. The movie makes it feel like he had something to hide.”

 

More here.

There are 9.02 million children in rural China whose parents leave home to work in the cities, depositing the children mostly in the care of grandparents. The so-called ‘left-behind’ children are seen as a growing social issue.

Lang Lang has given a fund-raising concert to help improve their situation and has pledged to do more.

Read here.

The French contralto-turned-conductor has been named principal guest conductor in Dublin with the RTE Symphony Orchestra, starting next season.

Stutzmann, 51, made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra last month.

She is agented by AskonasHolt.

Scottish Opera’s head of casting replaces the departing John McMurray.

press release:

English National Opera has appointed Michelle Williams as Head of Casting from 6 March 2017. Bob Holland, formerly Programming Director, will take on a new role as Creative Associate and Producer with immediate effect.

Reporting to ENO’s Artistic Director, Daniel Kramer, and working closely with ENO’s Music Director, Martyn Brabbins, Michelle will be responsible for the casting of singers and conductors for ENO productions both inside and outside the Coliseum. Forming part of the Senior Artistic Team at ENO, Michelle will also seek out new singing talent, and develop and support ENO’s talent development programmes.

 

 

Michelle began her career at Scottish Opera in 2010 as Assistant Company Manager. From 2011 she held the role of Artists’ Manager, collaborating with the Music Director on the casting, management and contracting of guest singers and conductors for both small- and main-scale productions, as well as for education projects, fundraising events and outside engagements. In January 2016 she became Head of Casting, contributing to Scottish Opera’s strategic planning and programming, and coordinating Scottish Opera’s involvement in the training of artists and arts professionals. In 2015-16 she was awarded the Creative Scotland Fellowship of the Clore Leadership Programme, mentored by Vikki Heywood. 

Bob Holland joined ENO in 2005 as Company Manager, becoming Producer in 2011 and Programming Director in 2015. In his new role as Creative Associate and Producer he will be working closely with Daniel Kramer on delivering ENO’s artistic programme both at the London Coliseum and beyond.

The jazz singer, whose biggest hit was The Lady is a Tramp, has died in Vegas.

He used to say he owed his success to his father, who owned a record store in Philadelphia and wrote opera reviews for the papers.

It’s a day of maestro departures.

Lan Shui has told Singapore he’s stepping down after 20 years.

Robert Moody told one of his two US orchestras that ten years was an ideal term. He’s leaving after 13.

The Italian Andrea Sanguineti is quitting Saxony after just five years.

 

There’s no apparent friction in any of these departure, just a sense that it’s time to move on.

Is there an x-year itch for conductors and orchestras?

What does one do when a maestro outstays his usefulness?

Who is presently the longest-serving music director? Zubin?

Which ones have stayed too long?

 

The great Russian baritone has been informed of the death, aged 93, of Yekaterina Yoffel, his teacher for five years at the Krasnoyarsk School of Arts in Siberia, where he was born. It was she who defined his voice as a baritone. Raised at home by a maternal grandmother, he acknowledged Yoffel (also spelled Iofel) as his greatest influence.

He also described her as ‘cynical, honest, possessive, powerful and tough.’

Hvorostovsky went straight from school to being a soloist at the Krasnoyarsk Opera, winning an all-Russia Glinka competition at the age of 25.

The Singapore Symphony have announced the resignation of Lan Sui, effective January 2019. Lan Shui has been music director in Singapore for 20 years, raising the orchestra to international prominence. He is also chief conductor of the Copenhagen Phil, some distance away.

In a personal announcement to members of the orchestra, he said that with the birth of his second son in June 2016 in Singapore, he wanted to spend more time with his wife and two children (press release).