Two extraordinary reflections from the great natural historian:

The death has been confirmed of Sasha Nikolovski-Gjumar, a leading conductor in the Balkan state of Macedonia. Cause of death is not known.

He was conductor of the national Youth Chamber Orchestra and other ensembles, and professor at the Faculty of Music Arts in Skopje.

The former Red Army Ensemble, which perished in the Black Sea air crash while en route for Syria, will be formed again, it was announced today. Competitions will take place across Russia to recruit 70 singers.

A former artistic director of the ensemble, Colonel Gennady Sachenyuk, has been put in charge of the renewal.

 

James Lancelot, organist and master of choristers, has served for 32 years and is ready to step down.

Replacing him won’t be easy and will mean certain change.

Lancelot, formerly at Winchester Cathedral and King’s College Cambridge, is a figure of international renown.

Videographer and musician Stewart French, whose work we have featured several times on Slipped Disc, has come up with a chart of simple dos and don’ts for artists wanting to appear at their best on a short music video.

Example:

We all know what a person, sitting at a piano, playing, swaying backwards and forwards looks like. And we know that a piano has keys that get pressed to move hammers that hit strings. Six seconds of our film is quite enough time to communicate that.

For the remaining 2 minutes 54 seconds get intimate. Film your eyes, a sigh, the touch of your finger on the ivory, a moment of technical agility, the way you hover over the final chord.

Read on here.

Claimed to be the most performed living composer in concert halls last year – a somewhat limited qualification – the Estonian composer can now add another first to his name.

A weekend fest in Portland, Oregon next month will be his first in North America.

Details here.

Good title for a conference on musical injury, next month in Toronto.

Concertmaster Steve Sitarski tells us: ‘Several years ago a group of health care providers decided to pool their knowledge, experience, and resources to form the Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA).  The aim of this group is primarily educating both artists and the general public of performance challenges, and how artists facing issues can seek empathetic health professionals.  Ultimately, healthy performers will execute better, and will take more creative risks – a win win situation for all.

‘PAMA will be presenting a major conference on February 11 and 12 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.’

The St Petersburg company is in shock at the sudden death of bass-baritone Edward Tsanga, aged 38.

Edward, a member of the company since 2008, was taken ill at rehearsal on Friday and sent to hospital. He was discharged on Friday night, went home and was found dead on Saturday.

No cause of death has yet been given. Valery Gergiev called it ‘a terrible loss’.

Tsanga, who came from the small Komi Republic, toured with the Mariinsky to London, Paris and across Germany. He sang Leandro in the Teatro Real’s new production of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges in Madrid and was also engaged at Aix-en-Provence and Luxembourg.

Two weeks before the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz departs on its third US tour with conductor Dennis Russell Davies, the composer Philip Glass has been writing against the clock to change the ending of his new 11th symphony.

It is scheduled for premiere at Carnegie Hall on January 31, the composer’s 80th birthday.

‘In rehearsal,’ said Glass, ‘I found there were various things that needed repairing.’

Anyone remember his first LP (below)?

A prophetic title.

We have been informed of the death of Richard Divall, music director for 30 years of the former Victoria State Opera in Melbourne and latterly a regular guest with the Malta Philharmonic.

An outstanding authority on early Australian composers, he was professor at Melbourne, Malta and (visiting) Kings College, London.

From our person on the spot:

Just now, tonight in Sydney Australia, almost 100,000 people booed and screamed continuously at the new Artistic Director of Sydney Festival, Wesley Enoch, as he walked on stage and announced he had cut the traditional and hugely popular Symphony and Opera Under The Stars from Sydney Festival after 34 years, and that this concert now would be the last.

With all the screaming, you couldn’t hear him talk over the stadium sized PA system and it only stopped when he walked offstage laughing on the giant screens at everyone’s reaction. It was a disgrace! Great to see so many people passionate about classical music though!

UPDATE: The publicity manager for Sydney Festival tells us: Our audience numbers for Symphony in The Domain are between 20,000-30,000 on average, although we can’t yet confirm final attendance numbers for Saturday’s event.