From the composer Tom Schnauber of Emmanuel College, Boston:
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Dear Friends, and especially Emmanuel College Alums:
Earlier this month, my colleague Scott and I were informed by our VPAA that Emmanuel College’s Academic Administration has decided to eliminate all the music offerings in the course catalog. In order to accomplish this, they will dismantle the Performing Arts Department, terminate the contract of their tenured music instructor (me), then reconstitute some of what they believe to be more desirable theater-related courses under some other department (e.g., English).
If their plan is accomplished, Emmanuel students will no longer be able to minor in music or major in any other field related to music, such as Music-Theater, Music-Cognition, or Music-Therapy. Furthermore, students will no longer be offered courses like: Musics of the World; ABCs of Music Notation; Creating and Production Music-Theater, Song: From the Monks to the Monkees; Music-Theater Through the Ages, Harmony Through Creative Composition, or Read and Sing.
The details are still being worked out, though the administration wants to make this happen by the next academic year. It is also, frankly, questionable whether they will be able to retain what they say they will. We and many other faculty, on the other hand, do not believe that the action is in the best interests of the students or the college.
If it comes to pass, however, I would no longer have the pleasure of working with, mentoring, and sharing my passion for music with Emmanuel students as I have in the past 12 years at this institution. I would miss it very much.
The soprano who sang 35 seasons at the Met died today, aged 86.
Jan Peerce heard her sing in the Catskills when she was 12, and the rest is opera history.
The programme has been released for the 4th International Orchestra Conference, which will take place in Montreal, May 11-14, 2017, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin as official ambassador.
Opera singers will come together tomorrow to honour Hillary Clinton, while Donald Trump is being sworn in.
Glen Roven has set two Clinton speeches to music to be sung by Patricia Racette, Nathan Gunn, Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee, Matthew Polenzani and others.
‘Setting Hillary’s words was a very emotional experience,’ said Glen Roven. ‘Phrases that fly by in a speech are naturally elongated in a musical setting, and as I set each word, slowly and methodically I was in tears. When I mentioned this project to these singers, their immediate response was, ‘I’m in.”
Here’s a preview, just released to Slipped Disc.
KDSchmid have signed the young British conductor Kerem Hasan.
He’s 25, presently studying in Zurich. Way to go.
The German Karl-Heinz Steffens has quit the mega-agency and joined the British boutique, HazardChase.
Steffens, 55, principal clarinet of the Berlin Philharmonic until ten years ago, is music director of Norwegian Opera and Ballet. He quit last month as chief conductor of the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz in order to make way for a growing list of engagements.
Cami is not doing well.
The Hill, a reliable Washington monitor, has been leaked President Trump’s plans for administrative economies.
Among other cuts, he proposes to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, and to privatise the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Jeff Melanson, ex-president of the Toronto Symphony is demanding that his other ex, singer-heiress Eleanor McCain, pay the entire costs of their separation.
Read all about it here (half of Canada is relishing it).
We hear that the Paris based pianist Kun-Woo Paik has been forced to cancel a trip to China after being refused a visa.
He will be replaced at the Guiyang Symphony’s March 18 concert by the Chinese pianist Sa Chen.
The cancellation is significant. In September 2000, Kun Woo Paik was the first South Korean artist to be invited to perform in China.
UPDATE: The soprano Sumi Jo has been refused entry for a March concert in Xian.
A public service film from the Healthcare Professionals Network.
The Ministry of Culture in Hessen, Germany, has named Francesco Angelico as music director at Staatstheater Kassel.
Angelico, 39, is a Sicilian who won the Malko competition in 2009. He is presently chief conductor of the Tirol symphony orchestra and theatre at Innsbruck.
Just when you thought the classical proselyte had run out of gimmicks, here he is on stage last night with middle-aged rockers Metallica.
