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).

 

Both orchestras will be 175 years old in 2017. They’ve decided to put on a joint show in NY and Vienna.

press release:

The New York Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, both celebrating their 175th anniversaries this season, will present an unprecedented joint exhibit of archival material from throughout the venerable orchestras’ histories, to be housed at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, February 23–March 10, 2017. The exhibit will then travel to Vienna in March, where the New York Philharmonic will be performing on its EUROPE / SPRING 2017 tour (March 29 at the Konzerthaus) — the exhibit will open at the Haus der Musik on the Vienna Philharmonic’s 175 th birthday, March 28.

The exhibit, “Vienna and New York: 175 Years of Two Philharmonics,” will launch with a private event on February 22 featuring a joint performance of chamber music by musicians from the New York and Vienna Philharmonics.

Charlotte Church turned him down this afternoon with a blunt tweet: ‘@realDonaldTrump Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration, a simple Internet search would show I think you’re a tyrant. Bye.’

Overrated?

Any other Welsh songbirds been approached?

Sir Bryn? Sir Tom Jones?

Crain’s New York Business reports: Philharmonic musicians’ base salary, negotiated by the players union, is nearly $147,000. On top of that, principals have individual contracts with the orchestra, the terms of which are not disclosed. Rhoten is also a salaried faculty member at Juilliard.

More alarming is what Markus Rhoten had to do to get there: By age 10, Rhoten recalled, “I would come home from school and practice piano for an hour, drums for an hour, vibraphone for an hour and then cello for an hour.”

Where did that childhood go?

More here.

photo: Chris Lee

His nephew has put it up for sale.

His admirers want to turn it into a shrine.

Boulez, who died a year ago this week, made his home in Baden-Baden in 1959 as a protest against French conservatism. He expanded the house on Kapuzinerstrasse and bought the surrounding parkland. It is a beautiful retreat.

Now it seems likely to be sold since the family needs to pay exceptionally heavy French inheritance tax.

Read on here (auf Deutsch).

Extraordinary but true: Britten’s other maritime opera has never been seen before at Snape Maltings.

Other highlights of the 2017 Aldeburgh festival:

A new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Netia Jones

First ever Snape Maltings performance of Billy Budd

Featured composers in 2017 are Bill Fontana, Olga Neuwirth and Jörg Widmann

13 World premieres at the festival including a new work for soprano and ensemble by Oliver Knussen

Residencies from Belgian ensemble Vox Luminis & sitarist Nishat Khan

Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine set in a local house near Snape Maltings

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla making her debut at the Festival

50th anniversary of Snape Maltings Concert Hall