The point of a masterclass is personal contact. No Longer, perhaps…
Press release:
On April 26, Dr. Edisher Sivitski will conduct a live piano master class with University of Alabama students assembled in Tuscaloosa—from New York City, more than 1,000 miles away.
As Dr. Savitski performs on a Yamaha DCFX Disklavier PRO concert grand piano in New York City, a similarly equipped instrument on stage at the school’s Moody Concert Hall will recreate, in real time, his exact performance – the piano’s keys and pedals moving up and down to capture the subtlest nuance. At the same time, students will be able to watch Dr. Savitski’s live performance on a big screen TV, with the video perfectly in sync with the piano on stage.
Not one of the Big Five, unfortunately, but kudos to Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo, MI – April 20, 2017 The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is pleased to announce a new education initiative serving children of refugee families recently resettled in Kalamazoo. Orchestra Rouh offers regular, ongoing music instruction to children of Syrian and other refugee families. Rouh means both “hope” and “spirit” in Arabic, and the program is designed to nurture the emotional wellbeing of children through music instruction, led by teachers who are bilingual in English and Arabic, and including music from Arabic traditions.
Orchestra Rouh is offered under the umbrella of KSO Education Programs in partnership with the Suzuki Academy of Kalamazoo. The program was founded and is led by violinist Ahmed Tofiq, cellist Bashdar Sdiq, and Arabic instructor Hend Ezzat Hegab, who have been involved with refugee relief work in Kalamazoo for the past year and recognized the immediate need for positive social and learning activities to help reduce isolation for families and speed up children’s English language acquisition. Both music instructors, who are from Iraqi Kurdistan, recently completed master’s degrees in music at Western Michigan University, and have previously taught and toured with the Youth Orchestra of Iraq.
It is reported in St Petersburg that Valery Gergiev is building a 100-150 seat concert hall in the garden of his house in Repino, the suburb where Shostakovich used to live.
The hall will cost 150 million rubles – around $2 million – and Gergiev is paying for it himself.
The house, formerly a trade union rest home, was given to him by the Governor of St Petersburg in 2005.
Gergiev intends to give his first house concerts during the White Nights festival in June.
We’ve had a quick flip through the season and come up with these unmissables:
1 Barenboim conducts Birtwistle premiere (July 16)
2 A European Requiem by James MacMillan – couldn’t be more timely (July 30)
3 William Christie conducts Handel’s Israel in Egypt (Aug 1)
4 Bychkov conducts Khovanshchina (Aug 6)
5 Rattle conducts Gurrelieder (Aug 19)
6 La Scala Orch plays Respighi (Aug 25)
7 Cincinnati plays Copland’s Lincoln Portrait – also timely (Aug 27)
8 Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for A Mad King (Sept 2)
9 Mendelssohn Day with Freiburg (Sep 3)
10 Prom 19: Relaxed Prom
The BBC’s first ever Relaxed Prom is suitable for children and adults with autism, sensory and communication impairments and learning disabilities as well as individuals who are Deaf, hard of hearing, blind and partially sighted.
America’s most talked about young composer receives her first showcase in London on September 5.
Details of the BBC Proms have just been released here.
Other highlights includes two Vienna Phil concerts, with Daniel Harding and Michael Tilson Thomas, a brace from the Concertgebouworkest and their new music director Daniele Gatti, a pop-in from Pittsburgh with Anne-Sophie Mutter and from the Stockholm Phil with Renee Fleming… and debuts from the Cincinnati Symph and the orchestra of La Scala, Milan.
Well-known composers are, as a rule, either old or unfit.
So it’s a thrill to report that Mark Anthony Turnage will be running the London Marathon next Sunday in support of the Brain and Spine Foundation.
Mark, who is 56, is renowned for the operas Greek and Anna Nicole. Help his cause if you can.
Turnage by Betty Freeman/LebrechtMusic&Arts
The violinist Nona Liddell died two days ago. She was 89
As founder and leader of the London Sinfonietta from 1970 to 1994, Nona was a champion of living composers, the more obtuse and unplayable the better. She was a pillar of musical life on the South Bank, a frequent soloist and a strong character, hidden behind an extremely private persona.
Before joining the Sinfonietta, she was leader of the English String Quartet for 16 years. She also taught at the Royal Academy of Music.
Her husband, the Philharmonia violinist Ivor McMahon, died in 1972. They are survived by a daughter.
photo: Graham Salter/LebrechtMusic&Arts
Competition has come alive again on Agents Alley, New York.
CAMI have just signed the young British conductor Courtney Lewis, who is music director in Jacksonville, Florida.
Courtney, 32, is from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
He was previously with Matthew Oberstein at Opus3 Artists. They won’t be pleased.
Holly Braithwaite is a soprano with Opera on Tap in Seattle.
She knows all there is to know about tenors. She’s seen them in the shower.
So when Robert McPherson starts formulating a proposal to her on stage, Holly crouches behind a seat and tries to imagine herself somewhere else.
Then she shrieks something profane.
This is not your ordinary proposal of marriage, promise.
Just watch.
The fading Rolando Villazon has told the ROH he won’t be feeling well enough at the end of next month to sing Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore.
His replacement is the Armenian Liparit Avetisyan.
Ticket-holders have been contacted, say the ROH.
His is not the tenor cancellation the house is really fearing.
AskonasHolt have announced that their young tenor Oliver Johnston is running in next Sunday’s London marathon.
Any other musicians planning to keep him company? Or chase him down?
Let us know if you’re running and we’ll post your pics.
Also runs:
Violinist Amy Cardigan of the BBC Scottish Symph.
The Portuguese baritone Ricardo Panela, presently with Holland Park Opera. He’s fundraising here for the mental health charity, SANE.
Throughout the ISIS occupation, one terrified resident of Mosul has been listening secretly every night to recordings of his favourite artist, Itzhak Perlman.
As soon as it was safe to do so this week, he called a friend, Ameen Muqdad, to come out with his violin.
Read what happened here.
pictures: MosulEye
