Szymon Nehring was declared winner tonight of the 15th Artur Rubinstein Competition in Israel.

In addition to the $40,000 first prize, he won five other supplementary awards.

In second place was the Romanian, Daniel Petrica Ciobanu.

Third was the American finalist, Sara Daneshpour.

Aged 21, Nehring is regarded as Poland’s finest young pianist. In the 2015 Chopin competition in Warsaw, he came sixth.

Peter Donohoe, one of the judges, says the jury vote was almost unanimous.

Two London events:

Oedipa collaborates with the extraordinary female baritone Lucia Lucas (Wuppertaler Bühnen, Deutsche Oper, Chicago Opera Theatre) on an evening of song in transition: from masc to femme, classical to queer and oppression to freedom. Singing Bizet, Britten, Wagner, Purcell and Adams, flirting with Sarah Vaughan and Rocky Horror, Lucia draws on her experience singing classical repertoire across the world to tell her incredible story and celebrate the fluidity and plurality of gender in opera.

Tickets here.

 

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra is losing its concertmaster. Ani Kavafian, 69, says she wants to go well before the music director, William Boughton, steps down in 2019, allowing the right successor to be chosen.

‘It’s been a really good career,’ she tells the local paper. ‘It’s gone the way I hoped.’

You don’t hear that very often.

Read full report here.

Before the last night of Rosenkavalier, the diva sent a package of goodies to the Met orchestra musicians, together with a letter thanking them for their collaboration across many years.

 

She did the same, too, for the chorus.

That’s class.

 

Right-click on the letter to enlarge in new window.

 

Marie Stultz, founding director of the Treble Chorus of New England and author of ‘Innocent Sounds, has died.

 

The conductor Joseph R. Olefirowicz writes:

I am heartbroken to learn of the passing of teacher and mentor Marie Stultz. Her vibrant and uncompromising energy honed and shaped the musician, conductor, and vocal pedagogue I am today. From training of seamless transition between vocal registers, to a love of fine choral and operatic repertory, to even the wonders of organ and orchestra with choirs: this woman shaped my, and countless other journeys, through her work with the Treble Chorus of New England in its days as a first-call ensemble for classical music in the Boston region.

My first operatic debut was with her at the tender age of 11 as treble soloist with Boston Musica Viva, my first baritone soli and so many other milestones came through her nurturing. Even working administration during high school for her annual Singers’ Workshop, helped hone who I am today as a professional musician.

Her methods may not have been understood by all, but I thrived, learned and growed from them. As a female conductor in days where this was still an emerging concept, she pioneered her way with tough love and a strong will that only old school training can give. And I carry on much of that today.

Although sporadically in contact the last years, we welcomed her to Nashua, when our Pergolesi Magnificat, opened with her first movement of “Suite Nativität” (the original name of Suite on the Nativity) in a new orchestration. She simply beamed. I will hold that visit forever in my memory.

RIP Marie. TIme to teach the angels some “tee tee tah tah tah”…

 

 

Joachim Kaiser is no more.

He was 88.

An East Prussian who lived in Stuttgart, he wrote a popular guide to pianists.

Valdimir Askenazy said of him: ‘ His tendentious but impressively presented utterances tend to be treated as gospel by large sections of the German music world’.

Laura Berman, adventurous head of Theater Basel in Switzerland, has been named intendant of Hannover Opera.

Laura, 58, from Boston, studied at Juilliard, Princeton and Hamburg.

 

A notice has been posted of the death of Hanna Scholl-Völker, a high soprano who sang in Florence, Frankfurt and Munich and later became an influential and sympathetic teacher.

She married the baritone Georg Völker.

Her American student Helen Donath once said of her early years in Germany: ‘ I went through difficult years, even to the verge of losing my instrument. Thanks to the great bass-baritone George London, I met Paola Novikova, the teacher of Nicolai Gedda and many other stars, and then, Hanna Scholl-Völker, daughter in law of the legendary tenor Franz Völker and wife of Georg Völker, the best Beckmesser of his time. They and my husband conductor saved me.’

The Israeli government this week abolished the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA).

Among the collateral casualties of this authoritarian, totally political decision is the IBA’s orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, which has been a radio ensemble since its foundation in 1936. As of today, it is no longer a part of the broadcast spectrum.

The orchestra is struggling to find ways to stay alive and keep its musicians in work.

Bolshoi photo (2016): Sputnik/Kremlin/Mikhail Klimentyev

At the end of March, Carol Slater had her 1700 Gofriller stolen from the luggage rack of a Gatwick Express train.

 

British Transport Police, using CCTV camera footage, issued a picture of a woman they wanted to interview.

They recovered the violin from a house in Northwest London and today returned it, slightly damaged, to Carol.

She hopes to play it in a concert with her husband, violist Ian Jewel, at the Belsize Music Festival later this month.

The German soprano Sonja Gornik has made the following announcement:

Am 03.Mai 2017 habe ich meine Bühnenkarriere auf der Opernbühne beendet. 

Ich danke von Herzen all den großartigen Menschen, die mich auf meinem Weg begleitet haben und meinem wunderbaren Publikum!

Which translates as: On May 3, 2017, I ended my stage career on the opera stage. I offer wholehearted thanks to all the outstanding people who have accompanied me along the way, and to my wonderful audience!

 

Sonja was a member of the Hessian state theatre at Wiesbaden, where she has recently been singing Tosca, Madam Butterfly and Brünnhilde. She gives no reason for her retirement and leaves in the middle of a run of Siegfried.

Ulf Schirmer, 58, has been renewed for five more years as intendant and Generalmusikdirektor of Leipzig Opera.

He has been there since 2009.