Forget the cesspit of intrigue that is the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

This row concerns the Grand Théatre de Genève, which is selecting a director to replace Tobias Richter in 2019.

They were about to name two candidates when it turned out one of the selectors has a vested interest.

He’s the co-owner of a well-known artists agency, specialising in opera directors, and he was backing a man who had hired several of his clients.

Read on here.

 

The last 12 cellists were announced last night in the Brussels competition.

Four of them are French.

Santiago Cañón-Valencia, 21, Colombia
Brannon Cho, 22, USA
Sihao He, 23, China
Victor Julien-Laferrière
, 26, France
Seungmin Kang, 29, South Korea
Ivan Karizna (24, Belorussia
Maciej Kułakowski, 20, Poland
JeongHyoun Christine Lee, 25, South Korea
Yan Levionnois, 26, France
Yuya Okamoto, 22, Japan)
Aurélien Pascal
, 22, France

Bruno Philippe, 23, France

 

The final round will begin on May 29.

Branimir Pofuk reports for Slipped Disc:

 

Last night (21 May) I was in Skopje, capital of FYR Macedonia, attending very solemn opening of the new (and after 70 years of existence the first) Macedonia Philharmonic Orchestra concert hall.

Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted Labin and Dojrana, a ballet suite by the Macedonian composer Trajko Prokofiev, followed by Prokofiev’s third piano concerto with the Macedonian virtuoso Simon Trpčeski and Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony.

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Despite many political troubles and a poor economic situation in Macedonia this is the first concert hall built after disintegration of Socialist Yugoslava in any of its former republics.

Capacity is 1000, there is also a smaller chamber hall for 400 people.

Construction began in 2009, and was delayed when the building company went broke. The final cost, according to the director, is 37 milion Euros.

Until now, the Makedonska filharmonija has been playing in the totally inadequate acoustic of a military building.

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic has picked Alexander Mickelthwate, music director of the Winnipeg Symphony for the past 12 years, to succeed its founder-conductor, Joel Levine.

German-born, Mickelthwate, 46, has pushed Winnipeg into the front rank of Canadian orchestras.

He was selected from a strong field of six contenders over two and a half seasons and will start work as md-designate this September.

photo: Steve Gooch/The Oklahoman

Report here.

The assiduous researcher Michael Lorenz has found evidence that Mozart was approached in 1791 by a playwright and the director of the Hofteather to write music for a new comedy, Er mengt sich in Alles.

This was Mozart’s most productive year – Magic Flute, last piano concerto, clarinet concerto, Ave verum corpus, Requiem. he was no longer desperate for money and had begun paying off debts.

The play premiered in August, apparently without Mozart’s involvement. In September he fell ill. In December he died.

Read the new evidence here.

The conductor was honoured today by her alma mater.

Alongside Stevie Wonder, John Kerry and others.

Paul Arnold of the Philadelphia Orchestra says: ‘As a middle voice player, it’s a tremendous insight into how the music is constructed—you’re very inside of the architecture of the music. I have played first violin at length in this orchestra, and I somehow find that when I play second violin I know the piece differently.’

Your thoughts?

Full interview here.

 

Maria Wanda Milliore, original designer of the floating opera stage at the Bregenz Festival, has died at 96.

Maria was just 25 in 1946 when the festival experimented with its bold lakeside stage. She was still involved in designing productions 71 years later.

More here.

After an introductory meditation by Messiaen, yesterday afternoon’s audience at the Concertgebouw were awaiting a concerto by Wolfgang Rihm when the piano mysteriously failed to materialise on stage.

A manager came out to announce that the hydraulic machinery had failed and it had been decided to play the symphony – Bruckner’s seventh – relegating the concerto until after the interval.

The audience bore this development with typical Dutch phlegm.

However, it then became clear that the percussionist was not yet in the house.

So the interval was called.

Afterwards, Christoph Eschenbach conducted the radio philharmonic orchestra in the Bruckner.

Nicely done. Afterwards, still no piano.

The Concertgebouw, apparently, just couldn’t get it up.

The Australian classical guitarist, 76, has limited himself to ‘special projects’ since giving up touring three years ago.

But daughter Kate Williams has enticed him back to the stage.

Read here.

 

Not Glyndebourne. It takes more than an hour of a filthy train followed by a winding-road coach ride which, on return, is not coordinated with the train timetable.

The Grange is in Hampshire, reachable only by road.

Longborough is even further out.

Garsington has been the best until now – half an hour by train from Marylebone with a nice connecting bus.

But Wasfi Kani is claiming that her new Grange Park Opera at West Horsley Place is the closest to town.

It’s a 45-minute ride from Kings Cross and a 20-minute stroll from the station.

We’ll check it out soon.

Watch.

Does any other pianist have more fun with their music?