The English soprano Louise Alder has won round three of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

She joins Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar and Anthony Clark Evans in Sunday’s final.

We are indebted to the soprano Katherine Cooper for an introduction to this unexpectedly challenging series.

Since there is no repertoire specified on the cover, we assume it must be Infidelio.

Do not miss, in the same series, Making Out to Mozart.

With a magic flute, presumably.

Daniel Harding has pulled out of  The Rake’s Progress this summer at Aix-en-Provence with a wrist injury.

The Norwegian Eivind Gullberg Jensen steps in.

Harding’s is the seventh major cancellation this week.

The orchestra is putting on the premiere of Andrew Norman’s children’s opera, A Trip to the Moon.

It involves vocal soloists, some young instrumentalists and a mixed adults and children’s choir. There will also be a Youth Choir. Half of this choir is made up of refugees who arrived in Germany, mostly from the Middle East.

Welcome to Berlin.

(c) Monika Rittershaus/Berlin Phil

Not a month goes by without the music director of one little-known North American orchestra taking the same post at another, and arranging to commute between them.

This is a common occurrence.

Less common nowadays is the phenomenon of a leading conductor holding several jobs in different countries. Herbert von Karajan held the record in the 1950s with five – Vienna State Opera, Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra,  La Scala (German rep) and the Salzburg Festival.

One current champion, we think, works in triplicate. That would be Jonathan Nott at Geneva, and Tokyo and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (he has given up Bamberg).

Can anyone beat that?

Well, there’s Rossen Milanov with four, or possibly five.

Any other busy batons out there?