From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
If you go out and buy the Minnesota Orchestra’s Bis recording of Mahler’s fifth symphony, rest assured that you need never buy another. It’s resoundingly well played in every department, devoid of the bravado that impairs some American performances, and discreetly shaped by the music director Osmo Vänskä, who finds organic solutions for some of the more abrupt shifts in the score.
Read on here for the twist in the tail.
And here.
And here.
The guitarist Mayara Amaral, was murdered this week in a motel in Campo Grande, Brazil.
The suspect is a fellow-musician and former lover, who made off with her car.
Mayara, who was 27, wrote her dissertation on ‘The woman composer and the guitar in the 1970s’ and was passionate about contemporary music in Brazil. She formed a quartet and continued to engage in research and teaching.
The Texan conductor Case Scaglione, Associate Conductor with Alan Gilbert’s New York Philharmonic, has been named Chief Conductor of the Württemberg chamber orchestra in Heilbronn.
Case writes: ‘A little over a year ago I had the pleasure of making my German debut with one of the most sensitive, responsive, and overall incredible orchestras that I’ve ever had the privilege of working with:The Württembergisches Kammerorchester. And I’m excited to announce to all of you that I will be starting as their Chief Conductor from September of 2018. I could not be more proud and excited.’
Alan Gilbert says: ‘Case Scaglione is one of the most gifted conductors of the younger generation, and my belief in him has only grown over time. He has a deep and cultivated musical sensibility that will be a perfect fit for this marvellous orchestra, and I can’t wait to hear what this partnership will reveal in the years to come.’
Having threatened to cut the orchestra off last year, the EU Commission has now greed a formula to secure the future of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Under measures to be put forward to the European Parliament, the EUYO will receive 600,000 Euros a year.
‘Together, we have shown that we can find creative solutions by overcoming bureaucratic procedures when it is in the interest of our citizens,’ said the EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
The EUYO was founded in 1976 by Joy and Lionel Bryer and is based in London. That may have to change.
The Innsbruck Festival of Ancient Music has announced the death of Rudolf Tutz, one of the most sought-after makers of early flutes and clarinets.
photo (c) Andrea Hadringer
The promising Mark Simpson, composer in residence with the BBC Philaronic, has been signed by Intermusica.
He also plays clarinet and conducts.
Bio: Born in Liverpool in 1988, Simpson won both BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year in 2006. He went on to read Music at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, graduating with first class honours, and studied composition with Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Simpson was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2012-2014.
The organist Paul Jacobs has a blast this weekend at the powers-that-be:
‘So much of our understanding of the arts in this country is bound up with the individual tastes of the listener or consumer. The primacy of classical music as an artful or superior genre has gradually diminished. Increasingly, classical musicians are not so much advocates for their art as apologists. This is not a trend I observe, however, in great art museums…
‘But those who promote classical music are often pressured not to point to its historical primacy, instead to exhibit it in a manner which equates it to more recent musical genres, manufacturing its image as “cool,” “hip,” and “relevant.” It’s presented as just one of many styles of music, alongside jazz, rock, bluegrass, hip hop, and so forth. But this is misleading, not to mention emasculating, for what we casually refer to as “classical music” is actually the bulk of the West’s musical history—an immense creative legacy of over 1,000 years, from plainchant to Cage and beyond. Classical music is our history—everyone’s history—and knowing history is important. As our cultural inheritance, it’s also something to cherish.’
Read on here.
press release:
New York, NY | Saratoga Springs, NY – Cellists of all ages and abilities are invited to participate in a rare musical event that will allow them to play alongside cellist Yo-Yo Ma as well as cellists from The Philadelphia Orchestra for a one-hour PlayIN event, taking place on August 9th at 1:30 p.m. at Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s amphitheatre stage.
Apparently, they can’t find another quiet space in Marlborough, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island.
But would you agree to rehearse in a morgue? Is it respectful to the dead, or the music?
The Estonian Aivar Teppo was a virtuoso of the concertina, an instrument that has lost its appeal even in its Baltic heartlands. Widely recorded, he was known as king of the concertina and there is no crown prince.
His instruments were built by a relative, August Teppo.
This is the Staatskapelle Dresden while the boss is in Bayreuth.
We have received this message from Maureen Kilkelly, Executive Director of the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund in response to our report on members’ fears for the fund:
