The LA Phil has announced its next set of members of the Dudamel Fellowship Program. They are Tianyi Lu, Ruth Reinhardt and Jonathon Heyward.

Tianyi Lu (pic), originally from Shanghai, is a New Zealander. Ruth Reinhardt, a Juilliard grad from Saarbrücken, is currently Jaap van Zweden’s Assistant Conductor at the Dallas Symphony. Jonathon Heyward is Mark Elder’s Assistant Conductor at the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester.

Past grads of the Dudamel Fellowship include Joshua Weilersten, Jamie Philips, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Elim Chan, Gemma New and Kahchun Wong, all well launched on international careers.

The future is bright, and more equal than the present.

 

The Welsh conductor Owen Arwel Hughes has warned that European musicians will start leavign UK orchestras unless there is clarity about their future residency rights after Brexit.

He tells the BBC: ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen to them. Are they going to be uncertain and choose to leave the orchestra and go home, so everybody leaves the orchestra?

‘There’s the uncertainty of, ‘Do we stay, what is going to happen?’

‘Let’s say there’s an opera going on in Covent Garden and the singer goes ill, as often happens. Normally you can get somebody like that who can come from anywhere.

‘But if that freedom goes, you’ll never get anyone in time. They’ll be going through visa applications and goodness knows what.’

Read more here.

 

Apple Inc has axed the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano because they are incompatible with its new streaming service.

It looks like downloading is being written off.

The iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano are offshoots of Steve Jobs’s 2001 iPod, itself the progenitor of the iPhone. They play downloads from iTunes, and not much else.

Anyone still use them?

Rebecca Albers has been promoted after seven years as assistant principal viola.

 

 

Thomas Turner has asked to move back into the viola section, after 23 years as principal.

Two new recruits, Natsuki Kumagai and Ben Odhner, join the second violins.

 

The veteran Catalan musician, 75, is under fire for some injudicious interview comments in La Stampa.

Savall said, among other things:

– The meaning and value of classical music are in decline

– At this time in the classical world there is no more creativity. There are great performers, great composers, but they do not know how to create, improvise.

– In the eastern world, the soul of music is improvisation. Every time the result is different, even unpredictable. It is a musical culture that is preserved and renewed.

There has been an onslaught of responses.

Among the most savage is a blast from the Bologna cellist, Roberto Gini, who accuses Savall of being personally responsible for the decline by blurring the lines between western and eastern music, corrupting both.

Caro Jordi, “il significato e il valore della musica classica sono in declino” anche grazie al tuo contributo, alle truffaldine Follie che pasticci da anni sempre peggio, alle tue Tarantelle, alle nacchere con cui accompagni la musica di Marais, alla tua Barak Norman a sette corde con cui suoni Ortiz accompagnato da ogni strumento possibile fuorché il richiesto dall’autore, alla viola italiana a sei corde amplificata con cui al contrario hai suonato musica francese a Bologna, alle tue insalate miste di programmi da profumeria di grande magazzino, alla tua approssimazione, alla faccia tosta con cui sai imbonire il pubblico vendendo prodotti commerciali talmente ripieni di ogni diversità che ciascuno vi riconosce qualcosa e ha l’illusione di aver partecipato, comprendendolo, di un evento musicale imperdibile.

 

The Paris-based major has signed George Li, runner-up at the 2015 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow.

He’s playing at Verbier this week.

The first release follows immediately.

Catriona Morison, surprise winner of Cardiff Singer of the World, has signed worldwide exclusive representation with the London firm Rayfield Allied.

Hotly pursued by big agencies, the Scottish mezzo chose to sign with Deborah Sanders, Director of Opera at Rayfield Allied.

The Hindemith-influenced composer Paul Angerer has died after a short illness.

A violist in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s, he became chief conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Salzburg Landestheater.

His huge catalogue of works is divided between Doblinger and Universal Edition.

He was best known as host of a popular radio programme.


photo: ORF

The Rochester Philharmonic, which has been in turmoil for five years, has installed Curtis Long of the Alabama Symphony as its new president.

He’ll work on a recovery plan with music director Ward Stare.

 

 

The original video of the alleged marital revenge raid appeared on Slipped Disc a year ago.

Watch it here.

The aggrieved luthier has now been confirmed to be Daniel Olsen Chen, 62, a Norwegian based in Nagoya.

His arrested wife, Midori, is described in Chinese media as being ethnic Chinese.

One of the smashed violins is an Amati.

 

Katharina Wagner was greeted with volleys of displeasure at the third revival last night of her gloomy Tristan und Isolde.

There were cheers for the conductor Chrsitian Thielemann, and for the leading singers Stephen Gould, Petra Lang, René Pape and Christa Mayer.

While we hate to see booing of artists who are giving their best, there may be a case for conveying dissent at the hereditary director of a public funded festival who pushes herself forward to take charge of some productions.

Or should we pay homage to her genetic authority?

 

 

Worcester Civic Society, with Worcester Cathedral, will unveil a blue plaque on College Green this Saturday, July 29 to commemorate Thomas Tomkins, organist and master of the choristers at Worcester Cathedral from 1596 until his death in 1656.

His house at 9 College Green has survived largely unchanged.