Tonight’s SLSO Harry Potter concert has been cancelled.
The website says: This concert has been cancelled. We are actively working to reschedule this date. Ticket holders should hold on to their tickets, and our patron services team will reach out next week with additional information.
They add: We appreciate your patience as we continue to monitor events in St. Louis this weekend.
The oboe world is in shock at the death of Denisa Bílá, principal oboe of the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Denisa was on her way home from rehearsal on Friday when she was hit by a car. She died on her way to hospital.
A former student at the Royal College of Music in London and at CNSMD in Lyon, Denisa was a member of the Czech Philharmonic academy and toured with the Kremerata Baltica before winning the principal seat in Ostrava in 2015. She was highly regarded wherever she played.
Our sympathies to her husband, Simon, her family, colleagues and friends.
The couple had been married for six years.
Message from the German tenor:
Dear Friends,
I am so sorry that I was obliged to cancel my appearance at the prestigious George Enescu Festival due to a bad cold, and I deeply regret that any of you feel left down. I can very well understand that all those who have gone to great expense for traveling and tickets are very disappointed. Please do know that I am extremely disappointed as well to have to forego the pleasure and privilege to sing for you. We will do everything we can to find a new date for a recital at the Festival in 2019.
Jonas Kaufmann
UPDATE: We hear from a disappointed party of German visitors that Kaufmann cancelled too late for a replacement to be inserted. The festival has offered money back for their tickets, but not for their air fares and hotels.
After a week of high performance, and hotly tipped after the semi-final, Ben Glassberg has just been named winner of the Besancon Conducting Competition.
You read it here first.
The jury was chaired by Leonard Slatkin.
The previous winner, Jonathon Heyward, is now assistant conductor at the Halle Orchestra in Manchester and a Dudamel Fellow in Los Angeles.
UPDATE: Ben also won the audience prize and the orchestra award, a clean sweep.
Lisa Ford, a horn player in the Gothenburg Symphony, has produced a film of the orchestra’s chief conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, with running commentary from the brass section. ‘His energy never stops,’ she says.
Lovely film. You see it here first.
A documentary about Fabio Biondi and his dream instrument.
The Baltimore conductor gets her kicks at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Snape Maltngs.
