We hear that the Oregon Bach Festival is quietly cancelling contracts with artists who have been asked to perform and teach there next year.

The reasons for Matthew Halls’s dismissal as artistic director, steadily unfolding, are starting to resemble a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Halls is alleged to have told a racial joke to a close personal friend, who is African-American. A woman who heard the joke reported it to University of Oregon administrators who, alarmed at falling attendances, used it as an excuse to fire Halls.

The Telegraph reports some more details today.

The University has made itself an international laughing stock and the festival is probably dead.

 

Message from HGO Managing Director Perryn Leech and Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers

We must unfortunately report that our beloved Wortham Theater Center is more damaged than previously thought. Houston Grand Opera will proceed with our first two operas, La traviata and Julius Caesar, in the fall and we are actively working out new locations for these performances. We will announce the details as soon as they are confirmed.

 

Finalists in the oboe section are Juliana Koch of Germany, principal oboe at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen; Thomas Hutchinson of New Zealand and Kyeong Ham of Korea.

 

She missed the first night of Trovatore in Vienna, but hubby Yusif Eyvazov was pleased to see her on the second.

Photo (c) Wiener Staatsoper/Michael Pöhn

The BBC has released audience figure for the Proms, showing an 89 percent attendance at the main evening Proms, one percent above last year but still below the 90+% of the previous decade.

No figures have been released for lunchtime, late-night and external Proms.

Press release below.

 

The 2017 BBC Proms ran from Friday 14 July to Saturday 9 September and featured eight weeks of concerts, talks, workshops, family events and more.

Highlights of the 2017 festival included an opening weekend of Elgar with the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim; the return of the ‘Proms at …’ series, matching music to venues across London and Hull; the first ever Relaxed Prom; Sir András Schiff performing Book 1 of Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ (he will return in 2018 to perform Book 2); the first complete live performance of Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass’ album ‘Passages’ with Anoushka Shankar conducted by Karen Kamensek; 30 premieres as new music remains at the heart of the festival; and a host of international orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

 

Average attendance for the main evening Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this year was 89% and well over half of the concerts in the Royal Albert Hall sold out. The Proms welcomed nearly 60,000 Prommers through the doors of the Royal Albert Hall, purchasing standing tickets which are sold on the day for £6. 

 

More than 35,500 tickets were bought by people attending the Proms for the first time and over 10,000 under 18s attended concerts across the season.

 

David Pickard, Director, BBC Proms, says: ‘It’s been a remarkable season of world-class music-making and our outstanding audience figures prove that classical music is in rude health. Our audiences have embraced the huge breadth of music on offer throughout the eight weeks of the festival – from Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo to a concert celebrating the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie – and show a huge public appetite for classical music, including new and lesser-known works. Thanks to the BBC – who have been running the Proms for 90 years – I’m delighted that we are able to continue Henry Wood’s founding vision of bringing the best quality classical music to the widest possible audiences.’

 

Jeffrey Curnow, associate principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2001, is a widely published cartoonist.

More here.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Quarter of a century ago, Decca sank its Three Tenors profits into an ‘Entartete Musik’ series, breaking the silence that had settled on a generation of composers who had fled Nazi Germany, or died in its concentration camps. Those vital recordings are now hard to find, but the search continues for other members of the silent generation.

None of the music on this gripping compilation will be familiar to anyone alive….

Read on here.

And here.

 

Next week will be 40 years since Callas died.

Her bosom friend Giovanna Lomazzi has been sharing memories on Italian TV.

He always said that I was her little sister. She needed to create bonds because they were missing in her family. Her father lived in America and she never saw him, and her relations with her mother and sister were terrible. Her mother never came to one of her performances, and concentrated on the other sister who had no particular talent.

More here on Gramilano.

The Dallas Symphony has reached a new three-year contract with its musicians, based on a wage freeze for the first year. The next two years will see a two percent upgrade.

Base pay is presently almost $100,000.

Press release here.

UPDATE: We’ve had the full numbers from the musicians:
2017-18:  99,526.96 (as 2016-17)
2018-19:  101,382.32 (+2%)
2019-20:  103, 274.60 (+2%)

The reason for the pay freeze in the first year is that management agreed to substantially increase its contribution towards the musicians’ health care costs. That was referred to a little obliquely in the press release, but it was something that was really important to us.  There were also numerous improvements to working conditions.

The London-based international ensemble has called time on its career. Next March it will play a farewell at the Wigmore Hall, 35 years after setting out.

The group’s members are: William Howard (Piano); Simon Blendis (violin); Jane Salmon (cello); Douglas Paterson (viola); Peter Buckoke (double bass)

Press release follows:

After a 35-year career as one of the world’s leading exponents of music for piano and strings, The Schubert Ensemble will celebrate its final season in 2017/18. The Ensemble will perform around fifty concerts in the UK and abroad before returning to its London home for a farewell concert at Wigmore Hall on 21 March 2018. Remarkably, three members of the group will have played together for all 35 years, while the Ensemble has been unchanged for the last 23 years.

Founded in January 1983 by pianist William Howard, The Schubert Ensemble’s career has included performances in over 40 countries, produced over 30 critically acclaimed recordings and countless performance broadcasts. Over the years, the Ensemble has attracted praise from journalists around the world, including The Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Sunday Times the Independent, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, the Strad, Fanfare USA, Classic FM, International Record Review, International Piano, Classical Music Magazine and many more. Particular career highlights include receiving the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Best Chamber Ensemble Award (1998), several highly acclaimed series at Wigmore Hall and Kings Place, and memorable tours to the USA, South America and the Far East. With over 80 commissions to its name, the group leaves behind a legacy of new music from the likes of John Tavener, Judith Weir, Sally Beamish, Jonathan Dove, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Piers Hellawell, David Knotts, David Matthews, Pavel Novak, Anthony Powers, Howard Skempton and many more.

The Ensemble’s busy final season includes return visits to Romania and Luxembourg and two tours of the USA. The final two concerts of the Ensemble’s Quintessentials series will be held at Kings Place on 12 October and 9 November 2017, ahead of the farewell concert at Wigmore Hall on 21 March 2018. The ensemble’s final performance will take place on 30 June 2017.

Speaking about the Ensemble’s final season, founder William Howard comments: “We are thrilled to have such an exciting season ahead. It will be one of mixed emotions, as we visit some wonderful venues for the last time, say goodbye to many promoters who have become good friends to the Ensemble, and perform many of our favourite pieces for the final time together. But it was very much our intention that the Ensemble should finish in celebratory style and we look forward to enjoying our remaining concerts to the full and finishing on a high.”

 

Our diarist, Anthea Kreston, an American string quartet player in Berlin, keeps getting offers she cannot refuse.

 

I am on the bus, heading to Berlin’s Tegel Airport for a concert in Italy with my quartet. This past week I had several concerts with the quartet, as well as a couple of mixed concerts (Jason and I stayed at the Bebersee Festival after the quartet concerts were finished to do some collaborative playing).  One absolute joy was to meet and play with Harriet Krijgh, an effervescent cellist with a high-powered career.  Both watching her play and playing alongside her, I was struck by her honesty, integrity, and absolute commitment to the deeply-felt, crafted character of every moment. Powerful, coy, beseeching, she cared not for what was outside of her, only to the truth of her vision. As so many women do (and as I once used to), decked out in finery and wearing a mask of colours upon our faces, Harriet shone as a radiant person, in simple clothing, flat ballet shoes, a clear face. Nothing was between her, her soul, and us. 

It made me take a step back – have I, somehow, become a caricature of myself – am I always honest?  Did I once have a sincere feeling for a very personal, quiet area, and now I exaggerate?  Sometimes as musicians, it is as if we are drug addicts – the first hit is wonderful, that first time we slide into a special note – but the next time we need more, and more again. This week was a moment for me to ask if myself to honestly assess my truth, to become pure, to find the root of my feelings, and to understand and appreciate what the music is telling me. 

Back home, I have enjoyed being the lead parent – packing lunches, getting the girls back and forth to school. Today was the opening ceremony at school – I noticed on the family calendar it was marked in red – BRING THE HUGE SCHOOL CONE THING WITH PRESENTS INSIDE TODAY!  VERY IMPORTANT! I had gone to the store to buy one – there was a vast array of huge cardboard cones with various movie characters on them, starting at 10 euros a piece. My goodness, I  can certainly make one myself, I thought, picking up a blue piece of cardboard for 1 euro. My daughter and I worked on it for several days, and today as I was at school, I felt decidedly bizarre, as parents around me carried School Cones covered in designer fabric, with names embroidered, some even with blinking or moving parts. Ours looked a little funny, lopsided and with packing tape holding bits of streamers on the side. But we made it together, and it was filled to the brim with school supplies, toys and dried fruit snacks.  

As I stood there, I recalled a conversation from last year. A mother was telling me how embarrassed she was that for the final class Picknick, she only cut up a watermelon and put it in her son’s bag. I said – “you cut yours up?  I just stuck the whole watermelon in her backpack, with a kitchen knife wrapped in a dish towel held in place with a hair elastic!”.  As I was listening to the Beethovens on my headphones last night at midnight, making smoked salmon and soft, herbed cheese sandwiches on dark bread for the opening ceremony at my daughter’s school, I was proud of the funny way we have made our way through school – we stick together and laugh at the goofy things mom does. 

The moments when they are at school are action-packed for me, between rehearsals for my upcoming Beethoven Sonata Cycle, this week’s start at the Deutsche Oper as fill-in Assistant (or is it Associate – I don’t know what the difference is) Concertmaster. Originally I was to play Lucia di Lammamoor, but yesterday they wrote again, asking for an additional program of portions of Romeo and Juliette as well as third act of Die Walküre.  I thought an hour before accepting the second assignment, and then realized – how could I turn down my possibly only chance to play Wagner opera in Berlin?  I said yes didn’t tell Jason – when I mentioned it this morning, he just raised his eyebrows and said – “how on earth are you going to do that”, and then we had a nice, proper laugh. How on earth do I do any of this stuff?

So here I am, headphones on, learning these pieces for the first time – studying on planes, in cabs and on busses, clocking tempi, my left hand learning the notes silently, following along on my IPad Pro as I make my way through yet another new world.  

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