We have been informed of the death at his home today of Sir John Manduell, programme director of the Cheltenham Music Festival for 25 years and later principal of the Royal Northern College of Music.
Sir John, who was 89, also served on the Arts Council, the British Council, European Music Year and other bodies.
He founded the music programme at BBC Radio 3 and the department of music at Lancaster University. Aside from these duties, he was an active composer.
Hamburg’s concert hall is a hit. The numbers don’t lie.
Since November 4, 2016 the hall has averaged 11,000 daily visitors, it was announced today.
The former head of classics at Universal Music Group, now a senior adviser, has agreed to be co-curator of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the first time he has worked in his homeland.
The festival is about to get a serious upgrade.
NBC has reported the death of the rock and roll trailblazer.
A New Orleans musician of French Creole descent, he cut his first recording – The Fat Man – in 1949 and carried on writing songs that shaped artists as diverse as Pat Boone, Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney. His greatest hits include Blueberry Hill, I’m Walkin’ and Aint That a Shame.
He was a prodigious pianist with an amiable and generous personality.
The Dutch violinist and waltz king has begun action to fight a court ruling that fined him 116,000 Euros for bringing children on stage after the legal limit of 11pm.
Rieu was originally issued with a fine of 236,000 Euros for bringing a group of Romanian pan flute players on stage until midnight during the course of seven concerts in the Netherlands in 2015.
Dutch law states that minors may not perform after 11:00 pm.
Rieu argued that the young players, aged 9 to 19, performed much earlier. He was merely bringing them back on stage with the virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir to wave farewell to the audience.
Judgement will be issued in Limburg on December 4.
The company has published a history to mark his quarter-century, which began with Parsifal on October 24, 1992.
He has been an exemplary music director, committed and connected.
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has declared Eastern Europe ‘a migrant free zone’.
On Sunday, Ivan Fischer and members of his Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a Cocoa Concert for refugee families. They were responding to events in a Hungarian village that refused to allow its innkeeper to take in homeless families.
Ivan said: ‘The events in Őcsény really made me sad. That people are so afraid and react with such hatred toward unfortunate refugee families who go there to visit. If they listen to the concert together, a miracle can happen. I’ve been working for years to enhance Hungary’s good reputation in the world, and I wouldn’t like to abandon this goal.’
Here’s how it looked:
We learn from Forum Opera that the fine mezzo-soprano Luciana d’Intino, 58, has decided to stop singing.
She was due to sing in the Bastille’s Ballo in Mascherra, where she will be replaced by Varduhi Abrahamyan.
A sign of the times? Two supporters of San Luis Obispo Opera withdrew their patronage after a performance of Madam Butterfly:
We recently attended Opera San Luis’ performance of “Madama Butterfly” and were enjoying it until the final scene. That’s when we were stunned — appalled, really — to see the grief-stricken character Cio-Cio San grab the American flag off its pole (stage right), throw it onto the floor, then drag it as she sang.
There were audible gasps in the audience, indicating there were many others among us deeply offended by such abuse of our flag, which is never to touch the ground.
Worse, it shows Opera San Luis’ willingness to exploit and demean the tragedy of Cio-Cio San to make a gratuitous and contemporary political statement. In the future, instead of financially supporting this opera group, we will direct donations to the Wounded Warrior Project.
There’s a reply from the company’s artistic director here.
Message received:
The Dutch National Opera Studio is a new young artists programme in The Netherlands, which will be launched in Amsterdam in September 2018 with international renowned soprano Rosemary Joshua as the artistic leader. Dutch National Opera Studio offers an exciting opportunity for outstanding young artists. The DNO Studio’s goal is to develop well-rounded artists by providing the highest quality training in combination with a wide range of professional experiences.The programme will be designed to support six singers and one répétiteur, all of whom, will be employed on a full-time basis as salaried members of Dutch National Opera for up to two years. The young Artists will be immersed into the professional life of the company and mentored through every aspect of their career development in an individually tailor-made programme.
The DNO Studio will offer its six young singers extensive musical, language and vocal coaching with experienced music staff, leading international voice teachers and conductors along with some of the finest directors of our generation. The artists will participate in both main stage productions, as well as studio productions, recitals and concert/educational work.
The répétiteur of the Opera Studio will be coached by the music staff of Dutch National Opera and will be mentored by DNO’s Chief Conductor as well as guest conductors. He/she will participate in every aspect of the preparation of opera and be fully involved in all studio activities.
Dutch National Opera Studio is an initiative of Dutch National Opera, in collaboration with Nederlandse Reisopera and Opera Zuid, who will offer the young artists the opportunity to join their projects.
International auditions for Dutch National Opera Studio will be held in December 2017 and January 2018 with an age limit of 30 years for female voices and of 32 years for male voices. Apply for details to operastudio@operaballet.
The composer James MacMillan feels an empathy with others in his vocation who cannot stay off the pitch.
Did you know, for instance, that Edward Elgar was ‘mad about Wolverhampton Wanderers’ or that a living Finnish composer is obsessed by Everton (poor chap).
It’s a hundred years ago come Friday, October 27 1917 to be precise, since Jascha Heifetz made his explosive US debut at Carnegie Hall. The violinist was 16 years old, fresh from St Petersburg, and phenomenally gifted.
The hall was packed out on advance hype. Every musician in New York needed to hear this kid.
It was an unseasonally warm Saturday afternoon. Mischa Elman turned to his neighbour, the pianist Leopold Godowsky, before the debutant came on stage.
