If the name Laurence Crane does not spring instantly to mind, do not feel too bad about it.
Crane, 56, has been composing minimalist music for much of his life without ever making it onto the nightly news.
Tonight, he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation award worth £60,000.
Recent and forthcoming work includes:
In February 2018, Crane will premiere in London, a new work for contrabass clarinet and ensemble, commissioned by Rolf Borch with funding from Norwegian Arts Council and composed for Rolf Borch and Cikada Ensemble.
In March 2018 Crane is composing a score for a new 12 minute film by Beatrice Gibson based on a script from Gertrude Stein. Written for clarinet, cello, electric guitar and electric organ, as commission for Borealis Festival, Bergen, Norway, it will be recorded by asamisimasa
May 2018 will see the release of a CD including first recording of Come back to the old specimen cabinet John Vigani, John Vigani part 3 by Jennifer Bewerse and Southland Ensemble on the label ‘A Wave Press’
Westminster is America’s foremost choir school. Rider University wants to get shot of it.
The death is reported of Paul Buckmaster, who made the orchestral arrangements for Bowie’s Space Oddity and played on several of his albums. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, he also worked with the Rolling Stones and conducted for Elton John.
Long before American singers were staples of the European circuit, Louis Roney was singing major roles at Italian and German opera houses. He prided himself on being the first Yank to sing at the Maggio Musicale in Florence*.
Before that, he served five years as a gunnery officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
Back home he made his debut at 27 as Cavaradossi in Tosca with Dmitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. He also sang at the Met.
UPDATE: The first US singer at Maggio Musicale was, apparently, David Poleri.
The Orquesta de Euskadi (Basque National Orchestra) has called a strike for November 18.
The players are aggrieved at numerous unfilled vacancies – and that the bosses are filling them with unpaid conservatory students.
The next independence referendum?
A Boston Globe investigation finds that three professors at Berklee College of Music have been allowed to leave quietly after being accused by several students of sexual aggression.
One of them went on to teach at the New England Conservatory, unhampered by the allegations.
Berklee is regularly ranked among the top ten US conservatories of music.
The Globe alleges ‘a culture of blatant sexual harassment’ at Berklee. Here’s how it starts:
She woke up naked and unnerved. Her professor, her mentor at Berklee College of Music, was groping her as she tried to push him away while fighting off waves of nausea. Jeff Galindo, a popular jazz musician and instructor at the school, had walked her home from a party the night before to make sure she arrived safely because she was so drunk.
All she wanted was to banish memories of that nightmarish experience in the spring of 2012. But weeks later Galindo, who had been on tour much of the time since that night, begged forgiveness from his student in a series of bizarre texts.
“I’m truly sorry for hurting you. I promise I will never again,” Galindo said in texts shared with the Globe by the woman, then a junior and one of the few female students in her department. “By the way, just to let you know, we never [had intercourse],” said another text in the mea culpa. “I never got it up. I was too drunk. It doesn’t excuse anything, but I thought I’d let you know what a loser I am.”
The head of wigs and makeup at the Metropolitan Opera, Tom Watson, has gone in Peter Gelb’s latest cull, along with most members of his department, some of whom quit in disgust at the way Tom was treated.
There are rumours of more staff cuts ahead.
The season opened with exceptionally poor sales for Tales of Hoffman, and the best hyping efforts of the New York Times cannot make a hit of The Exterminating Angel.
Cash flow is starting to be a problem again.
After yesterday’s upheavals at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, now it’s the Scottish Chamber Orchestra that has to rustle up a substitute baton out of the blue:
We regret to announce that Emmanuel Krivine is very sadly unable to join us for this week’s concerts, due to ill health.
We are delighted that young American conductor Case Scaglione is able to step in, keeping the programme as advertised.
We look forward to seeing you at the concerts – please join us in wishing Emmanuel a speedy recovery.
Scaglione, an Alan Gilbert protégé at the New York Phil, is chief conductor of the Württemberg chamber orchestra in Heilbronn. This is his UK debut. He has a British agent, Linda Marks at HP.
