The music-friendly radio narrator was fired today by Minnesota Public Radio.
He told the Star-Tribune he had been accused of touching a woman’s bare back.
‘I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.’
He has earned some reciprocal solidarity. At 75, it’s a terrible way to end a distinguished career.
The retired tenor has given a million Euros to fund 20 beds for stem-cell therapy for leukaemia patients in the east German town of Jena.
Himself a survivor of the disease Carreras, 70, is concerned about high rates of cancer in deprived parts of unified Germany.
Miri Regev, the minister who likes to apply political conditions to public funding, has withdrawn subsidy from three groups whose act including topless dancing.
She has been warned that her action is unconstitutional.
But the fiercely ambitious minister knows the market to whom she is appealing.
The orchestral work that young Igor Stravinsky wrote in 1908 to mourn his teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov turned up two years ago in a St Petersburg archive. The Chant Funèbre was given a modern premiere by Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra and recorded last summer by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conductor Riccardo Chailly.
Decca will release it in January.
You can hear a clip here:
Duke University has announced the death of Professor Jane Hawkins, 67, chair of its music department from 2010 to 2014. Jane, originally from Swansea, taught at Duke for almost 40 years.
She also performed widely with the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players and others.
It happened at the Mariss Jansons concert at the Barbican last weekend.
(At least people are telling one another it was a mouse, not a sewer rat.)
Never got mentioned in reviews.
Name your best/worst concert encounter with a four-legged creature.
Miguel Harth-Bedoya has called in sick for this weekend’s three concerts.
Step up Jonathon Heyward, 25, an LA Phil Dudamel Conducting Fellow who just happened to be around. It’s a showcase program, including Hilary Hahn in Bernstein’s Serenade.
Scottish Chamber Orchestra CEO Gavin Reid has been elected Chair of the Association of British Orchestras, succeeding Kathryn McDowell of the LSO.
ABO director Mark Pemberton said: ‘It was clear to the Board that Gavin Reid can provide the experienced leadership needed to guide the ABO through the next few years, including challenges such as Brexit, public funding and diversity within orchestras.’
Gavin Reid said: ‘Our sector faces some tough challenges over the next few years. There is the potential impact that Brexit could have on our collective ability to engage with artists, promoters, venues, and funders in Europe. Pressures on public funding show no signs of easing and we cannot and must not lose sight of the need to address issues of diversity and inclusion. That said, our orchestras have never been in greater artistic health, never more innovative, never more resilient and never more needed.’
The city is to erect a memorial plaque to Leo Kestenberg, head of music from 1920 to 1933 at the Prussian ministry of culture, where he not only rewrote the school curriculum for the entire country but completely reorganised the city’s theatres, concert halls and conservatoria.
Kestenberg engaged his own teacher, Ferruccio Busoni, as professor of composition, followed by Arnold Schoenberg. He called in Otto Klemperer and Alexander Zemlinsky to create the Kroll Theatre and generally did more than anyone in the Weimar years to make Berlin a hub of modernism. Parts of his curriculum are still used today, from infants school to university.
When Hitler seized power, Kestenberg migrated to Tel Aviv, where he organised the future Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and taught such promising students as Menahem Pressler and Alexis Weissenberg.
It’s about time Berlin remembered him.
The music director of La Scala has spoken out for the co-star of his forthcoming Andrea Chenier, which opens the season on December 7.
Asked by Corriere della Sera about the vocal qualities of Yusif Eyvazov, husband of the soprano Anne Netrebko, Chailly said:
La sua è una voce importante. Chénier non richiede toni stentorei ma modulati, su questo abbiamo fatto un grande lavoro insieme. Ascoltarlo con Anna nel duetto del quarto atto dà profonda emozione
(His is an important voice. Chenier does not require a stentorian tone but a modulated one, so we are doing great work together. Listening to him with Anna in the fourth act duet is a profoundly emotional experience.)
Chailly also asked first-nighters not to applaud after big arias.
We’ll keep you posted on that one.
photo: La Scala
The trial has begun of Sean Farrell, 49, former head of music at Wellington College and director of performance at Trinity College, London.
It is alleged that, as a student teacher at Ampleforth (pictured) 30 years ago, he cultivated a relationship with a 12 year-old pupil.
Farrell is accused on four counts of indecent assault, which he denies.
