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.

The trial continues.

Verdict: not guilty

The Russian baritone, who died last week, has received a posthumous nomination for his recording of Georgy Sviridov’s song cycle, ‘Russia Cast Adrift’.

 

The nomination is for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.

Almost a week after the premiere of John Adams’ new opera, Girls of the Golden West, people in the business are wondering why the New York Times has maintained a trappist silence.

The opera was greeted by two crunching put-downs in San Francisco media and a rather more cautious assessment in the Los Angeles Times by Mark Swed who calls it ‘the most highly anticipated new opera of the year.’

So where was the New York Times?

Did they not consider it newsworthy?

Or is someone still fine-tuning their first draft history, almost a week after the event.

 

 

The Coastal Symphony of Georgia has hired Michelle Merrill to take over from its founding music director, Luis Haza.

Michelle, a Texan, is associate conductor at the Detroit Symphony. Her husband plays principal percussion in the Jacksonville Symphony.

They are going to have some commute.

 

Deborah Borda has named two vice-presidents in a day, changing the orchestra’s public face.

Adam Crane head of external affairs at St Louis Symphony for the past nine years, becomes V-P external affairs.

Susan Madden, who has been raising big money at several Ny institutions, becomes V-P development.

Those are two tough jobs.

 

The death has been announced of Ruwan Weerasekera, a popular violinist who received classical training while studying economics in Ukraine and went on to perform at the Bolshoi.

He had been in a coma for several months as a result of a rare neurological condition.

Gil Dori, a disabled composer, recounted his mistreatment by British Airways at a US airport in Slipped Disc at the weekend.

Today, he’s in the Times.

We reported in August the sad and sudden death in Egypt of Eva Stewart, principal piccolo of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

The Guardian has now published a friend’s tribute:

The piccolo-playing of my friend and colleague Eva Stewart, who has died aged 46 of a pulmonary embolism, reached a big new audience in the final weeks of her life when she gave a dazzling solo performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, dressed as a bee, at the first ever Relaxed Prom.

On that occasion she entranced live and radio audience members with visual and auditory impairments, but she was also widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading orchestral players, who epitomised today’s multifaceted orchestral musician….

Read on here.

While the Stuttgart Opera House undergoes four years of innovation, the company will move into the city’s parcels sorting office.

It’s the best location available, they say.

And Amazon has anyway taken over most of the parcels business.

 

From here

 

to here.

The Orchestre de Paris cancelled two concerts with Franz Welser-Möst. The programme was meant to be Messiaen L’Ascension, followed by Bruckner’s 9th symphony.

The conductor was unwell.

Was there no-one else in Paris, or a Euro-train away, who could step up to the plate at short notice?

This is bad practice.

 

The Grawemeyer Award was announced last night.

The winner is Bent Sorensen.

He takes home $100,000.

It so happens that Sorensen, 59, has a piece being premiered on Thursday by the New York Philharmonic. No-one in NY media seems to have noticed.

The award-winning piece is called ‘L’isola della Città’ – Island in the City.

 

Watch a clip from a documentary on Bent Sørensen from The Wire Magazine on Vimeo.

It’s Saturday night at the Fort Worth Symphony and a member of the audience is invited onto the stage.

Principal trumpet Kyle Sherman is waiting.

He drops on one knee….

Watch.