You would have thought that, with Brexit looming, they would promote native talent. But no…

Here’s today’s press release:

The Royal Opera has announced the latest singers to join its professional development programme, the Jette Parker Young Artists.

Five new singers will join the Company in September 2018. They were chosen from more than 440 applicants from 59 countries and will join six others who continue on the Programme into their second year next Season. The new artists for 2018/19 are:

Chilean soprano Yaritza Véliz

Chinese mezzo-soprano Hongni Wu

American countertenor Patrick Terry

Argentinean baritone German E. Alcántara

Scottish-Iranian bass-baritone Michael Mofidian (pictured)

The Jette Parker Young Artist programme is designed to support the artistic development of talented singers at the beginning of their career. Young Artists are employed as salaried members of The Royal Opera over a two-year period, during which time they are immersed in the life of the Royal Opera House to help them form their own artistic identity and give them guidance on their trajectory through the business.

They give a free concert – today, at 4pm.

 

Members of the MET Orchestra will be joined by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer at The New York Public Library’s Harry Belafonte Branch to perform a “Musical Read-Aloud!” Robert Miller, husband of MET Orchestra violinist Elena Barere (pictured above), has composed an original score to accompany both “Buzzard and Wren Have a Race,” from A Ring of Tricksters by Virginia Hamilton and Icarus Swinebuckle by Michael Garland.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer will be on hand to read these stories aloud to children and families.

This children’s read-aloud program has been organized by the MET Orchestra Musicians, who are engaging with communities across the city and advocating on issues that touch the lives of all New Yorkers, including a well-rounded cultural education, funding for arts organizations and artists, access to live music and increased diversity and equity in the arts.

When: Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 4:00 pm

This is the 80th birthday week of the composer Paavo Heininen, a man locally celebrated for two Finnish operas, six symphonies, eleven concertos.

More importantly, as professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy, he has been the teacher of Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, Jouni Kaipainen, Jukka Tiensuu and more – the most successful generation of composers Finland has ever produced.

Then journalist Asaf Harel in Haaretz has exposed one of the most respected teachers and conductors in Israel as a persistent predator on teenaged boys.

Harel, himself a former student of the conductor, says Menahem Nebenhaus was a revered figure at the elite Telma Yellin School and across Israeli musical life. He has collected testimonies from a number of former students. Some incidents were reported to the school and to the police, but no judicial action was taken.

Nebenhaus conducted the Telma Yellin school orchestra and took it on tours in Europe. He also conducted the IDF orchestra, the Ra’anana Sinfonietta and others.

He has not responded to the report.

You can read and watch the report here (in Hebrew).

The house in Orenburg, where Slava was evacuated with his family during the Second World War, had been turned by its owner into a museum dedicated to the great cellist and conductor.

But the owner want to sell and the artefacts are included.

Read here.

 

From the BIS record blurb:

Great-grandson of composer Jean Sibelius, Lauri Porra began playing the cello at the age of six, but later switched to bass guitar. In addition to his work as a composer for orchestra, film and media, he is a member of the heavy metal band Stratovarius with which he has recorded four albums and performed concerts in over 60 countries. Highly versatile, Porra also leads his own Lauri Porra Flyover Ensemble, combining musical styles ranging from rock and jazz to classical, electronic and film music. Entropia, his concerto for electric bass and orchestra, was premièred by the composer and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra …

 

Powell Symphony Hall in St Louis, Missouri, is marking its jubilee year.

The orchestra still has two players from opening day.

The hall still has its original name (unlike Avery Fisher and so many others).

And it still has its resident ghost.

Read here.

More recent halls mostly have mice, not ghosts.

The family of Jan Mortensen has posted that he fell down the stairs on Sunday at his home in Roskilde, near Copenhagen. He was taken to hospital and received stitches. He seemed to be doing well, but died a day later.

Jan, founding principal bass trombone with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, was 60.

In 2001, long before the expulsion of foreign players from Kuala Lumpur, he returned to play in the royal orchestra in Copenhagen, and with the Royal Danish Brass ensemble.

A prodigious teacher, he leaves students and friends all over the world.

Our sympathies to his grieving family.

 

The legendary Anshel Brusilow, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and of the Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy, died last night at the age of 89.

After clashing with music directors, he lit out to Texas, where he became both executive director and conductor of the Dallas Symphony.

He recorded extensively as both violinist and conductor.

In recent years, he published a slam-bam memoir titled Shoot the Conductor.

He was a formidable musician, and a formative one.

Just listen.

Daniel Auner has recorded some of the off-cuts from Beethoven’s masterpiece.

He writes:

During my studies in Salzburg I got a copy of the original manuscript into my hands and was shocked about what I found there. Beethoven wrote an alternative solo violin part almost throughout the whole piece and decided just before the first print which version he will use in the end. But, he did not cross out any of the second lines but selected a few bars from the blue ink and a few bars of the pencil writing, always changing…..


The US cellist who scored considerable success with the Elgar, Carter and Dvorak concertos on Decca has decided that her future lies in the Low Countries.

She has signed an exclusive, multi-album contract with Pentatone, starting later this year with both Haydn concertos and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, with the Trondheim Soloists.

She says: ‘Pentatone’s values are in line with mine. Our conversations about repertoire have demonstrated the depth of their knowledge and, perhaps even more importantly, their eagerness in encouraging me to expand my musical horizons. Our first recording together is a testament to that ethos – that artistic integrity and curiosity should always be the first priority. I feel completely at home.’