After Simon Rattle’s departure, the orchestra is still more Anglophile than Angela Merkel and her Juncker puppet.

From today’s press conference:

The Berliner Philharmoniker, in cooperation with the Musikfest Berlin, have invited the English composer George Benjamin to serve as Composer in Residence during the 2018/2019 season. His works will be heard during eight concerts in the Great Hall, the Chamber Music Hall and at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden. He will conduct one of these concerts himself.

 

 

Berlin has 1.2 million left-clicks on Facebook, bragged its bosses at today’s season launch.

Anyone beat that?

In other news, Yuja Wang will kick off the next season.

Press release below.

The Berliner Philharmoniker will present 121 symphony concerts and 6 opera performances during the 2018/2019 season, including:
90 concerts in the Philharmonie with 31 different programmes
2 concert opera performances in the Philharmonie
1 concert in the Schlüterhof (central courtyard of the Zeughaus)
1 concert in the Waldbühne
29 concerts on tour
4 concerts at the 2019 Easter Festival in Baden-Baden
4 opera performances at the 2019 Easter Festival in Baden-Baden

Chief conductor designate Kirill Petrenko will conduct 13 concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker. The 2018/2019 season is a time of transition for the Berliner Philharmoniker. After Sir Simon Rattle’s departure as chief conductor and artistic director and before his successor Kirill Petrenko begins his tenure, the coming season offers an opportunity to experience many different guest conductors on the orchestra’s podium. The theme “transition” can also apply in the figurative sense to the many conductors of the younger generation who have been engaged for two programmes each – some with tours. During the past few years, conductors such as Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, Tugan Sokhiev, Paavo Järvi and Yannick Nézet-Séguin have also made the transition
from young talent to established artist on our stage. In addition to the concerts at the Philharmonie we will go on tour with Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Tugan Sokhiev. The latter will also conduct the final concert of the season in the Waldbühne, and Paavo Järvi will support our Education Programme by conducting the Meet the School Orchestra rehearsal and concert. In the tradition of his predecessor Claudio Abbado, in future Sir Simon Rattle will conduct at least one programme every season. Conductors Sakari Oramo and Valery Gergiev will return to the Berliner Philharmoniker again after a long absence.

Debuts by Conductors and Soloists
Jakub Hrůša (11/12/13 October 2018), chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Michael Sanderling (30/31 May and 1 June 2019), chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, and Constantinos Carydis (13/14/15 June 2019), who is a regular guest at the Bavarian State Opera, will make their debuts conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker during the 2018/2019 season. Violinist Carolin Widmann (13/14/15 September 2018), mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa (26 June 2019 at the Düsseldorf Tonhalle, 27 June 2019 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and 29 June 2019 in Berlin’s Waldbühne), pianists Cédric Tiberghien (8/9 September 2018) and Paul Lewis (9/10/11 May 2019) and percussionist Martin Grubinger (28 February and 1/2 March 2019) will appear for the first time as
soloists with the orchestra. In addition, the Arod Quartet and the Jack Quartet will perform for the first time in the Chamber Music Hall.

Artist in Residence and Composer in Residence
The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov is Artist in Residence for the 2018/2019 season. He will be heard in 5 concert programmes: a solo recital on 21 February 2019, as soloist in a symphony concert conducted by Andris Nelsons (20/21/22 June 2019) and in 3 chamber concerts (30 September 2018, 6 January 2019 and 23 June 2019). Daniil Trifonov will also appear in a concert with the Karajan
Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker on 30 September 2018.

The Berliner Philharmoniker, in cooperation with the Musikfest Berlin, have invited the English composer George Benjamin to serve as Composer in Residence during the 2018/2019 season. His works will be heard during eight concerts in the Great Hall, the Chamber Music Hall and at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden. He will conduct one of these concerts himself.

World, European and Berliner Philharmoniker Premieres
Two world premieres, a work by Mark Andre with the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin and a work by Gregor Mayrhofer with the Karajan Academy as well as 2 European premieres, Brett Dean’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra and Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Metacosmos, will be presented during the coming season.

Several works will be heard on Berliner Philharmoniker programmes for the first time during the coming season: the Concerto for Two Pianos by Max Bruch, Detlev Glanert’s Weites Land, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah” and Divertimento for Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel, Speaking Drums by Peter Eötvös with Martin Grubinger and Zubin Mehta,
My Melodies for eight horns and orchestra by Helmut Lachenmann, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, and Wilhelm Stenhammar’s Second Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt.

In Retrospect: The Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation during Fiscal Year 2017
138 symphony concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker, including:
103 concerts in the Great Hall and 35 concerts during tours
38 concerts in the Chamber Music Hall
93% capacity in the Great Hall for internal events, which is equivalent to more than 227,00 paying
patrons / tickets sold
77% capacity in the Chamber Music Hall for internal events, which is equivalent to 36,000 paying
patrons / tickets sold
371 rentals of the Great Hall and Chamber Music Hall
65.5% self-financing level (coverage of expenditures through internal earnings)

Cottbus, a small town in Germany, is in uproar.

Musicians and singers have been protesting what they say is rough conduct by the American music director Evan Alexis Christ. The artistic director Martin Schüler has been trying to bring the two sides together.

Today he failed, and quit the job.

Christ is reported to have refused an offer of mediation. He denies this. He says: ‘ In fact I am very in favour of communication and finding a way to bring both sides together.’

Last night’s Romeo et Juliette ballet and the general rehearsal for Richard Jones’s new production of Parsifal have been called off by the Opéra de Paris after two cables snapped backstage at the Bastille.

It appears that the incident occurred around a fire door when two 18-tonne counterweight cables broke without warning.

‘The Opéra national de Paris is doing everything possible so that the normal course of performances can resume in the next few days,’ says the company.

That sounds bad.

 

We are shocked to hear that students at the Boston Conservatory have been informed that, if they wish to practice over the summer, they must pay a $325 fee in order to do so.

The students have been given three weeks’ notice of this new charge and few of them can afford it.

Boston Conservatory s presently focusing its energies on a merger with Berklee and losing sight of its students’ needs.

UPDATE: Last night, the Conservatory’s executive director Cathy Young put the new charge on hold – but just for a while. She wrote to students saying:

Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding the implementation of a summer practice room facility fee. In response to your feedback, Conservatory and College administration has determined to delay implementation of this policy, which means that it will not go into effect this summer 2018 for the Conservatory as originally planned. Conservatory students who wish to use practice rooms this summer may do as they have in the past. Further information about how to utilize practice rooms is forthcoming. 

We love the sound of New York’s Catacomb concerts.

We love it even more that patrons are invited to sample single malts before the show, all the more helpful since much of the content is contemporary music.

We love it that Glyndebourne’s winner Samantha Hankey has been signed up for a debut.

The drawback?

PLEASE NOTE: Ticketholders must be 21 years or older. Tickets are $80, $75.

Must be some local bye-law

Full details here.

The Vancouver Symphony has hired Misha Aster as Vice President, Artistic Planning and Production.

Aster, 40, is author of a soft-touch history of the Berlin Philharmonic in the Nazi era. He works for Deutsche Grammophon in Berlin as a producer and is on the board of the Gustavo Dudamel Foundation.

Vancouver, which reaches its centenary next year, has also taken on Neil Middleton from Winnipeg as V-P, Marketing & Sales.

A Music Modernization Act passed the House of Representatives last night by 415 votes.

The bill, HR 5477, is being pushed by the music industry and has bipartisan sponsors in Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). It is supposed to improve copyright protection.

Its title led me to think there might be a Schoenberg and Boulez clause, but no….

The William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation has just written a little check to the San Francisco Conservatory.

At $46.4 million, it is claimed to be the largest ever given to a music conservatory for a new facility.

Mr Bowes, who died in 2016, ran a venture capital firm.

 

press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, APRIL 25, 2018 – The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) announces the expansion of its campus and the construction of the Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts (The Bowes Center) in San Francisco’s Civic Center. The $185 million performing arts center and residential tower will be located at 200 Van Ness Avenue and construction will begin in the summer of 2018. The opening of the new building is slated for the fall of 2020 when it will welcome its first class of residents to a facility that will transform students through the study of music at the highest level. The name of the building is in honor and recognition of a financial gift of $46.4 million from the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, which is the largest single gift ever made to a conservatory or music school for a new facility. To date, $96 million has been raised toward a fundraising goal of $110 million. The existing SFCM building at 50 Oak Street will remain in active use through the construction of the new building and after it is completed.

The new, 12-story building, designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates, will provide housing for 420 students and accommodate two concert halls (featuring hundreds of performances annually with over 90% of them free and open to the public), a restaurant with a live performance space, multiple classrooms and rehearsal spaces for ensembles, practice rooms, a recording studio and technology hall, a large observation deck and garden, conference facilities, a student center, and several apartments for visiting artists and faculty. In addition, the new building will include 27 apartments to replace the rent-stabilized residential units currently on site.

Canadian media are reporting the death of Huguette Tourangeau, a gracious mezzo who won the Met national auditions in 1964 and went on to become a main-stage and recording partner of Dame Joan Sutherland.

Among many roles, she sang a filmed Carmen in Hamburg and a televised Zerlina at the Met.

She retired early, in 1980.

Stephen Tavani will join the Cleveland Orchestra as Assistant Concertmaster and Zhan Shu as a member of the First Violin section from September 2018.

Tavani, 25, is presently concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

Zhan Shu has been a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 2014.

The UK label has won exclusive rights.

Here’s the small print:

When Prince Harry marries Ms. Meghan Markle next month, the Royal Wedding Ceremony will be recorded live and released on Decca Records within hours of the service ending. Decca, one of Britain’s most historic record labels, will have the privilege of capturing the entire service.

The official recording of the Wedding Service, to be held at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on Saturday 19th May, will be available to listen to at home that same day, then released into retail stores around the world from 25th May.

Musicians confirmed to perform at the wedding ceremony include British cellist Sheku Kanneh Mason, Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, The Choir of St George’s Chapel and Christian gospel group The Kingdom Choir. The Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Warren-Green, will be made up of musicians from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia. State Trumpeters are drawn from all ranks of the Band of the Household Cavalry, and will provide ceremonial support during the Service at St George’s Chapel. The music will be under the direction of James Vivian, Director of Music, St George’s Chapel. The physical album will include a special collector’s booklet. The recording will also be made available on vinyl.

Decca Records is a part of Universal Music, the world’s leading music company, and has previously recorded and released the Wedding of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, as well as the Wedding of The Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981, and the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. This uniquely original new recording will be the next in a historic line to mark major milestones for The Royal Family, and as such it will enter the homes of millions across the whole world.

The album will be produced by one of the world’s finest classical record producers, Anna Barry, who has produced over 500 recordings of distinction for over 25 years, ranging from works by Andrew Lloyd Webber to opera at the Mariinsky Theatre with Valery Gergiev, and many other legendary artists including José Carreras and Zubin Mehta.

The multi-Grammy-nominated producer said of the Royal Wedding recording: “Capturing the words and music of this Royal Wedding is a great responsibility, knowing how much a permanent record of the event will mean to so many people around the world. Our Decca team will deliver a state of the art recording which captures every nuance of this very happy day and it will be a joy to be a part of the celebrations.”

Rebecca Allen, President of Decca Records said: “Decca is hugely proud of its historical connections to The Royal Family and is very much looking forward to recording, and making available within hours, this truly special event. This unique and prestigious occasion will be available to stream across all music platforms globally – a first for a Royal Wedding.”

Dickon Stainer, President & CEO, Global Classics & Jazz said: “This will go down in history as the first time a Royal Wedding can be re-lived within hours through the world’s streaming platforms; every word and every note of music.”

The album will be produced by one of the world’s finest classical record producers, Anna Barry, who has produced over 500 recordings of distinction for over 25 years, ranging from works by Andrew Lloyd Webber to opera at the Mariinsky Theatre with Valery Gergiev, and many other legendary artists including José Carreras and Zubin Mehta.