Drew McManus has been doing the math and it looks like the San Francisco Symphony is leading the field for 2017/18, overtaking the swagger of the LA Phil.
Into Drew’s calculations, we have inserted the Met Opera orchestra, which now ranks 7th, a notch behind the National Symphony of Washington DC who have crept up out of nowhere.
Here’s the league table:
1 San Francisco Symphony – base pay $166,400
2 Los Angeles Philharmonic $164,476
3 Chicago Symphony $159,016
4 Boston Symphony $153,400
5 New York Philharmonic $147,550
6 National Symphony $143,208
7 MET Orchestra $135,328.36
8 Cleveland Orchestra $135,096
9 Philadelphia Orchestra $134,420
The Finnish soprano Anu Komsi has decided to shut down the Kokkola Opera Festival. Komsi, who is married to the conductor Sakari Oramo, suggests growing financial pressures. Here’s what she says:
Kokkola Opera will cease its activities (after) 2018. The society has produced the Kokkola Opera Summer festival between 2006 and 2018, and performed on tours in Finland and Sweden under the name West Coast Kokkola Opera.
The Kokkola Opera society will cease its activities on a high. The economy is sound and the festive production to celebrate Finland ́s 100 years of independence, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Etoile du Nord, was a success both in Kokkola in July and at the Helsinki Music Centre in November. Kokkola Opera Summer became the most appreciated Finnish festival internationally, when the biggest opera magazine, Opernwelt, named the festival as the most interesting and high-standard in the opera genre and placed it on its front page. The CD recordings of Fagerlund’s Döbeln and Hoffmann’s Ahti Karjalainen have won international acclaim and won the highest Finnish cd prizes.
The Kokkola Opera society has commissioned three works from Finnish contemporary composers: Sebastian Fagerlund’s Döbeln in 2009, Heinz-Juhani Hoffmann’s Ahti Karjalainen in 2012 and Seppo Pohjola’s Harrbåda’s Maiden in 2015. In 2008 the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture singled the society out for innovative and high-quality work. Several conductors who now lead international careers have made their debuts with the Kokkola Opera: Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Dalia Stasevska, Giancarlo Rizzi.
Whilst international recognition has steadily grown, the same cannot be said of the financial input from the city of Kokkola, and collecting sufficient funds from the private sector would have become too heavy a burden for us and affected our artistic development. The production of L’Eoile du Nord for instance was financed 70% by the private sector and foundations, and only 30% by the city and TAIKE (Ministry of Education and Culture). The great successes of our productions have been founded on our loyal and steadily growing audience in Kokkola and the surrounding areas, who have turned up for contemporary premieres as well as blockbuster hits. It has been rewarding to receive thanks from unknown audience members specifically on the commissioned works! Thanks to the tireless men and women of the Opera’s support society.
There are not enough words to thank our longtime supporters: the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, ELISA, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Erkko Foundation. Many thanks to everyone who have been involved in our productions in any capacity.To finish at the highest level gives satisfaction.
Anu Komsi, Chairman of the Board and Artistic Director
We reported last week that 52 percent of the musicians in the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra did not want to work again with Antonio Mendez, a young man who has been appointed their new music director.
A response from the orchestra management, which we duly published, claimed we had got our facts wrong.
Well, they would say that. In fact, our figure was based on a poll taken after Mendez’s previous appearance with the orchestra.
After the latest vote by musicians on guest conductors, fully 59.57 percent said they do not want Mr Mendez to return.
The question asked was: ‘would you like to see him/ her come back?’ Yes or No.
(click right on the image to magnify in a new window)
Born in Budapest, flourishing in Vienna and holding a professor’s chair in both capitals, the composer Georg Aranyi-Aschner died last Thursday at a great age.
Among more than 500 scores, he published five symphonies.
The Guardian has published its annual league of university rankings for music, based mostly on degrees of student satisfaction.
Durham comes top, Surrey second.
Oxford des not make the top ten, and Cambridge, well….
Curiously, in the all-subject league table, Cambridge comes top and Oxford second. Some musical dysfunction, perhaps?
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has just named Maxim Emelyanychev as its next principal conductor.
He succeeds Robin Ticciati, who went on to bigger things in Berlin.
A student of Gennady Rozhdestvensky in Moscow, Emelyanychev, 30, is currently conducting Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro in a cross-Europe tour. Joyce says: ‘I wish Maxim every success in his new appointment with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I am certain that he will bring a heartfelt, adventurous, monumental presence and vision.’
Rebecca Tyree, assistant professor of choral music education at Richmond, Virginia, has died of injuries sustained last week when she was knocked off her bicycle while riding with her partner. She was 62.
Rebecca joined Virginia Commonwealth University in 2000 after teaching 25 years in public schools.
We regret to share news of the death from cancer of Sandrine Plumel, co-founder three years ago of the Paris-based Intermezzo agency.
Véronique Gens and Marie-Nicole Lemieux were among her artists.
