The death has been announced of  Yury Zagorodnyuk, a violinist in the Mariinsky orchestra whose solos in popular ballets were admired the world over. He was a fixture in the orchestra for 43 years.

They cut things fine in Dallas.

Mathias Goerne called in sick at six hours’ notice on this weekend’s concert performance of Die Walküre.

Geeting a call from his agent, bass-baritone Kyle Albertson jumped in an Uber from San Francisco Opera, where he was covering Wotan, and booked his flight from the cab.

The assistant conductor awaited him in a limo on arrival to run through a few tempo points on the way to Meyerson Symphony Center. Kyle changed into his concert suit in the car.

He arrived just in time to shake Jaap van Zweden’s hand and go on stage for Act II, launching straight into Wotan’s long monologue.

Here’s a review.

From the Zurich Hochschule teacher, Liisa Tamminen:

I was today denied an access to Deutsche Bahn’s bus from Munich to Zürich. I was carrying my viola in the smallest possible shaped case. I offered to put in on my feet, or even take it out from the case, but the driver was only shouting me repeatedly that musical instruments are not aloud in Deutsche Bahn buses, doesn’t matter how small they are. She could not tell me any reason to this, except that that’s a rule. There were many other passengers with bigger and heavier hand luggage.

I booked the ticket from the Deutsche Bahn site, where they offer this as an alternative connection in the same page/time table where you can buy their train tickets.

Luckily the person I spoke with in the Munich main railway center after this incident was very understanding and I could change my ticket to the train, arriving few hours later to Zürich.

I have sent feedback to Deutsche Bahn but haven’t yet heard their answer.

Be careful on DB buses.

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama has stopped giving marks to first-year students in ‘a pilot scheme’ aimed at helping their mental well-being.

Here’s the rationale: ‘Across the higher education sector overall, and within performing arts in particular, mental health issues are well documented. Students have got enough challenges when they come to us with regard to adapting to the training model and working out where they fit within the college, so let’s not also the put them in a position where they are comparing themselves to each other. That can’t be healthy.’

Why not give them all degrees on arrival and send them happily back home?

The eminent Berlin composer Dieter Schnebel has died of heart disease.

An assiduous post-modernist, influenced by Stockhausen and John Cage, he applied serialist methodology to liturgical themes. He also wrote orchestral tributes to Schubert, Mahler and Janacek.

Ahead of Romania’s centenary of independence in December, Capriccio has recorded in Berlin a rediscovered 1916 oratorio, titled “Strigoii” (Ghosts).

The score turned up in in the 1970s at the Enescu museum but has only now been realised by the composer Cornel Țăranu. It is described as the missing link between his early Lieder and his great opera Oedipe.

Check it out.

From a very private recording.

“Hommage à Tschaikovsky” by György Kurtag played with gloves in the wonderful new Lugano concert hall as an encore after Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto…

It was an arrogant conductor that tipped Stephen Sitarski into the darkness.

Read here.

The rate of depression is higher amongst musicians than in the general population, says Dianna Kenny, professor of psychology and music at Australia’s University of Sydney. In one study, 32 percent of one orchestra’s players ticked off symptoms of depression in a questionnaire.

US soprano Vivica Genaux shows how to do the coloratura thing.

Jorge Bergero of Buenos Aires lost his former girlfriend to cancer.

His response was to set up Music for the Soul, a volunteer group who perform for the terminally ill.

The BBC has selected it as one of its inspirational causes. Wach.