The conductor Tugan Sokhiev has vanished from the AskonasHolt website.

The Bolshoi music director has, we hear, transferred his worldwide management to Kajimoto in Tokyo.

But the Japanese have been too reticent to announce anything yet.

And his own website has not been updated for three years.

Without Slipped Disc, who would ever know?

Emerson Millar is the new Co-Concertmaster of the Naples philharmonic, a position endowed with a $1m gift.

Annie Rabbat of A Far Cry has been appointed concertmaster at Boston Lyric Opera.

 

 

Drew McManus has put together the pay scale for music directors, taken from 2015/16 orchestra accounts. It’s a grim read.

Jaap Van Zweden continued to make an absolute killing in Dallas – can New York even afford him?

Riccardo Muti crossed the $3 million threshold in Chicago and MTT is doing well in SanFran with his long-service bonuses.

Here’s the score that really matters: what maestros make –


1 Dallas Symphony: $3,642,804
2 Chicago Symphony: $3,046,137
3 San Francisco Symphony: $2,600,275
4 Los Angeles Philharmonic: $1,983,314
5 New York Philharmonic: $1,793,837
6 Cleveland Orchestra: $1,406,143
7 Philadelphia Orchestra: $1,339,333
8 Boston Symphony: $1,301,000
9 Saint Louis Symphony: $1,041,851
10 Pittsburgh Symphony: $918,550

Read on here.

See also Who’s America’s top-paid orchestral exec and Covent Garden’s Pappano is seriously underpaid.

You wouldn’t ordinarily associate singer-songwriter Gregory Porter with one of the world’s top orchestras, but when the chips are down and the stakes are high, Greg is just the biz. Read here.

photo (c) Todd Rosenberg

The death has been announced of Bonaldo Giaiotti, one of the foremost bass singers of his time.

In 1960, three years after his Milan debut, he sang for the first time at the Met, returning annually for 25 years. He was a summer fixture at the Arena di Verona for three decades. Like many of his generation, he kept his repertoire small – just 30 roles.

He was often cast as Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Ramfis in Aida, Timur in Turandot, and he was extensively recorded.

His wife, Alice Weinberger, predeceased him by a matter of months.

In the Christian land of Donald J. Trump, it appears that God’s work doesn’t pay:

Dear Sponsors & Friends:
As you know, following the successful 2017 US tour of the Sistine Chapel Choir, AEG Presents and the Choir pursued a multi-city national tour for July 2018.  Due to a variety of challenges, AEG and theSistine ChapelChoir have decided to cancel the national tour. As a result, the Detroit performance scheduled for July 11, 2018 has been canceled.
While we are disappointed at this news, we will continue to seek to enrich people’s lives and promote culture consistent with our mission.  We thank each and every one of you for your support for this planned tour and only regret that you won’t have the opportunity to hear them here in Detroit.
Ticketholders will be reimbursed by the entity that received payment (Ticketmaster, Detroit Opera House, or CTS).
Thank you for your support, understanding and prayers!
John
John P. Hale
Owner
Corporate Travel Service

The chorus master Joseph Cullen, jailed in 2015 for offences against two young boys, yesterday admitted a further offence in Glasgow against a boy at St Andrew’s Cathedral.

The offence dates back to 1981 and persisted for three years.

Cullen, who was listed on two Grammy awards with the London Symphony Chorus, was Chorus Master of the Huddersfield Choral Society from 1999.

Sentence has been deferred for a month.

Report here.

 

 

 

One of the casualties of the shrinkage of ICA Artists, the violinist Charlie Siem has moved his management to Italy.


(The other one is twerky Miley Cyrus)

Press release: Only Stage is thrilled to have on board the amazing violinist CHARLIE SIEM!!

Yesterday six members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra boarded a number 25 bus at Tottenham Court Road and amused commuters on their way home to Ilford in Essex.

The stunt was designed to promote a new brand of iced tea, called Fuze Tea.

We think the subliminal message is: you’re never safe from the RPO.

Or: The RPO reaches routes other bands cannot board.

Or: Any more fares please, says the RPO conductor.

 

Keep your captions coming in.

 

  • You wait ages for an RPO and then 3 come along…

We have been informed of the sudden passing on Saturday of David Bousso, 34, music director of the Empire Chamber Orchestra, which he founded in 2014 to give young musicians professional experience.

A New Yorker born and bred, David played violin with Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 32 countries and was awarded a Barenboim-Said Scholarship. He was recently included in a conducting workshop by Daniele Gatti and the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

The cause of death is unknown, apparently unexpected.

Our sympathies to his family and many friends.

His brother, Joseph Bousso, is resident conductor (1. Kapellmeister) at the Koblenz Opera.

The American pianist Claire Huangci, 27, won the triennial Zurich competition last night.

She lists Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute and Arie Vardi in Hanover as her teachers.

None of these was on the jury.

Well done, Claire.