The 39 contestants in the October 2018 International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Hanover. More than one third of those selected are presently studying in Germany. (That ought to reduce the travel bills.)

Here’s the list:

Austin Berman (m) | American

Lara Boschkor (f) | German

Lorenz Chen (m) | German

Jung Min Choi (f) | South Korean

Timothy Chooi (m) | Canadian

Anna Agafia Egholm (f) | Danish

Leonard Fu (m) | German

Rennosuke Fukuda (m) | Japanese

Yuichiro Fukuda (m) | Japanese

Marie-Astrid Hulot (f) | French

Mayumi Kanagawa (f) | American

Haram Kim (m) | South Korean

Issei Kurihara (m) | Japanese

Anna Lee (f) | American

Miyeon Lee (f) | South Korean

William Lee (m) | Taiwanese

Youjin Lee (f) | South Korean

Alexandra Lomeiko (f) | New Zealander

Mathilde Milwidsky (f) | British

Yasuka Morizono (f) | Japanese

Yukari Ohno (f) | Japanese

Seiji Okamoto (m) | Japanese

Rachel Ostler (f) | American

Jinsu Park (m) | South Korean

Kyumin Park (m) | South Korean

Xiaoxuan Shi (f) | Chinese

Ji Won Song (f) | South Korean

Cosima Soulez Lariviere (f) | French

Olga Sroubkova (f) | Czech

Christa-Maria Stangorra (f) | German

Naoko Tajima (f) | Japanese

Alexandra Tirsu (f) | Romanian

Dmytro Udovychenko (m) | Ukrainian

Eimi Wakui (f) | Japanese<

Jinyu Wang (m) | Chinese

Roxana Wisniewska Zabek (f) | Spanish

Victoria Wong (f) | Australian

Minami  Yoshida (f) | Japanese

Stephanie Zyzak (f) | American

It’s that time of year again. We had one of these last summer.

The performer here is Rafael Altino.

Watching the first nights of the BBC Proms, we were struck by a headline discrepancy.

All the women in BBC orchestras had washed and blow-dried their hair before the concerts, or almost all.

And the men?

Much less so.

Why is that?

Could it have something to do with the humidity at the Royal Albert Hall that reduces the best-groomed hair to a straggly mess?

The orchestra has announced auditions for five vacancies in the second violins.

Did no-one notice they were running low?

We shared video yesterday of Emily-Ondracek-Peterson sawing up a violin at the Crested Butte festival, of which she is joint artistic director. We asked Emily why.

All in the name of art, she replied:

Like many festivals this summer, the Crested Butte Music Festival’s 2018 season celebrates and explores Leonard Bernstein and his surrounding world – his compositions, works and composers he championed, and artistic movements that were taking place during his lifetime. For example, our concert last night featured 2018 Bernstein Award winner Charles Yang, performing Bernstein’s Serenade with Maestro Tito Munoz. On July 12th, we presented an evening of Fluxus performance art, in which audience members and festival performers were invited to perform works from the Fluxus movement. One of these events was Solo for Violin by George Maciunas, during which the performer is first asked to play the violin and then mutilate the instrument (full text below). For the record, the entire outfit – violin, bow, case, extra strings, and rosin – was purchased on Amazon for $25 and was more akin to a large Christmas Tree ornament than a violin. That the instrument made any sound was miraculous.

The reactions from the viewers and comments prove that this is indeed a highly effective piece of Performance Art.

Solo for Violin (For Sylvano Bussotti)
play any sentimental tune
scrape strings with a nail
loosen strings and pluck
break string by over tensioning peg
insert bow between strings & sound
board & oscillate bow
hold bow to shoulders & bow with violin
strike with bow over sound board
scrape inside of sound box with box
blow through sound holes
put pebbles inside sound box and shake
violin
scrape floor with violin
push-pull violin over table or floor
scratch violin with sharp tool
saw violin or part of it
Chat conversation end
Type a message…

From movement coach Stefanie Buller:

In my coachings I experience the freeing impact of simply addressing this problem on female cellists. And also cello teachers are often helpless when it comes to this topic. And it speaks for every cello teacher to be insecure how to address it. Especially when teaching teenagers whose body is basically changing every day. So my hope is to provide some support and a first approach….

Read on here.

Former students tell us they are taking Bella Davidovich out to lunch today in New York for her 90th birthday.

A formidable pianist who came joint first in the 1949 Warsaw Chopin Competition, Bella was a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic for 28 successive years. Married to the violinist Julian Sitkovetsky until his early death in 1958, she left the USSR in 1978 and started teaching at Juilliard four years later.

Her son Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a London-based violinist and conductor. Her granddaughter is the soprano Julia Sitkovetsky.

On Moscow’s happiest night since 1812, the Bolshoi Theatre had to be evacuated after a bomb threat was phoned in.

Some 200 were escorted out of the building before security services declared it safe.

The third act of Australian Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty in Adelaide was blacked out by a power failure last week.

The show was stopped and the audience evacuated.

It turned out a rat had climbed into the 11,000-volt power box and nibbled through a cable.

It is thought he was trying to audition for Lohengrin at Bayreuth (below).