People who keep count of such things have reported that Lohengrin will be Christian Thielemann’s tenth opera at Bayreuth.

The only other conductor who ever managed a full hand of Wagner operas at Bayreuth died in 1911.

His name?

 

 

A woman who wrecked her luthier husband’s musical instruments in the midst of an alimony dispute has been sentenced to two years by a Japanese court in Nagoya.

Qin Yue, 35, wrecked 54 violins and 70 bows and scrawled graffiti on the walls of her husband’s workshop.

She is described as ethnic Chinese, he as a Norwegian in his 60s.

Their divorce was finalised in 2016.

Qin Yue is appealing the sentence.

Court report here.

The US-Israeli director Yuval Sharon tells the LA Times that he’d like to do the four acts of La Bohème in reverse order:

 It will work really well, from devastation to the beginning. Some people might even think it’s the way it’s supposed to happen. …You can put it on the moon or anywhere else and it’s still the same old Bohème. But how do you get to the core of this piece if not by radically transforming our ability to listen to this piece and thereby open a door to a way that we’ve never thought about it before? So if we end in Act 1, with them singing offstage with these high C’s, what a wonderful way to end an opera.

Sharon is about to stage Lohengrin at Bayreuth.

Or should we expect Nirgnehol?

That has much a better ring to it.

The summer is unnaturally becalmed.

Usually by the end of the first week of Proms we have a sheaf of withdrawals for all sorts of reasons.

This year, the changes are minute:

BBC PROMS 2018

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO THE PUBLISHED GUIDE

13 July – 08 September

With the BBC Proms 2018 season now underway, there are a number of amendments to the published guide we wanted to make you aware of. These are listed below.

Prom 11 (Sunday 22 July)

Please note that Christine Rice has withdrawn from this Prom. We are pleased to announce that Marianne Beate Kielland will be performing in this Prom.

 

Prom 13 (Monday 23 July)

We are pleased to announce further artists for this Prom including James Bulley and Suzanne Ciani. A new work composed by Laurie Spiegel will also be performed in this Prom. This Prom is being broadcast on BBC Four on Friday 27 July.

Prom 23 (Tuesday 31 July)

We are pleased to announce the full line of artists for this Prom including  Mista Savona, Randy Valentine, Solis Cuba, Brenda Navarrete, Julito Padron, Mathieu Bost, Bopee Bowen, Rolando Luna, Valery  ‘Valess’ Assouan and Manuel Garcia. Please also note that this Prom will be presented from the stage by David Rodigan.

Prom 25 (Thursday 2 August)

Please note that Mårten Larsson will replace Karin Egart in Brandenburg Concerto No. 1. Mårten, who was scheduled to play 2nd oboe in Brandenburg 1 will be replaced by Daniel Burstedt.

Prom 35 (Wednesday 8th August)

We are pleased to announce that BBC Radio 6 Music will record this Prom for Gideon Coe’s show.

 

Prom 41 (Sunday 12 August)

We are pleased to announce Alexandre Duhamel as the baritone in this Prom. He will perform in Lili Boulanger’s Pour les funérailles d’un soldat.

Prom 43 (Tuesday 14 August)

Please note that Lisa Batiashvilli will now perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto; it was previously announced that she would perform Brahms’s Violin Concerto.

Prom 46 (Thursday 16 August)

We are pleased to announce that composer, Laura Jurd has been commissioned by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra for a new work to open this concert. Her piece,The Earth Keeps Spinning will receive its world premiere.

Prom 59 (Monday 27 August)
We are pleased to announce that poet Donna Williams and signer Julie Doyle will join the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the Relaxed Prom.

Prom 65 (Friday 31 August)
Please note that this concert will now start at 19.00 rather than 19.30.

Prom 65a (Friday 31 August)
Please note that this Prom has been moved from 21 August.

PCM6 (Monday 20 August)
Please note the title of Laura Mvula’s new work is now Love Like a Lion.

Scratch Orchestra (Sunday 26 August)

Please note that the Scratch Orchestra will now take place on Sunday 26 August.

press release:

The Royal College of Music (RCM) has become the first London conservatoire to rename its Masters in Piano Accompaniment to highlight the central role of the pianist in collaborative music making and to give emphasis to the range of skills gained on the course. Students will apply for a ‘Masters in Collaborative Piano’ when applications open this month.

Oh, fff’s sake. And that’s going to make them better pianists and musicians?

Friends are sharing memories of Thomas Stevens, principal trumpet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1972 to 1999 and an instrumental pioneer for whom Luciano Berio wrote Sequenza X. He recorded Maxwell Davies, Henze, Bernstein, a whole generation.

Tom was a huge personality and a vastly influential teacher. He was about to turn 80 this month.

Markus Stockhausen writes: Farewell for ***Thomas Stevens***, fantastic (principal) trumpet player from Los Angeles, teacher, composer, who passed away on July 14th, 2018. Thanks dear Tom for so many beautiful and inspiring moments together.

Ryan Bancroft writes: I’ve only ever had three trumpet teachers in my life, one of whom has now left us. I am deeply saddened by this fact. All the love that I can muster to his family, our musical community, and the trumpet family that he monumentally fostered and loved so fiercely.
Tom Stevens. I love you.

Rodney Marsalis writes:

I once played a private audition for a well-known conductor. I won’t say his name because he is still alive and facing his own “me too” moment. He was looking for someone to play Co-Principal Trumpet with his aging Principal Trumpet player. I had trained for years on excerpts, getting really intense during my years at The Curtis Institute of Music. I was playing Principal Trumpet in a major European city. The private audition ended up being witnessed by a full symphony orchestra and local press. My current conductor told this well-known conductor everything about me except one thing – the color of my skin. The look on his face when I walked into the room was priceless. He wanted to cancel the audition before I played a note, but there were literally reporters in the room and it was too late to turn back. It was the best audition I had played up until that point. The conductor’s colleague took me aside afterward and said, “if this audition were for Berlin Philharmonic, he would hire you right now as Principal Trumpet, but famed American trumpeter XXX XXXXXXX will never sit next to a black man as his equal.” Fast forward one year and I am sitting in a restaurant with Thomas Stevens in a southern European city. I told him about the audition. He knew XXX XXXXXXX personally. Tom laughed and said. “Yeah, XXX XXXXXXX would likely say that you play really great for a black guy! He certainly would never sit next to you as his equal.” Up until that moment, I still was not sure about what had happened with that private audition a year earlier. Stevensconfirmed it and he did not have to do that. He helped put me on a path where I would continuously try to improve while ignoring outdated notions about who was capable of what based on race, gender, national origin, etc. Thanks and RIP Thomas Stevens. You were always ahead of your time. I will continue to share your beautiful recordings with students and I will always be grateful for your upfront and forthright manner of dealing with the truth.

 

Yale University has announced the retirement of Aldo Parisot after 60 years on the faculty of its School of Music.

Aldo’s students include Ralph Kirshbaum, Jian Wang, Roman Jablonsky, Shauna Rolston, and Carter Brey,

Born in Natal, Brazil, in September 1921, he arrived at Yale as a student in 1946 and liked it so much he never left.

Read an appreciation here.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Numerous bids are being made in this centennial year to redeem Leonard Bernstein’s three symphonies from their fatal flaws. None that I have heard makes a better fist of it than Antonio Pappano’s new set with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Pappano, who met Bernstein as his would-be repetiteur on an opera production, has a keen empathy for the composer’s melting-pot background. From first note to last, he tones down gestural excesses and desperate self-borrowings. The Rome orchestra plays like a Broadway pick-up band – Broadway usually recruited the best players in New York – and the soloists are exquisitely well-chosen.

Does that redeem the symphonies? That would be an impossible dream…..

Read on here.

Another international competition is discredited.

At the 4th Tokyo International Viola Competition, the first prize has been awarded to Luosha Fang, 29, from China,  a student of Nobuko Imai at the Kronberg Academy.

The president of the Tokyo jury was Nobuko Imai.

When will they ever learn?