Mark Turner, executive director of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra in Canada, has been assaulted in his office by a stranger who hit him in the face with the blunt side of a fork.

The attack occurred at 1pm local and a suspect was later arrested. Mark is recovering at home.

Report here.

Statement from the Washington Bach Consort:

Two-plus years after losing our cherished founder and maestro J. Reilly Lewis, the Washington Bach Consort proudly announces today our new artistic leader… We truly tried to involve everyone, and feel a spirit of consensus and excitement that Dana Marsh will take us to an even more beautiful and exciting musical future. 

The English bass has been named Artistic Consultant to the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

More here.

Larry Johnson reports on South Florida Classical Review:

The Miami-based Chopin Foundation of the United States has raised its top cash prize to $100,000 for 2020, making it the highest piano competition award in the country. … In addition to the $100,000 cash prize, the winner of the National Chopin Competition will automatically be allowed to compete in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

More here.

 

The Varchetti family of Detroit ordered a pizza from Hungry Howie’s.

The delivery guy, 18, saw a piano and asked if he could play it.

Heck the boy can play. He’s called Bruce Dudal.

We hear that ‘a superstar conductor’ is about to be named music director of a no-expense-spared festival and they’d like us to be present at his (sorry, Mirga) coronation.

Here’s the PR tempter:

Hi Norman,

We just had a few more spots open up last minute and would like to invite you to join us this Thursday, August 2nd to cover a press conference in the Swiss Alps at the Verbier Festival, where the Georgian based Tsinandali Foundation (TF) and founders of the Verbier Music Festival are unveiling their new 100 million dollar project entitled Language of Music (“LOM”), and announcing details on their 2019 large-scale classical music festival in Georgia. Flights and hotel (3 nights) accommodations are provided in Verbier, but please let us know ASAP if you are able to join us as space is extremely limited.

On Wednesday we are flying select journalist to Verbier to cover the press conference at hotel Chalet d’Adrien, and would love to have you join us in this stunning resort town where we will be announcing the 2019 Tsinandali Classical Music Festival program and the festival’s world renowned new music director. Below is a tentative agenda for August 2nd, as well as details on the “Language of Music” project.

Please let us know if you are interested in attending and we will work to coordinate your travel arrangements and itinerary right away.

Er, that’s still no thanks.
We’ll name the music director shortly.

The intended Maria for the Proms showpiece pulled out because the cast was not Latino enough.

Others wondered why the BBC needed to import Americans when plenty of Brits can sing Bernstein’s show. The typecasting is simply unnecessary and often ridiculous.

As ever, the BBC took public concerns abroad.

It is proceeding with an all-American cast.

Press release:

The BBC Proms are pleased to announce the cast for the two concert performances of Bernstein’s West Side Story at the Proms on Saturday 11 August, led by John Wilson and the John Wilson Orchestra.

Leading the cast will be Mikaela Bennett as ‘Maria’ and Ross Lekites as ‘Tony’. Mikaela, a recent graduate of The Julliard School, has made her debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts in performances of West Side Story, as well as taking part in Bernstein on Broadway at the Kennedy Center, a concert celebrating the centenary of his birth. Ross Lekites will perform the role of ‘Tony’, a part he has sung many times in the US but brings to the UK for the first time.

Actress and singer Eden Espinosa, best known for her performance in the musical Wicked, performs the role of ‘Anita’, whilst Leo Roberts, most recently seen in the West End production of Evita, plays ‘Riff’ and Gian Marco Schiaretti joins the line-up as ‘Bernardo’.

From Anna Picard’s Times review of a new work at the BBC Proms by the Austrian experimentalist Georg Friedrich Haas:

For a composer unusually open about his sexual interests (his biography mentions the dominant-submissive relationship he enjoys with his wife) Haas is remarkably happy to leave his listeners staring at the ceiling, wondering when it will be over.

He’s a gift to a good critic.

First rehearsal shot from NHS ward Wagner:

 Photo: Enrico Nawrath/ Bayreuther Festspiele

Many conductors have reservations about the radical director Hans Neuenfels, whose production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades opens at Salzburg on Sunday. Neuenfels, renowned for his Bayreuth production where the chorus were dressed as rats, said yesterday that ‘it is very rare and almost bizarre for conductor and director to form a close-knit unit’.

Mariss Jansons is an exception.

Neuenfels (l.) said: ‘I have rarely felt that conductor and director could communicate so well.’

Jansons, calling the production ‘delightful’, added: ‘It is immensely joyful to be working at the Salzburg Festival with a first-rate orchestra such as the Vienna Philharmonic, a wonderful ensemble of singers and an outstanding director – I feel as if I’m in paradise.’


photo:  SF/Anne Zeuner

The New England Conservatory, becalmed under interim management since Tony Woodcock departed in early 2015, has finally decided on his successor.

Andrea Kalyn, Dean of Oberlin’s Conservatory since February 2014, will become president next January.

Kalyn has a PhD in 20th century American music.

 

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Canada’s foremost company, is at the heart of a child porn storm.

Sixty former dancers have filed suit against their former RWB teacher Bruce Monk, claiming he pressured them to pose unclothed or partly clothed for his camera between 1984 and 2015. They are demanding $75 million in damages from Monk and the company.

Monk denies the claims.

Report here.

Unrelated image of German Youth Ballet