In the short term, they are scrambling for conductors to fill next month’s dates.

Of their regular and recent conductors who are available, the following might make a preliminary shortlist:

Semyon Bychkov

Myung Whun Chung

 

John Eliot Gardiner

Daniel Harding

Manfred Honeck

We hear that Peter Salaff, founding member of the Cleveland Quartet, has resigned from the Cleveland Insitute of Music, apparently in the wake of its decision to fire its resident Cavani Quartet.

Salaff has taught at the Institute since 1995.

No formal announcement is being made.

The Dean is scrambling to put together a full strings teaching faculty.

A statement issued by Daniele Gatti through his lawyer in Torino:

 

STUDIO AWOCATO CHIUSANO

10121 Torino Via Bertolotti n. 2 – Tel. 011/4369069 Fax 436 93 03 00186 Roma Piazza del Porto di Ripetta n.1- tel. 06/32110968

ALBERTO BORBON

Oggetto: dichiarazione del Maestro Daniele Gatti

Con riferimento all’iniziativa assunta dal Presidente del Consiglio di Amministrazione e dal Direttore Generale della Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam di cessare il rapporto di collaborazione con il Maestro Daniele Gatti, quest’ultimo, mio tramite, tiene a far sapere agli organi di stampa che è esterrefatto e respinge fortemente qualsiasi tipo di accusa.

Il Maestro ha dato mandato ai suoi legali di tutelare la propria reputazione e di intraprendere eventuali azioni qualora tale campagna diffamatoria nei suoi confronti dovesse proseguire.

Distinti saluti.

Torino, 02 agosto 2018

 

Roughly, in English:

ALBERTO BORBON
Object: statement by Maestro Daniele Gatti
With reference to the initiative taken by the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the General Director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam to cease the relationship of collaboration with Maestro Daniele Gatti, the latter, my client, wishes to let the media know that he is stunned and strongly rejects any kind of accusation.

The Maestro has instructed his lawyers to protect his reputation and to take any action if this defamatory campaign against him should continue.
Yours sincerely.
Turin, 02 August 2018

Charlie Hamlen’s death has plunged the community into shock and mourning.

Edna Landau, ex-IMG Artists: Charles Hamlen, a towering (literally!) figure in my life, has gone to his eternal rest. There are no adequate words to express what he meant to me. I owe my entire career in the arts to him and to his unfailing belief in me. Charlie hired me in 1979 at a salary of $14,000 (!) when Hamlen Management was less than a year old. We embarked on a great adventure which, by force of logic, could never have succeeded. In his characteristic generosity, he insisted on renaming the company Hamlen-Landau Management after only six months. We didn’t know what it meant to be discouraged. We shared the same idealism, work ethic, moral code, optimism and love of music. We were blessed with one little miracle after another and achieved great things we couldn’t have ever imagined.

Charlie’s brilliance, warmth, sensitivity and fantastic sense of humor sustained me throughout the years. It was these qualities which attracted so many terrific artists to the IMG Artists roster. Even when he left IMG Artists to found Classical Action, a move which filled me with great admiration, I felt as though he had never left my side. His work there blossomed into something extraordinary which only he could have accomplished.

I have lost a dream business partner, confidante and best friend, but I take comfort in knowing that he left behind a legacy for others to emulate and a host of friends and colleagues who will seek to infuse each day with “a little bit of Charlie”, making it a better world for all of us. RIP, dearest Charlie

Charlotte Lee of Primo Artists writes: ‘Can’t believe he’s gone. He was the one who got me into the business 20 years ago and introduced me to Edna Landau, who then hired me to succeed Mark Newbanks. In the later years when he returned to IMG as Chairman, he sat in the cubicle outside my office. That was so Charlie. To insist on being amongst the people, not in an ivory tower. Just like how he always took the bus home after concerts, never a taxi. The most normal guy, yet the most extraordinary man.’

 

Gianandrea Noseda, already music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC and incoming chief at Zurich Opera, is about to be announced as music director of the Tsinandali Festival and the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra in the village of Tsinandali, Georgia.

Noseda says: ‘The belief that music carries the power to unite all human beings, regardless of their provenance, political and religious convictions and social status it has always guided my choices. I have therefore accepted with great enthusiasm the invitation to become music director of the Tsinandali Festival with the idea to form a new generation of music talents selected in the Caucasus region to create the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra: through the passion, the engagement and the sharing of common values that the young will dedicate to reach a high level of quality and art, I am convinced we can – all together – influence the development of a better society based on respect, tolerance, and admission.’

The festival is being launched at Verbier and will be guided by the Verbier Festival founders, Avi Shoshani, and Martin Engstroem, which may raise some eyebrows. The PR guff says $100 million is being spent.

Shoshani, outgoing head of the Israel Phil, says: ‘Myself and my partner in the Verbier Festival, Martin Engstroem are ready to share decades of our lifetime experience in music world with Tsinandali Festival and support its visionary founder, George Ramishvili who has dedicated years and substantial funds to change young people’s lives for better by transforming the historic Tsinandali Estate into a global destination of peace, educational and cultural center of the Caucasus where the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra will flourish for years to come and the language of music will be the guiding principle of humanity for everyone visiting Tsinandali. I’m humbled to say that in the last 25 years Verbier Festival made its meaningful contribution to the development of classical music industry by acting as a highly viable platform for the young talent to interact with some of the today’s stars which allows young musicians to learn from the best and for the brightest classical music stars to have an opportunity to share their lifetime experience with the youth, first hand.’

The main reason is contained halfway down this morning’s announcement:

Since the publication of the article in the Washington Post, a number of female colleagues of the Concertgebouw Orchestra reported experiences with Gatti, which are inappropriate considering his position as chief conductor. This has irreparably damaged the relationship of trust  between the orchestra and the chief conductor.

The sub-reason is the secondary clause.

We have been hearing lately of deteriorating relations between the orchestra and its Italian conductor. Whether the sexual element is a contributory factor cannot be ascertained, but C’bouw players have been telling us of a poor atmosphere and lack of mutual trust, as well as general boredom at work. The initial attraction did not last long.

Gatti, 56, will not struggle to find freelance work around the world, starting in Japan and China.

The C’bouw, however, will be hard pressed to find front-line conductors at no notice to take over his concerts, let alone a credible successor as music director. This will be a major challenge, and a turning point, for the orchestra.

Watch this space.

Following allegations of sexual misconduct in the Washington Post:

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra terminates cooperation with chief conductor Daniele Gatti

Dear Sir,

We attach great value to inform you that the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has terminated the cooperation with chief conductor Daniele Gatti with immediate effect.

On 26 July, the Washington Post published an article in which Gatti was accused of inappropriate behavior. These accusations and Gatti’s reactions with this respect have caused a lot of commotion among both musicians and staff, as well as stakeholders both at home and abroad. Besides this, since the publication of the article in the Washington Post, a number of female colleagues of the Concertgebouw Orchestra reported experiences with Gatti, which are inappropriate considering his position as chief conductor. This has irreparably damaged the relationship of trust  between the orchestra and the chief conductor.

All concerts scheduled with Daniele Gatti will proceed with other conductors.

Kind regards,

Jan Raes – managing director Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

UPDATE: Why the Concertgebouw fired Gatti

UPDATE: Gatti warns orchestra and media of legal action

The Philadelphia Orchestra has adjusted its upcoming season after criticism that it contained no music by women.

Two works have been inserted: Perspectives by Canadian composer Stacey Brown, which Yannick premiered in Montreal, and Masquerade by the British composer Anna Clyne.

Smart move.

Opera audiences respect white hairs, on the whole.

When an artist has put in 50 or 60 years, he or she can expect at the very least a polite hearing and certainly not bad tomatoes.

So there’s a lot of head-scratching going on as to why Placido Domingo, 77, got so unmistakably and discourteously booed at the Bayreuth revival of Die Walküre.

One line is that is was simply a bad performance. Domingo, not the most flexible of part-time conductors, was simply inadequate to the demands of a complex Wagnerian score. He failed to shape the cntour of the piece or to give the singers the security they require. Bayreuth operagoers get to see the top conductors. It did not take them long to see that Domingo was not numbered among them.

Another theory is that the protest was intended for Katie Wagner who, knowing that her regular customers hate the Frank Castorf Ring, thought she could sell it to ignorant mugs with Domingo’s name as window-dressing.

Well, that worked well, didn’t it?

 

We have just been notified of the death from liver cancer of Audrey Ellison, a busy agent who looked after the Master of the Queen’s Musick Malcolm Wlliamson and, more profitably, the Martinů and Rasumovsky Quartets, the pianists Risto Lauriala, Sequeira Costa, Hiromi Okada, Vesselin Stanev, Christopher Czaja Sager, Angela Lear, Barbara Nissman, and many others.

Before entering the music biz Audrey Prior was a kecturer in nutrition at the University of London and, fr a while, Secretary General of the Royal Society of Health. She was the author of Colman’s Book of Traditional British Cookery (1980).

Obituary here. 

 

The music biz is in mourning for Charles Hamlen, a gentleman and caring mentor.

Co-founder with Edna Landau in 1979 of what became IMG Artists, Charlie quit the business after selling to Mark McCormack in order to start a charity for people with Aids, which was then ravaging New York. It is called Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS.

He returned to chair IMG when its present owners got into moral and legal difficulties but he was never tainted by the seamy side. He was one of those people who made it possible for us to believe that you could work in the biz and still come out with clean hands.

Tributes are pouring in.

Ed Yim: One of our greatest people .

Anne Midgette: One of the true good guys in classical music has left the building. Such a kind man with such integrity and the courage of his convictions.

Janet Cowperthwaite: A brilliant, elegant, and kind man. A role model for many.

Crystal Wei: The first time I spoke to Charlie he was RSVPing to an event over the phone, and he gave me most gracious compliment even though we were strangers and I was a lowly assistant and we might never meet. I was so embarrassed. 10 years later we sat next to each other at work every day and it was always the same. He probably paid me 500 compliments over the years, and isn’t that a lot and a great more than most could do. There is no moment too mundane or dire to be held in grace and gratitude, and that I learned from the miracle superbeing that is and was charles Hamlen. I’m sure everyone has the same Charlie story. I will bowl for you forever. Gratitude.

You may know Ana de la Vega as an artist manager at Tanja Dorn’s agency in Hanover .

Well, as of today, she has given up the day job and become a fluite soloist on the back of rave reviews for her first release.

We wish her well.