George Walker has died.

The first Afro-American graduate of Curtis, he won a Pulitzer prize in 1996 for Lilacs for voice and orchestra and received his first performance at the BBC Proms only last summer.

I am distressed to report the sudden death today of Noam Sheriff. We were friends for more than 25 years and shared untold amounts of laughter, dreams and creative conversation. Noam was 83.

Noam Sheriff was the first native-born composer to have a work performed by the Israel Philharmonic and the first to make an impact abroad.

His oratorio Resurrection was performed at the Salzburg Festival. Pasion Sepharadi was premiered by Placido Domingo.

Noam founded and conducted the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon lezion and was the teacher of two generations of Israeli composers.

His own teachers were Paul Ben Haim and Boris Blacher, both steeped in the German tradition.

I will write more later. The news right now is too raw.

UPDATES: The maestro who made time…. for a boy with cerebral palsy.

It’ll get serious soon.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

 

…. The 11th is another matter, a revelation. Named ‘the year 1905’ after the first Russian revolution and intended to keep the commissars off the composer’s back, the symphony is widely misunderstood as his acquiescence to the posy-Stalin regime, when it was nothing of the sort. By taking the opening Adagio at a snail’s pace, Nelsons opens up the inner textures to expose trepidation in place of celebration, private humanity ahead of political bluster….

Read on here.

And here.

We spoke too soon when lamenting his neglect.

Aside from the upcoming Dutch blast, London’s South Bank has just announced a Karlheinz fest.

Here’s the small print:

The season culminates in the first UK performance of Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht since its UK premiere at the Royal Opera House in 1985. Recipients of the Fondation Stockhausen first prize in 2013, Le Balcon, and their founder and conductor Maxim Pascale make their UK debut with two performances of the opera, combining forces with London Sinfonietta, the New London Chamber Choir and the Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble in a new staged production directed by Benjamin Lazar (21-22 May 2019).

press release:

New York, NY—The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project announces the digital publication of the Leonard Bernstein Residence at the Osborne Apartments to its online map, a dynamic continually-evolving catalogue of geographic locations significant to LGBT history. This Saturday, August 25th, is the centennial of the great composer’s birth and an auspicious moment to consider his monumental contributions to American classical music.

The Osborne Apartments, located at 205 West 57th Street in Manhattan, was designed by architect James E. Ware and built in 1883-85.
Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer of classical and Broadway music, conductor, and educator, was born on August 25, 1918, to Jewish immigrant parents in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston. While studying music at Harvard, he met three of the musical figures who would have a great influence on his work and career – conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos and composers Aaron Copland (a life-long friend) and Marc Blitzstein. Bernstein had brief affairs with both Mitropoulos and Copland.

 

….

Located diagonally across from Carnegie Hall (another LGBT historic site), the Osborne Apartments has long been a popular home for people in the arts. Other significant LGBT residents have included:
  • Bobby Short, legendary cabaret artist (who lived in Bernstein’s former apartment)
  • Van Cliburn, pianist who won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958, at 23
  • Robert Osborne, actor and film historian best known for hosting prime-time films on Turner Classic Movies
  • Leo Lerman, editor and writer, along with his partner, artist Gary Foy
  • Fran Lebowitz, author
  • Fernando Sanchez, fashion designer best known for his provocative lingerie designs, including items worn by Madonna, Cher, Tina Turner, and Elizabeth Taylor