Sir, Music should be the birthright of every child but it is fast becoming the preserve of the elite. As yesterday’s GCSE results show, the uptake of music at GCSE has fallen dramatically — down more than 15 per cent in two years. The EBacc continues to damage not only the take up of music at GCSE but also at Key Stage 3. Even the government’s own figures show the damage the EBacc is having on music and other creative subjects.
And yet we know that music is a vital part of an education. It provides knowledge, skills and problem-solving abilities that play a significant role in all children’s development. It is central to our cultural life, a key driver of economic growth, and gives our children the tools to navigate a fast changing digital world. Hence we urge the government to reverse its EBacc policy and take action now to keep music in our schools.
Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director, Royal Opera House; Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE, Conductor; Tasmin Little OBE FGSM Hon RAM ARCM (hons) Hon DLitt Hon DMus, International Violinist; Professor Julian Lloyd Webber, Principal, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; Nicola Benedetti MBE, International Violinist; Alison Balsom OBE, International Trumpet Soloist; Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE, Composer; Kathryn McDowell CBE, Managing Director, LSO; Sir James MacMillan CBE, Conductor, Young Composer Mentor, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Artistic Director, The Cumnock Tryst; John Wilson, Conductor, Arranger and Musicologist; Edward Gardner OBE, Conductor; Debbie Wiseman OBE, Composer and Conductor; Sir Thomas Allen CBE, Baritone, Chancellor of Durham University; Dame Sarah Connelly DBE, Mezzo-Soprano; Bramwell Tovey OC OM, Grammy and Juno award-winning conductor and composer, Music Director Emeritus, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; Professor Linda Merrick, PhD, MMus, GRSM (Hons), FRNCM, FRAM, FLCM, FHEA, FRSA, HonVCM, Principal, Royal Northern College of Music; Professor Colin Lawson CBE FRCM, Principal, Royal College of Music; Professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood CBE, FRNCM, FRCM, Principal, Royal Academy of Music; Professor Gavin Henderson CBE Hon FRCM, FRNCM, Principal, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama; Sir Mark Featherstone-Witty OBE, Founding Principal and Chief Executive, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; Suzi Digby (Lady Eatwell) OBE Hon DMus, Founder of The Voices Foundation, Visiting Professor, University of Southern California; Stuart Worden, Principal, The BRIT School; Dame Felicity Lott DBE FRAM FRCM, Soprano; Jeremy Sams, Director, Writer and Composer; Jennifer Pike, MA (Oxon), MPerf, International Violinist; Nitin Sawhney, Musician, Producer and Composer; Myleene Klass ARAM, Musician, Broadcaster; Professor Sir Barry Ife CBE, Former Principal & Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Guildhall School of Music & Drama; Professor Paul Max Edlin, DPhilSussex ARCM(TrumpetT) DipRCM(Comp), Director of Music, Queen Mary University of London; James Murphy, Chief Executive, Royal Philharmonic Society; Dr Pauline Adams, Former Teacher Educator and Lecturer, Institute of Education, UCL; James Ainscough, Interim CEO, Help Musicians UK; Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive, Incorporated Society of Musicians; David Beeby W BMus FRCO(DipCHM) LRAM, Head of Music Department, Poole Grammar School; Professor John Bryan, BA BPhil DMus FHEA, Former Head of Department, Music & Drama, University of Huddersfield, Founder of York Early Music Festival and Chair of the Viola da Gamba Society; Dr Marius J. Carboni, MALond BAHuddersfieldPoly, Senior Lecturer in Music Business and Entrepreneurship, University of Hertfordshire and City University; Dr Michelle Castelletti, FRSA PhD MMus BA(Hons) DipSacMus, Conductor, Composer, Director of Oxford Festival of the Arts, Governor on the Board of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama; Dr Sally Cathcart, PhD MA BA(hons), Director & co-founder, The Curious Piano Teachers; Dr Esther Cavett, BMus PhD(Music) LRAM ARAM, Senior Research Fellow in Music, King’s College, London, Past Deputy Chair of Governors, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance; Neil Chippington, MA Cantab, MEd Buckingham, FRCO, Choir Schools’ Association Chairman 2018-2020; Nicolas Chisholm, MBE MA(Cantab), former Headmaster, The Yehudi Menuhin School; Hester Cockcroft, BA MA, Chief Executive, Awards for Young Musicians; Peter Cook, FISM FLCM FVCM PGCE, Former Director, LCM Junior Department; Dr Geoffrey Cox, PhD BMus, Senior Lecturer, Department of Music and Drama, University of Huddersfield; Jane Cutler, CTCL LTCL, Principal, The DaCapo Music Foundation; Professor Nicholas Daniel, Queens Medal for Music, Every Child A Musician, Oboist, Conductor, Artistic Director, Leicester International Music Festival; Jay Deeble, FISM MA BA(Hons) PGCE, Past Chair, Schools Music Association, Initial Teacher trainer (primary); Kirsty Devaney BMus(Hons) PGCert HonRBC, Composer; Professor Peter Dickinson, composer, writer and pianist; Beverley Downes, DipTCL CertEd, Choral Animateur, Norfolk Music Service, Workshop Leader, Trinity Guildhall/OU Whole Class Instrumental and Vocal Teaching programme; Leslie East, OBE, Chair, Association of British Choral Directors; Barry Eaton, GTCL FTCL LRAM ARCM ARCO, Merton Music Foundation and Kingston Music Service; Professor Martin Fautley, PhD MPhil MA PGDip BA(Hons) CertED PFHEA, Director of Research in Education, Birmingham City University; Barbara R-D Fisher, OBE ARAM GRSM FRSA, Vice President, The Yehudi Menuhin School; Ivor Flint, ALCM LLCM(TD) FISM, Lead Tutor, London College of Music; Trevor Ford, FRSCM ARAM HonRCM HonRCO FISM FRSA DipRAM, Director, Scratch Concerts Limited; Judith Glossop, MusB (Hons) LTCL MMus PGCE Joint Head of Service, Waltham Forest Music Service; Professor Stephen Goss, PhD, MMus, BA (Hons), LRAM, ARAM, FRAM, Composer, Professor of Composition in the Department of Music and Media, University of Surrey, Director of the International Guitar Research Centre; Richard J Hallam MBE, Chair of Music Education Council; Fran Hannan, BA (Hons) PGCE, Managing Director, Musical Futures; Dr Jan Herbst, PhD MA MEd MAES PGCHE FHEA, Lecturer in Music Production, Head of Musicology, University of Huddersfield; Andrew Higgins, Director of Sales & Marketing, Alfred Publishing Co (UK) Ltd; Susan Hollingworth, GRSM ARMCM(SgT) DipRAM, Choral Director, Winner of Choir of The Year, Music Educator; Paul Hoskins, MA(Cantab), Music Director, Rambert; Alexander Van Ingen, Chief Executive, Academy of Ancient Music; Paul Kirkham, Chief Executive, Institute of Contemporary Music Performance; Steven Kohut, CTABRSM, Musician and Teacher, former member of the Grenadier Guards Band, former Principle Percussionist, Grimethorpe Colliery Band; Emma Lines, BMus(Edin), Senior Programme Manager, Drake Music Scotland; Karl Lutchmayer, FHEA FISM MMus ARCM(PG) DipRCM ALCM, Concert Pianist and Lecturer; Lucinda Mackworth-Young, MA(PsychEd) DipEd GTCL LTCL, International Lecturer, Pianist & Teacher; David Marcou, Chair, Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership Trust, add Chair of Governors, Icknield Community College and former Chairman, London Philharmonic Orchestra; Dominic McGonigal, Chair, C8 Associates; Dr David Milsom, BMus(Hons) MMus PhD FHEA FISM, Senior Lecturer in Music, Department of Music and Drama, University of Huddersfield; Mary Mycroft, BA(Hons) QTS Joint Head of Service, Waltham Forest Music Service; Sue Nicholls, CertEd, Honorary Fellow BGU, Music Education Consultant; Chris O’Reilly, BMus MMus, CEO, Presto Classical; Elizabeth Partridge, LTCL(V), Violinist; Mark Pemberton, Chief Executive Association of British Orchestras; Peter Renshaw, Former Principal, The Yehudi Menuhin School; Thomas Schmidt, Dean of Music, Humanities and Media, Professor of Musicology, University of Huddersfield; Ed Scolding, MMus LRAM, Director, Greenwich Music School; Paul Smith, BSc, Choir Schools’ Association Chairman 2016-2018; John Stephens, OBE MASoton HonFTCL LRAM(SchMus/VoiceCult/AuTr) ARCM(SchMus) ARCO, former HMI; Dr Laurie Stras, GRSM ARCM PhD, Research Professor of Music, University of Huddersfield, Professor Emerita of Music, University of Southampton; Susan Sturrock, BMusHonsRCM, former Director of Communications, Royal College of Music, Director/Producer, Music Talks; Kim S Waldock, BMusEd M Ed CA FCCT, Music Education Consultant; David Ward, Executive Director, JAMES; Stuart Whatmore, BMus(Hons) PGDip(Perf) PGCE, Head, Tri-borough Music Hub; Dennis Wickens, BMus(Lond), former County Music Adviser to two LEA’s; John Woolf, MBE, Hon FRAM Hon RCM, Director, Park Lane Group Music Trust
Anyone get left off?
At least one distinguished name is misspelled.
The distinguished organist and teacher James David Christie has relinquished his duties at Oberlin College, Ohio, and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester amid a flurry of historic #MeToo allegations.
Christie, 66, is a regular organ soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Christie promptly withdrew from his teaching engagements.
Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden has scheduled the world premiere of Annelies Van Parys’s completion of Debussy’s Fall of the House of Usher on October 12.
It’s a joint commission with Stockholm’s Folkoperan.
Debussy left the opera unfinished in 1908. Various musicologists have attempted to complete it in Debussy’s style. Van Parys insists that her is the first version to merge Debussy with a modern sound world.
Paul Burgett, an outstanding figure in US music education, has passed away after a short illness.
The University of Rochester has published this appreciation:
The eldest of six children born to an African-American father and an Italian-American mother who had to cross the border into Illinois in order to be married, Burgett grew up in 1950s Missouri, knowing that he and his family were different. “We didn’t have the word ‘biracial’ back then,” he told Rochester Review in a 2015 profile, and he acknowledged that “the veil,” which W.E.B. Dubois described in The Souls of Black Folk, also described how he and his siblings would be looked at by many white Americans, and was never wholly lifted.
Supported by his musician parents (his mother an organist, his father a concert baritone), Burgett earned recognition as a young violinist, coming to the attention of family friend Edward Ormond, then a violist with the St. Louis Symphony. Burgett auditioned for Eastman while in St. Louis and earned a place as a member of the Class of 1964.
In April 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, then senior Burgett was asked to address a convocation held in Kilbourn Hall to memorialize King.
“It is quite clear that Dr. King recognized the social ills of this nation—ills which were manifest through the convenient tools of racial injustice,” Burgett said in his remarks. “But ills which in fact lay much deeper than that.
“This cause is branded with the misnomer of the Negro problem,” Burgett said. “It is branded with the name of the white problem, it is branded with all sorts of names, trying to find and attach a label to what amounts to, basically and without question, a human problem.”
After graduating in 1968, Burgett was offered a fellowship to work on his doctorate but postponed his studies to join the US Army Reserves, where he played the tuba in a military band. He returned to his studies at Eastman after serving as executive director of the Hochstein School of Music and Drama. He taught music half-time in the Greece Central School District while he earned his Ph.D., and became an associate professor of music at Nazareth College of Rochester after graduation.
For his doctorate in 1976, Burgett explored the music of black classical composers, a subject that until that point had not been much chronicled but one that his advisor, Paul Lehman, enthusiastically supported. His finished dissertation was titled “Aesthetics of the Music of Black Americans: A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Selected Black Scholars with the Implications for Black Music Studies and for Music Education.”
Advocating for the history and creativity of black classical musicians and composers was never far from Burgett’s heart. He championed the Gateways Music Festival, a multiday series of concerts, performances, and other events designed to provide classical musicians of African descent a performance showcase of their own. The biennial festival was brought by an Eastman faculty member to Rochester in 1995. Burgett helped nurture and strengthen its ties to the Eastman School of Music; at the time of his death he was chair of the Gateways Board of Directors.
Burgett was named dean of students at Eastman in 1981 and drew on his own experience to improve student programs, including planning for Eastman’s Student Living Center.
At Eastman, he first began giving his signature presentation, now known as “The Fiery Furnace.” In the address, which he continued to present to first-year students and was scheduled to deliver again this fall, he describes a University education as a journey that students embark on, one in which they will have to confront ideas and perspectives, challenges and opportunities that will mold their character. Education is, he noted, much like a furnace, a prospect that can seem terrifying.
“But you will step out of that furnace strong, tempered like steel,” he told students, also promising “We will not abandon you. We will never abandon you.”
In the speech, he articulated what became something of a mantra as he helped students find their path in life. “Passion and ability drive ambition,” he often said, noting that picking a major is not nearly as important as caring deeply about a topic so much that you tap into and develop your abilities to find success.
After seven years at Eastman, he was named University dean of students, a move that established his home base at Wilson Commons on the River Campus but allowed him to keep a hand in the life of his beloved Eastman School.
“Paul is special in so many ways. As a proud alumnus, he was indefatigable in his support of Eastman, as well as the University as a whole,” said Jamal Rossi ’87E (DMA), the Joan and Martin Messinger Dean of the Eastman School of Music. “He was a larger than life figure with a gregarious and outgoing personality, who simultaneously was among the most thoughtful and sensitive individuals in any group when thinking about the needs of others. He will be deeply missed as a leader, a colleague, and especially, as a dear friend.”
As dean of students, Burgett often described his role as gaining access to the “backstage” of students’ lives, getting to know them in ways that allowed him, student services staff, and other faculty to offer better support and advice to orient cocurricular programs to better correspond to the needs of students. His gregarious personality and deft ability to read the emotions of others made him particularly successful at advising students.
In a nod to his own upbringing, in which his father and mother encouraged his ambitions as a musician and educator, Burgett often referred to the students he got to know as “Doctor” in reference to their aspirations as scholars and professionals.
As University dean of students, he’s credited by peers and students alike with improving programs at Wilson Commons, University Health Service, the University Counseling Center, Residential Life, Interfaith Chapel, Athletics and Recreation, and several other programs.
In 2001, Burgett became University vice president, general secretary to the Board of Trustees, and senior advisor to the president. In these roles, he worked closely with Presidents Thomas Jackson and Joel Seligman. He stepped down as general secretary in 2011, and continued to serve as vice president and presidential advisor.
“It was my privilege to have participated with Paul in his many interactions with the Board of Trustees and in many of his community activities over more than 30 years,” said G. Robert Witmer Jr. ’59, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees. “Paul was a positive and unforgettable influence on more people than anyone I have known. He was, and remains, the epitome of what the University of Rochester is, and works to become.”
Burgett took on a high-profile assignment in 2015, when he and Feldman, then the dean of the College, co-chaired the President’s Commission on Race and Diversity. The 20-member, University-wide committee recommended ways to improve Rochester’s programs for increasing diversity among students, faculty, and staff, and for creating a campus environment that values diversity in its many forms.
In 2015, Eastman awarded Burgett a Distinguished Alumni Award and asked him to address the graduating class.
Throughout his tenure, he regularly taught two popular undergraduate classes— Music of Black Americans and History of Jazz — as a faculty member in the Department of Music in the School of Arts & Sciences. In a 2010 Rochester Review article titled “101 Things to Do Before You Graduate,” writer Dana Hilfinger ’10 cited Burgett’s History of Jazz class as No. 12.
In 2016, the University named the Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center in recognition of Burgett’s long service, a tenure in which—as a board resolution notes—he was a “tireless advocate for justice and equity for all.” Delighted with the honor, Burgett wrote a note of thanks in which he said he was “an intercultural product . . . from birth.”
Located in Douglass Commons as part of the building’s renovation into a student-focused campus hub, the center brings students together to work with and learn from those from other cultures, backgrounds, beliefs, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, and perspectives.
“Dean Burgett was a great mentor and advocate. I was enthralled when the Center was named in his honor in 2014 and then when we dedicated the new space in 2016,” said Jessica Guzman-Rea ’10W (EdD), the inaugural director of the Burgett Center. “He always lent an ear to hear from students and would always give me the warmest hug when we saw each other. He will be greatly missed.”
As a resident of the Greater Rochester community, Burgett also threw himself into community service in the region. He served such groups as the Urban League, the Hochstein School, the Genesee Country Museum and Village, the Rochester Arts and Cultural Council, the United Way of Rochester, the George Eastman Museum, and many others.
He was also a leading force behind the University’s support for the Rochester Fringe Festival when the multiday performing arts festival was launched in 2012. Many of the performers for the festival have University connections and many of the events are staged at Eastman venues.
At the University, he co-chaired the faculty and staff component of the Meliora Challenge, Rochester’s historic $1 billion fundraising campaign.
As he stepped away from his role as an administrator—a label he often eschewed—he turned his attention to the history of the University. He took on the role of University storyteller, often traveling to alumni gatherings around the country to make presentations about the institution that meant so much to him: “Where we came from, who our predecessors were, on whose shoulders we stand, and our responsibilities as stewards of their legacy.”
In an afterword to a 2014 history of the University, Our Work Is But Begun: A History of the University of Rochester 1850–2005, by Janice Bullard Pieterse (University of Rochester Press), he wrote:
“Now in the twilight of my professional career, I have become fascinated by the story of the University that educated and trained me; sent me out into the world as a well-prepared and confident high school and college music teacher, performer, and music administrator; and then welcomed me back 34 years ago and turned me loose on its campuses and in its halls and classrooms to join the faculty, students, and staff in the work of its auspicious and noble mission.
“I have become a serious and passionate student of our history and believe that all of us who claim an association with the University, in any form or manner, will want to learn more about the institution that affected our lives deeply.”
“Paul read everything from the George Eastman-Rush Rhees correspondence to Annual Reports to the Campus Times,” remembers Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian. “And in telling our story, he would highlight past examples of what he called ‘inspired, effective, and generous leadership,’ and his audiences always knew that he exemplified those qualities.”
In making his presentations, Burgett would often joke that he himself had witnessed much of that history, having been part of the University since “before the Earth’s crust began to cool.”
The transformations that took place during Burgett’s history at Rochester sometimes took even him by surprise.
In the 2015 profile for Rochester Review, he said that he found it hard to believe that he had been at Rochester for 50 years.
“That’s not been relevant to me,” he said. “Because I hang around students who never age, do they? They’re always 18 to their mid-20s or so, some a little older. And when they get to the end of their studies, they leave and are replaced by newcomers.
“So I forget how old I am, until I look in the mirror and see my father looking back at me—at which point it’s, well, startling, I suppose.”
There will be a private memorial service and a celebration of Paul’s life at a later date.
Messages of condolence to be shared with Paul Burgett’s family can be sent to his friend and longtime assistant at the University, Kim Truebger, by email to kim.truebger@rochester.edu or in hard copy to Box 270011, University of Rochester, Rochester 14627-0011.
From a San Francisco interview with the US mezzo:
Early in my career, I made my Metropolitan Opera debut as 2nd Lady in The Magic Flute. In that production, when the Three Ladies introduced the Queen of the Night before her first aria, the stage was supposed to spin to take us offstage and dramatically reveal the Queen. On the opening night of our run, the stage started to spin and then stopped. Abruptly. My colleagues and I were stuck onstage, and the poor Queen had to make her Met debut singing the first third of the aria from the wings! They did eventually get the stage rotating again and she made it onstage for the most important part of the aria, but it was definitely one of those times when you’re just kind of stuck, waiting for the theater gods to smile down and get the show back on the rails!
The pianist Ivan Bessonov, 16, was the runaway winner, playing the finale of the Tchaikovsky concerto.
In the absence of a BBC broadcast, the contest was watched live by just 700 people on Youtube.
This is Lahav Shani, incoming music director of the Israel Philharmonic, joining the doublebass section of the West East Diwan Orchestra in Lucerne tonight.
Nice.
Governor Charles D. Baker has issued a Proclamation declaring August 25th Leonard Bernstein Day throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Tanglewood will relay a live Candide at 3pm UK time tomorrow.
Surely it will all be over soon.
Hang on, Louisville has just announced a 2-year Lenny fest.
Enough, already.
From our string quartet diarist Anthea Kreston:
My God, sometimes it is so hot while we are playing a concert. These past tours – with the temperature flirting dangerously close to 100 degrees outside – inside the hall (or castle or church or barn), it feels like I am standing on a hot plate while under a glass dome, and someone has generously offered to shine a heat lamp directly on to my head.
It’s different in the States, where musicians and audiences are used to being exactly the same temperature every day,
regardless if there is a blizzard or a forest fire outside the building. Our little climate bubble. Here, the outside and inside are actually related – and retrofitting a 900 year old castle for climate control just isn‘t high on the „to-do“ list.
So I do everything I can. Pare down my outfit, drink lots of water, try to cut the rehearsal short before the concert, put my hair up. But – there are still a gaggle of spotlights (fore, side, back and above) trained on us, and by half-way through the first movement, the sweat is running down the back of my legs, and the fingerboard is glistening. It’s just gross. I basically have to wear my daughter’s snorkel equipment to safety open my backpack when I get back from tour. My feet swell to twice their normal shape, and I start to make bizarre mistakes. I try to pace myself, but that just isn’t realistic. Not with Bartok. It’s now or never out there. All for one, and one for all. This last concert I just stood in a cold shower during intermission.
It feels like my brain is inside a cloud – and I have no choice but to just let go and have my body do what it knows how to do. A study from Loughborough University showed that a 5 percent drop in water levels can cause 25-30 percent loss in energy and even a slight drop of 3 percent can cause ‘fuzzy thinking’ and brain fog. I have no idea how much 5 percent is, but I can imagine that completely soaking through a concert outfit by the end of the first piece must be up there somewhere. But there is never a moment when I can give less than 100 percent. No how no way – I am way too stubborn and proud to admit any weakness. And can you imagine ‘fuzzy thinking’? Haha – not an option.
I am forever asking the stage manager to open the windows, leave the church doors open – anything. But, once the music starts, we are closed back into our little heat cocoon. It’s noisy out there. In Lübeck, I just went out to the audience myself and started to open the massively tall windows, and before I knew it, the overly heated audience was all up helping, sticking umbrellas into the windows to keep them open. It was nice, in the slow movement of Bartok, to hear the bells of all the different churches chiming for the 9:00 hour, commingling with the stagnant chords of Bartok 2. The breeze, and the sounds of music and the marking of time made it all a bit more possible.
So – they have our water and towels ready for us back stage – and the summer season is coming to a close. Come winter, those old castles will have a little symphony of hot water clanking in the pipes, and the hiss of steam from the radiators.
Garsington Opera, which has been the best of the UK country set for the past few years, has decied its freelance orchestra is not good enough.
As of 2020, it is hiring two established ensembles, the Philharmonia, and the English Concert. Both have five-year deals.
Members of the Garsington orchestra today received this notification from its conductor, Douglas Boyd, minutes before the press release went out. Boyd explains:
We would like you to know that we very much want the Garsington Opera Orchestra to be with us for the 2019 Season to play for the three productions of Don Giovanni, Fantasio and The Turn of the Screw. The Philharmonia will play for The Bartered Bride. As you probably know, the outside dates for next season are 29 May to 21 July, with rehearsals starting on 10 May and, once appointed, Richard Nelson’s successor will no doubt be in touch with you in good time with the details.
From 2020, however, it has been decided to extend the relationship with the Philharmonia. In addition, we will be developing our future programming with the period instrument ensemble, The English Concert. Regrettably, this means that we will not be fixing players for a Garsington Opera Orchestra after the 2019 Season. This has been the most difficult decision of any kind that I, Nicky and the Board have had to make.
As in, thank you and good night.
The latest blast of positive discrimination:
Opera North is seeking applications from music-makers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds living in the north of England, for its second programme of Resonance residencies, supported by the PRS Foundation.
Launched in 2017, Resonance offers professional artists in all genres the opportunity to develop new performance ideas. Successful applicants will receive up to a week of free rehearsal space in central Leeds in March and April 2019, a grant of up to £3,000 to cover fees and other costs, support and advice from technicians, producers and other specialists, and an optional ‘work in progress’ performance.
Four artists, Nwando Ebizie, Thandanani Gumede, Moji Kareem and Christella Litras took part in the first Resonance residencies in March this year. You can see a short film on their experiences here.
An Opera North children’s production
This is the acoustic audition by Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra.
The hall will be opened by Valery Gergiev on September 8. Riccardo Muti has cancelled the following night’s concert. He will be replaced by Pletnev.
