IMG Artists has signed Chen Reiss for worldwide general management.

She was previously with Hilbert Artist Management in Munich, where Zubin Mehta kick-started her stage career at Bayerische Staatsoper.

 

We hear the Paris-based Finnish composer put the finishing touches this weekend to her next opera.

Titled ‘Innocence’, it is scheduled to premiere in July 2020 at the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, with Simon Stone as stage director and Susanna Malkki conducting.

The ACE reports that visits to its National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) fell by 16.6 million between 2015/16 and 2016/17.

London was worst hit with a 28% drop.

‘The Southbank Centre reported the largest drop in total attendances across the whole portfolio, approximately 80% of which were exhibition attendances….’

Now ou know why heads have been rolling south of the river.

 

The town of Stavanger in Norway is putting on the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in a single day.

Nine organists will play in relay.

For those of limited patience, there will be a second space where they can hear the music while walking around. The concert takes place in two rooms simultaneously. The music is played live on the organ in Fartein Valen (orchestra hall), where the audience will sit down as in a normal concert. The sound will be transferred to Zetlitz (black box hall) with different lounge areas, where you can move around, sit or lay down. This way you can customize your own experience of the music. Video projection and light design will colour the event in both venues, inspired by Messiaen’s strong relationship to visual impulses.

The organists are Jennifer Bate (UK), Thomas Ospital (Fr), Lidia Książkiewicz (Pl/Fr), Kåre Nordstoga (No), Thomas Lacôte (Fr) Nils Henrik Asheim (No), James McVinnie (UK), Colin Mark Andrews (UK/USA).

We thought some of you might like to go.

 

L’Obs magazine has been investigating #Metoo incidents at the major national conservatoires and music schools.

The first case it brings to light is a well-known flute professor who groomed young girls to have sex with him and others.

Read here.

Results of the 2018 contest:

1st prize: Emily D’Angelo (Canada, mezzo) and Pavel Petrov (Belarus, tenor)

2nd: Samantha Hankey (US, mezzo) and Migran Agadzhanyan (Russia, tenor)

3rd: Rihab Chaieb (Canada, mezzo) and Arseny Yakovlev (Russia, tenor).

This must be the first contest in the past year that Samantha Hankey hasn’t won.

D’Angelo is a Met National Council winner.

French national radio has named Diotima as its quartet in residence until 2021.

Founded in 1996, the quartet is comprised of Paris Conservatoire prizewinners:

Yun-Peng Zhao violin
Constance Ronzatti violin
Franck Chevalier viola
Pierre Morlet violoncello

photo © Jérémie Mazenq

Stand by for some major quartet shocks in the next couple of days.

The Voice of Music channel of the Kan broadcasting corporation – formerly the Israel Broadcasting Authority – entertained its listeners on Friday with selections from Meistersinger.

Before long, there were protests. Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer, is not performed in Israel under a tacit ban that has persisted since 1939. It is not illegal to play Wagner in Israel. It’s just not done. And Meistersinger, Hitler’s favourite opera, least of all.

By Sunday, Kan was forced to apologise: ‘The editor erred in his artistic choice to play the piece, and it was a wrong public decision. ‘We apologize to our listeners.’

One of those junior editors, no doubt. An intern, maybe. Twenty years old and never heard of Hitler.

I blame the education system.