The city has chosen Daniel Cohen, a former violinist in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, to be its Generalmusikdirektor.

Originally from Natanya, Cohen studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He assisted Boulez at the Lucern Festival and Dudamel at the LA Phil in 2012-13.

He is presently music director of the Jersey Chamber Orchestra and artistic director of the Gropius Ensemble.

The death has been shared of Sara Tornay, founder of Tornay Management, an agency specialising in opera singers.

Her recent artists include Ruby Hinds, Catherine Murphy and Jan Opalach.

The conductor Marioara Trifan writes: What I will remember most about Sara Tornay, who sadly left us today, is her refreshing honesty and the way she just told it like it is, no excuses, no BS, no spin – the antithesis, you’d think, of what a singers’ agent would be. And yet, in this directness of hers, it was always with grace, always maintaining her high standards of taste, that she expressed herself while soldiering on decade after decade on behalf of her artists in whom she believed, and of opera itself, the art form being bigger than the business around it.

Fame at last.

We have been notified belatedly of the death of George Stevens, one of South Africa’s most successful singers on the international opera stage.

George, who was acting director of the Opera School at the University of Cape Town, died there after undergoing surgery.

He was principal baritone at Staatstheater Bremen in Germany from 1998 to 2006, winning the Kurt-Hübner Prize for ‘most convincing singer and actor with extraordinary stage presence’.

Here’s the only identification of this Youtube performance: Hello, I’m Rousseau, I make piano covers of classical and pop songs with a reactive visualizer.

Clearly, the pianist can play.

But who or what is Rousseau, and has the sound been legitimately recorded or lifted, Hatto-like, from a professional artist?

One of our readers comments: If this is genuine, then the performer is very fine indeed.  But that seems unlikely.  More likely is that the performance was recorded at slow tempo and then sped up (it’s a MIDI piano).  Note the ending, where the hands disappear in a flash.

Seven months I went backstage in the interval of Wigmore Hall concert to say hello to the Artemis Quartet.

I have never known a colder green room. It was mid-February and the heating was full on, but the atmosphere was frigid.

The four players were ranged two on either side of the room. There was no conversation. They were looking at their phones, or t the walls. You did not need to be Sigmund Freud to recognise that this was a group in an advanced stage of human disarray.

On stage that night, the playing was outstanding: energetic, engaged, challenging. Backstage, it was a frost.

So today’s news that the quartet is breaking up comes as no surprise. It must be a relief to the players.

Fifty-fifty splits are rare in string quartets. Usually it’s one member who leaves, or all four who decide to call it quits. With the Artemis, clearly, it has been a breach down the middle that they were unable to address, let alone repair.

Let’s hope they remember the happy times.

The Berlin-based Artemis Quartet has split down the middle, with two members leaving next May and the other two trying to find new partners to keep the group alive.

The departing players are the founder cellist Eckart Runge and the violinist Anthea Kreston.

No reason is given for their departure in the press release below and there is no quote from Anthea, whose weekly diary is a popular feature on Slipped Disc.

Anthea was imported from the US in 2016 after the traumatic suicide of Friedemann Weigle.

All four players have signed non-disclosure agreements.

UPDATE: When a string quartet breaks down.

The Artemis have been one of the most sought-after and energetic quartets on the world circuit. The two remaining players get to keep the brand name.

Here’s the press release, with lots of positive spin covering up a very painful split:

Berlin, 4th September 2018 – The thirtieth anniversary of the Artemis Quartet in 2019 will see
two new members joining the ensemble. Founding member Eckart Runge is leaving the Artemis
Quartet after the current constellation’s final concerts together in May 2019, in order to devote
more time to his own artistic projects and to his family. “I have enjoyed the privilege of being
able to work and perform with many wonderful colleagues and partners, of being able to share
the unique quartet repertoire with them and with our audiences over a very long time during my
life as a musician – and for that I am deeply grateful,” explains Eckart Runge regarding his
decision at the end of summer 2018.
Shortly after Runge announced his decision within the quartet, violinist Anthea Kreston also
decided to depart.
The Artemis Quartet accepts the challenge; successors for the positions of second violin and
cello will be announced later this autumn.
The Artemis Quartet has already undergone a number of musical transitions over the last ten
years: in 2007, founding members Heime Müller and Volker Jacobsen departed and were
replaced by Gregor Sigl and Friedemann Weigle. In 2012, first violinist Natalia Prishepenko left
the quartet, succeeded by Vineta Sareika. The most recent change was Anthea Kreston’s arrival
in 2016, after the death of Friedemann Weigle.
The quartet’s eventful history shows that a group is more than a combination of individuals –
particularly in chamber music. In the words of violist Gregor Sigl: “the Artemis Quartet is the
sum of all its members, including those from the past and future.”

The NJSO has announced the death of Paul Harris, its principal double bass for 28 years and a regular stand-in with the NewYork Philharmonic.

Its obituary is written by Paul himself.

…The Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, the Music Dramas of Richard Wagner and the works of numerous philosophers from Plato to Descartes and from Kant to Foucault were also passions for Paul. He was a devoted autodidact as much as he could be, leaving no stones unturned in the quest for enlightenment, and a cover to cover ‘philological’ reader.

Nearly 30 years ago he chose to live an ascetic life, giving up television and light entertainment for a voracious consumption of those timeless works. He designed, furnished and decorated a castle in his mind; a happy place of refuge from the paradoxes of normal human experience.

Decca President Rebecca Allen has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Buckinghamshire New University.

‘At a time of unprecedented change in the music business it’s inspiring to find an executive who has embraced that change and successfully used it to their advantage,’ says the uni.

Go, Becks!

Salzburg-based Ziyu He has been signed by AskonasHolt.

He won the International Mozart Competition and the Yehudi Menuhin in 2016, but classical agencies don’t move fast.