Felicity James is the new associate concertmaster, succeeding 35-year veteran Roger Frisch.
She starts immediately in the concertmaster seat for the holiday season concerts.
Erich Rieppel is the new principal timp.
The family has released news of the death of Levine Andrade, a founder member of the Arditti Quartet. He was 64.
An Indian student at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Levine was personally tutored by Yehudi and found his niche in cutting edge contemporary music. He played 16 years in the Arditti Quartet, retiring in 1990 to spend more time with his violinst wife, Frances, and their children.
Frances died in 2013 after giving evidence in a rape trial against her Chetham’s teacher, Mike Brewer.
Levine said she fell ‘into incredible despair’ after enduring cross-examination.
From the family’s message: ‘Levine Andrade passed away in the early hours of Tuesday morning. He has been unwell for sometime and was taken into hospital on Monday night where he spent the next few hours with family.’
Message received:
Opera Rara is delighted to announce the transfer of The Opera Rara Music Library to a permanent home at The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD). This has been made possible by The Foyle Foundation, which has generously provided its biggest ever grant in Wales to enable the library currently based in London – soon to be called The Foyle Opera Rara Collection – to be transferred to RWCMD.
Comprising of more than five thousand volumes, The Foyle Opera Rara Collection ranks as one of the most impressive and comprehensive collections of first and early editions of 19th-century Italian opera scores in Europe. Amongst the works included are both the masterpieces and rarer works by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, in addition to those of less-known composers such as Mayr, Mercadante, Pacini, Ponchielli, Leoncavallo and Mascagni, to name but a few. Also of note are autograph manuscripts in the hands of Donizetti, Mercadante and Pacini.
Reflecting the specialist interests of Patric Schmid and Don White who founded Opera Rara fifty years ago, RWCMD will make this world class collection of unique operatic material publicly accessible for the first time. Of the new partnership with the College, Henry Little, Chief Executive of Opera Rara, said: “I am delighted that our unique and iconic collection will be going to the Royal Welsh College, where scholars, students, and the wider public can consult and enjoy this inspiring body of extraordinary 19th-century operatic material. Opera Rara is especially grateful to the Foyle Foundation, whose generosity has made this special partnership between us and the College possible.”
A claim has been made in France to take Boléro back into copyright, a move which would require orchestras to pay each time they played it.
Although Ravel’s copyright has expired, heirs to the stage designer Alexandre Benois are applying for him to be recognised as co-author. Benoit died in 1960. The copyright would then extend to 2031.
Le Figaro has the story.
The Gothenburg Symphony is about to announce a new May Festival with Pat Kop as artist in residence, a world première by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and another by the Swedish composer, Karin Rehnqvist.
Details below.
Point Music Festival 2019 Trailer from Göteborgs Symfoniker on Vimeo.
2019 sees the Gothenburg Symphony opening a new festival with international artists, inventive programming and many surprises. Four festival days, four world premières, three orchestras, two club nights, a film screening, and some
ten concerts… Point Music Festival from 23-26 May 2019 makes a difference.
Highlights include:
– Two programmes with Festival Artist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Gothenburg Symphony
– A world première by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
– Three exciting concerts with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
– The world première of Swedish composer, Karin Rehnqvist’s “Blodhov” featuring soloist Lena Willemark
– A guest performance of the acclaimed Canadian multi-media project Life Reflected with The National Arts Centre Orchestra
– Club nights with DJ and producer Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of Sergei Prokofiev
Francesca Carpos, who was fired from her teaching post for allegedly referring to violinists as ‘gypos’ has won her case for unfair dismissal against the Royal Academy of Music, in London.
The judge, Sarah Goodman, ruled: ‘At most the claimant can be accused of foolishness in failing to anticipate how a superficial readership might wrench some of the terms out of context and manufacture a sense of outrage that was entirely disproportionate (on a plain reading of her notes and email) to the document’s plain intent’.
The loss is hugely embarrassing for RAM, which first urged Francesca to publish her lecture notes unedited, and then fired her in sheer terror when the flak flew online.
Francesca tells Slipped Disc: ‘I am thrilled by the verdict…. I am passionate about sharing my research and exposing uncomfortable truths in the classical music industry. It was hugely painful for me to lose the job I loved, and to suffer such significant damage to my reputation as a musician and teacher in the circumstances that I did. It has been an extremely difficult year for me and my family, but I am delighted by this outcome, and I am looking forward to moving on with my career.’
The French conductor Audrey Saint-Gil, assistant to Placido Domingo and James Conlon at LA Opera, has been signed by Marcus Felsner at Opus 3 Artists’ Berlin office.
A Toulouse music graduate with a PhD in Greek philosophy, Audrey is in a relationship with the baritone Christopher Maltman. She has worked at Covent Garden and Ravinia.
She is a serious biker.
At three o’clock in the afternoon of November 19, 1828, Franz Schubert turned to his brother Ferdinand and said ‘here, here is my end’.
No-one has ever come close to explaining the boundless miracle of Schubert’s melody, or the mystery of his character. Time for a big biography?
Palladino are about to release a new Vladimir Ashkenazy recording of Debussy’s Preludes Book 1 together with a live recording of Book 2 from a recital in New York in 1971.
Haven’t seen that done before.
The conductor’s German book book ‘Erwarten Sie Wunder’ is to be published next year in English by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
From the blurb:
In Classical Music: Expect the Unexpected the famous classical conductor tells the deeply personal story of his own engagement with the masterpieces and great composers of classical music, his work with the world’s major orchestras, and his tireless commitment to bringing his music to everybody…
