From a new essay by our collabo Joseph Horowitz:

… According to stereotype, the orchestra is an elitist institution. But look at its early history in the United States. Henry Higginson, who created the Boston Symphony in 1881, insisted on reserving blocks of 25-cent tickets for nonsubscribers. Leopold Stokowski, who made the Philadelphia Orchestra matter, produced the American premiere of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in 1916 partly because he knew it would require many hundreds of amateur singers. The performance was an epochal community event. Remember that symphonic conductors once stayed put—there were no airplanes to fly them from one musical capital to another. In Chicago, Frederick Stock was not an international celebrity. He was, instead, something of greater civic consequence: a localcelebrity, a popular favorite who in summertime led his orchestra in outdoor concerts at which multitudes sang along.

But over the course of the 20th century, American classical music disappointed expectations and remained a Eurocentric import. Orchestras succumbed to formula. They sacrificed local identity based in community for itinerant star power. They squandered their potential to instill a sense of place.

Today, the marginalization of the orchestra in American culture is a pressing cause for concern within the shrinking classical-music milieu. Emergency measures are afoot. The latest remedies of choice are “inclusion” and “diversity.” Women composers are belatedly being programmed and celebrated. Both the League of American Orchestras and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (the lone survivor of a national philanthropic community once dedicated to sustaining orchestral performance) are funding a “pipeline” to propel young musicians of color into the ranks of major orchestras. These are important initiatives. But they attack symptoms, not causes. And they risk exciting the same divisive energies that afflict identity politics more generally….

So what’s to be done? Read on here.

From the Opera di Roma:

The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma announces that due to an episode of cardiac arrhythmia that took place on the night between 4 and 5 December, maestro Daniele Gatti will be unable to conduct Rigoletto this evening, Thursday 6 December. The show will be conducted by Maestro Stefano Ranzani.

Maestro Gatti’s health conditions are improving, but he needs a few days of rest. He will be back on the podium of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma from Sunday 9 December, to conduct the remaining scheduled performances of Rigoletto.

From the Gatti team:

Due to health problems, Maestro Gatti will need to cancel by way of precaution certain engagements, including those with the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, the conduction of the Otello
performance in Baden-Baden and Berlin, and the Bundesjugendorchester. Maestro Gatti expresses his regret and looks forward to future collaborations with all musical institutions involved.

 

The rehab is not complete.

Zubin Mehta has been called in to conduct Otello in place of Gatti at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.

WIERD UPDATE: We’ve had this just in from Baden-Baden:

The Festspielhaus and Festspiele Baden-Baden GmbH and the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker learn with much regret that Maestro Gatti is not in the condition to conduct the performances of „Otello“ and the Bundesjugendorchester in Baden-Baden and the concertant performances of „Otello“ in Berlin in April 2019. Future collaborations with Daniele Gatti in the forthcoming seasons are not affected.

Er, he knows he is going to be unwell next Easter?

CLARIFYING UPDATE: Breaking: Daniele Gatti suffers heart problem 

The highly rated Oksana Lyniv has decided not to renew her contract as principal conductor of Graz Oper and the Graz Philharmonic beyond next summer.

She will be replaced by Roland Kluttig, chief of Landestheater Coburg since 2010.

 

Tom Oren, 24, from Tel Aviv emerged winner of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition in New York this week.

He gets $25,000 and a recording contract.

 

Malcolm Archer, 66, has been summonsed on one count of indecent assault and one of gross indecency. The alleged incidents took place in the 1970s.

Archer was director of music at St Paul’s Cathedral, 2004-2007, and a respected composer of some 200 published works.

He was director of chapel music at Winchester College from 2007 until his retirement this year.

Presumptions of innocence apply.

UPDATE July 2019: Trial report here.

UPDATE: Malcolm Archer is innocent

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra does not play in ideal conditions.

During Wednesday night’s concert at the Lighthouse in Poole, a fire alarm went off in an adjacent room where rehearsals were being held for a Christmas pantomime. The alarmwent on ringing for 5 minutes. The soloist was Alexei Volodin, the conductor Antonio Mendez.

We read: Although the orchestra did not allow the false alarm to interrupt their performance of Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2, the disturbance temporarily spoiled the audience’s enjoyment of the music.

So they played on right through the alarm?

We reported six months ago that the Rhinegold stable of ailing music magazines in London and Manchester was being bought out by the Mark Allen Group, which already owns Gramophone.

The sale was finally signed off this week.

The magazines being sold are: Classical Music, Choir & Organ, International Piano, Teaching Drama and Music Teacher, as well as the British Music Yearbook, British Music Education Yearbook and Music & Drama Expos in London and Manchester.

Allen has also acquired DC Thomson’s stake in Opera Now, which was under licence to Rhinegold.

It’s all about volume now, not content.

 

Anthea Kreston is playing this week in the St Paul Chamber Orchestra:

We transition from early music specialist Richard Egarr to the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Both are Artistic Partners to the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. An Artistic Partner, as far as I can tell, is a cross between an amazing soloist, kind-of conductor, philosopher, programming genius, and a person with incredibly decisive ideas (not only on music – politics, history…..). Big personalities.

It’s been a wild ride with Richard Egarr – he is a fascinating human. I am enriched by this week, and feel that there has been a fundamental change in me – that I can never go back to the musician I was just nine days ago.

In rehearsal, he has a style which is stream-of-conscious. His mind goes so quickly, he speaks so quickly, I have the sense that whatever he happens to be saying at the moment is something that occurred to him already, and as he is speaking he is thinking about the next thing he wants to do – he is time traveling. As we play, he is endlessly singing along with us – one line from the trumpet (who he refers to as Trumpétskis, the oboes are Duckies) morphs into the bass or violin line – words of encouragement, or scolding – intonation, demonstrating the emotions with his face or body. Detailed, demanding, complimentary – the music absolutely sounds like his vision – he offers technical advice, but more often offers a story, a tidbit.

For example, ”a fugue isn’t an argument – it’s a discussion“, or, ”just put some potatoes in your pockets”, and ”that’s where all the juice is – the most delicious stuff (smacking lips)“, or, ”it should sound like tiny rancid gerbils, caffeinated gerbils”. Before going on stage, he raised his arms and shouted “Play Dirty, everyone!“. He doesn’t believe in handling baroque music with kid gloves – it is as steamy and sexy as anything you hear in Tchaikovsky – people‘s life experiences have always been as complicated and spicy, and Baroque music should demonstrate that.

He refers to specific treatises on trills, note inégales, personal details about the composers, piece, or circumstances under which it was performed or composed. In any given sentence, you could hear a Buster Keaton, Monty Python, or Grease quote, nestled among specific intonation requests, balance issues and phrasing decisions. I’m a pretty well-rounded individual, but even I looked up some of the more obscure references during our coffee breaks (like, ”Well done, Henry”, which turns out is a British comedy from 1936).

Looking forward to these next exploratory rehearsals with PatKop – it is a reminder to me that human beings never cease their hunger to learn and find ways of communicating with one another.

 

Media release from Victoria, British Columbia:

 
After decades of performances at its home base at the Royal Theatre, the Victoria Symphony has announced that it is being forced out of the Theatre due to exorbitant rental increases and curtailed access to booking dates.

Recent changes to rental fees and newly created priority scheduling policies and procedures developed by the Board of the Royal Theatre have created an untenable situation for the Victoria Symphony. ‘With the new policy our rent
will increase by 100%, and combined with significantly reduced access to available dates in the Theatre
we can no longer continue to offer our series of concerts,’ says says Chairman Alan Hollingworth.

The Symphony will pull out half of its season offerings from the Royal and take them to the cFarquhar Auditorium at the University of Victoria.

 

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music has appointed Jonas Wright as Dean and Chief Academic Officer.

Wright, from Buffalo, has worked before at the Presidio Graduate School and the American Film Institute.

 

From Aliye Cornish:

‘Musicians need Freedom of Movement to survive. Touring bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen began with European tours. No promoter will carry the burden of the extra cost of a work visa, and neither can the artist. It’s the same for classical musicians, composers, actors, dancers and all freelancers.’

The words of Dame Sarah Connolly CBE, who will be rallying with a display of solidarity from musicians across the spectrum on Monday, from noon at Parliament Square in London. The government’s own Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport estimates “a major increase in the value of the UK’s creative industries from £94.8 billion in 2016 to £101.5 billion in 2017. Jeremy Wright MP says: ‘Our creative industries not only fly the flag for British creativity but they are also at the heart of our economy.’ As British composer Howard Goodall puts it “100s of 1000s of people’s work depends on their being able to work some or all of the time in the EU. That’s what their businesses do & have done for decades. Without the ability to take your van of goods/skills/whatever & work in the EU they have no job, no livelihood. Some of those people are musicians. By & large they are not rich or famous or an ‘elite’ but ordinary folk with a sellable skill. Right across the creative & services sector of our economy the same inescapable reality is true.”

Many UK bands, orchestras and choirs leave to tour the EU on and after March 29th 2019. At this point they still don’t know if they will have to apply for visas (a costly exercise for small organisations) or if the current rules will still be in force. The current Withdrawal Agreement suggests that Freedom of Movement will be lost for subsequent generations, which will inevitably deplete the contribution that this sector makes to our economy year on year. The last word goes to Dame Sarah:

‘Imagine Womad or Glasto with no new acts, or the entire classical music industry bankrupted by visa costs as our young musicians have no chance of working abroad. Let’s keep the doors open for them and remain leaders in our field.’