Rather shocking intelligence from the Australian Youth Orchestra, whose website promises:
All your experience as a student and player reaches a pinnacle when you become a member of AYO’s flagship ensemble: the Australian Youth Orchestra. Selection is an acknowledgement of excellence at a national level.
But the box on the side says: Cost (per student) $1,250.
The AYO July season involves a tour of Europe, Asia and Australia. Cost per student $4,750.
In both cases, AYO will arrange and cover all travel, instrument freight, meals and accommodation costs associated with the program.
Is that standard practice elsewhere?
Many happy returns to Joyce DiDonato who, because she had to wait so long for opera houses to cast her in big roles, still looks fresher than two daisies on a springtime lawn.
May blessings rain upon her gentle Kansas head.
The countertenor and his husband, Scott Walters, made their first appearance at a Texas court on Monday to face charges of sexual assault, which they deny.
The pair were freed on $15,000 and ordered to surrender their passports, pending trial.
The conductor has been forced to withdraw from Jörg Widmann’s opera Babylon in order to submit to surgery on his right eye, which doc tors say cannot be delayed.
Barenboim says he has made the decision with great regret since he feels a close connection to Widmann, conducting one of his works every single year.
He hopes to be well enough to conduct Widmann’s Babylon Suite in subscription concerts on 25 and 26 February. The opera will be taken over at short notice by Christopher Ward, who was involved in the world premiere in Munich.
press statement:
(Berlin, 13.02.19) Daniel Barenboim musste sich kurzfristig einer Operation an seinem rechten Auge unterziehen und wird daher zu seinem großen Bedauern Jörg Widmanns Oper BABYLON nicht dirigieren können. Diese Absage schmerzt Daniel Barenboim ganz besonders, da er sich Jörg Widmann seit vielen Jahren sehr verbunden fühlt, jedes Jahr mindestens eine seiner Kompositionen zur Aufführung bringt und mit der Staatskapelle Berlin alle großen sinfonischen Werke gespielt hat. Er hofft in den Abonnementkonzerten am 25. und 26. Februar Jörg Widmanns »Babylon-Suite« dirigieren zu können. Das Dirigat von BABYLON übernimmt nun kurzfristig Christopher Ward, der bereits in München bei der Uraufführung entscheidend beteiligt war.
It has just been announced that Anne-Sophie Mutter is one of three winners of the 2019 Polar Prize.
The other winners are hip hop artist Joseph Saddler, known as Grandmaster Flash, and the music charity The Playing For Change Foundation.
They’ll have a chance to get to know each other in Stockholm on June 11.
From the Gelb feed:
Bryan Hymel has withdrawn from Verdi’s Rigoletto, due to personal reasons. Francesco Demuro will sing the Duke on March 6, 9, 15, and 20; Matthew Polenzani will sing April 26, May 1, and 4; and Stephen Costello will sing May 10. #castchange
The American tenor, 39, had a hard run of cancellations last year. Last month in Paris he pulled out of Les Troyens ‘for family reasons’.
If you watched Man United vs PSG last night you will have seen extensive advertisements for the social and cultural blessings of the Champions League sponsor, Gazprom.
The cultural heroes of this worthy Russian benefactor are none other than Valery Gergiev and Denis Matsuev. The two artists were featured heavily in the Gazprom ads.
The next time you read that artists have no alternative to collaborating with President Putin’s foreign adventures, remember too that there are rich rewards available to those who sing along with the Russia’s imperial ruler.
Russian media are reporting that the new concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, Fedor Rudin, is the grandson of composer Edison Denisov.
He is also the son of cellist and conductor Alexander Rudin.
The family has lived in Paris since Fedor was six years old. But, they say, all of his teachers were Russian.
The Vienna Konzerthaus has just granted Martha Argerich honorary membership.
Die Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft hat die Pianistin Martha Argerich zu ihrem Ehrenmitglied berufen.
The process enabling to find a future Music Director for the OSM is under way and no conclusive decision has been made on the matter. The research committee will make recommendations to the executive committee of the Orchestra but no deadline has been set for determining the next Music Director.
The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is hustling around for an interim president after its CEO Peter Gistelinck went missing from his post.
All the orch will say is that Gistelinck is no longer there. No reason has been given for his hurried departure.
Gistelinck, a Belgian, had been there less than five years. Before Kalamazoo, he put in eight years as head of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
