In a major setback for sovrintendente Alexander Pereira, the board of La Scala has refused to accept the membership of a Saudi minister and has given back 3 million Euros in donations, it was decided tonight.

No action will be taken against Pereira for accepting the donation.

The Mayor said he had been ‘naive’.

 

 

Message received:

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association has canceled all self-presented concerts at Symphony Center from Wednesday, March 20 to Monday, March 25. The CSOA has canceled the concerts due to the ongoing strike by musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Concerts to be canceled include:

Symphony Center Presents Special Concert featuring George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on Wednesday, March 20, at 8:00 p.m.

CSO subscription concerts on Thursday, March 21, at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, March 23, at 8:00 p.m. The program, which was to have been led by guest conductor Osmo Vänskä, featured Sibelius’ Night Ride and Sunrise, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (Scottish) and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Vadim Gluzman as soloist.

CSO movie presentations of An American in Paris on Friday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 24, at 3:00 p.m.

The public and school performances of Once Upon a Symphony: The Boy and the Violin, A Brazilian folktale, on Saturday, March 23 and Monday, March 25.

Civic Chamber Music concert at the National Museum of Mexican Art on Saturday, March 23, at 2:00 p.m.

All associated pre-concert special events through March 25 are also canceled.

Announcements of cancellations for additional concerts and events that may be affected by the strike will be issued if necessary.

We learn with sadness that Wolfgang Meyer died yesterday.

The brother of Sabine Meyer, he was professor in Karlsruhe from 1989 until his death and director of the Musikhochschule for six years. He was involved with the Trio di Clarone, Carmina Quartett and Quatuor Mosaïques and gave masterclasses in Brazil, Italy, Japan, Canada and Finland.

It has been ten years since the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic launched its In Harmony programme among deprived kids in the city. They started with 84. Now there are 1,500 being taught some kind of music by the RLPO under the aegis of its music director Vaily Petrenko.

Some of the youngsters came to play at the House of Commons today as the faltering May government hit another boulder in the road.

The story was told of one of the In Harmony founders who, in an extremely poor area of the city, saw two street kids kicking the crap out of each other.

‘Hey, what are you fighting about?’ she demanded, pulling them apart,

‘Bowings,’ said one of the combatants.

 

We hear that Nathaniel Silberschlag, assistant principal horn of Washington National Opera for the past year, has won the #1 seat in the Cleveland Orchestra.

The news has been made public by his teacher, Julie Landsman.

It’s one of the world’s top 10 horn positions.

Nathaniel comes from a family of 17 professional musicians. Both his parents played in the Jerusalem Symphony.

The Royal Opera House has chosen five singers and a stage director for its Jette Parker Young Artists programme from September 2019.

They were picked from 508 applicants from 61 countries. Those accepted are:

South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
British mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards (pictured)
Tongan/New Zealand tenor Filipe Manu
Uruguayan tenor Andrés Presno
South Korean bass-baritone ByeongMin Gil
British director Isabelle Kettle

 

The two tenors, Filipe Manu and Andrés Presno, are students at the Guildhall School of Music.

Gad Keidan, 19, a student at the Beersheba music conservatory, has been named as a victim of  a Palestinian attack at the Ariel junction in the West Bank on Sunday.

He played the mandolin, rest his soul.

There is often a surge in attacks ahead of an Israeli election.

 

The Guildhall School of Music has inducted Peter Moore as professor of trombone.

He has been co-principal at the London Symphony Orchestra since 2014 and is now all of 23 years old.

 

 

You may remember the fuss raised here by Morris Robinson when the South Florida Symphony dodged paying its singers in Porgy and Bess.

Guess what?

Two months on, they still haven’t paid the musicians in the orchestra.

Musicians, you play South Florida at your own risk.

From Dilyana Zlatinova-Tsenov:

Some of you probably know that recently I resigned from the South Florida Symphony Orchestra and I did send an email to some of my colleagues from the orchestra with whom I had the pleasure working for a while to let them know my reasons. Many people were asking me about more details about what happened and I would like to share this post written by my dear husband which sums up all that is wrong with this organization brilliantly. I stand for doing what’s right and for respect for my fellow musicians. Enough is enough!

Post by Guerguan Tsenov:

I am simply mesmerised by the sheer arrogance and by the incomprehensible level of irresponsibility shown by the South Florida Symphony Orchestra and its leaders Sebrina Alsonso (founder, music director and conductor, pictured)) and Jacqueline Lorber (president of the orchestra). This “institution” is nothing but a ponzi-scheme, as apparently according to Wikipedia, a ponzi-scheme is “a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors”. And this is exactly what happens in SFSO at this very moment. SFSO is inviting musicians from all over the United States to play in the orchestra, while the orchestra does not have the sufficient funds to pay these gullible (and most of them very young) musicians. What usually happens in this orchestra is that as soon as the musicians start asking questions or protesting the late payments or the lack of payments, Sebrina Alfonso immediately fires them and hires a new pole of absolutely unaware musicians who very soon become the victims of the same diabolic scheme. Basically, the musicians in SFSO are treated like illegal immigrants without work permit (including verbal abuse). And this treatment will continue until we, the musicians of South Florida, finally say “NO” to it.

I have been the principal pianist of this orchestra for three years and was also the chorus master, the assistant conductor and the cover conductor for the Porgy and Bess production that SFSO staged in January 2019. At the end of January, as soon as my services were no longer needed, I was fired by Sebrina Alfonso, with a text message, without being paid for my work, and today, almost two months later, I am still waiting for my January and part of my December pay (as SFSO tried to cheat on me by not paying me for the overtime rehearsal time).

What astonishes me much more than the already famous carelessness of SFSO is the irresponsibility of the public grant giving institutions who continue to give to SFSO every year more than $200 000 for what is clearly a very ugly scam. Few years ago, one of the major donors of SFSO froze their donations towards the orchestra until the orchestra finally paid their musicians. Today, few years later, the scam is running nice and smooth as nothing ever happened.

All these institutions know very well that SFSO has a long and disgraceful history when it comes to paying their musicians. Things got so serious in the past that in 2010 SFSO had to cancel their entire April concert series because of inability to pay their musicians for previous concerts.

SFSO recently sent (in the middle of the season) new contracts to their musicians changing the pay period from “within two weeks of final performance” to “within four weeks of final performance” which does not make any sense since the payments comes way after this now newly introduced 1-month period. These new contracts are also another very ugly and very transparent move in this scam, as now pay periods overlap in such a clever way that musicians will wait not for one late payment but for two late payments. And because the poor musicians have already invested so much time and money (many of the musicians come from out of state and pay for their air tickets), they keep playing for free hoping that eventually they will get their pay checks and thus turning themselves into musical slaves.

Along with introducing this outrageous 1-month pay period, some of the rehearsal and performance dates from the season calendar were changed after most of the musicians had already booked long time ago these new dates with other opportunities. Those of the musicians who asked questions or who expressed disagreement with these sudden and practically impossible changes were fired immediately. (My wife Dilyana Tsenov, who has been with this orchestra for six years (four years as a concert master and two years as a personnel manager) was forced to resign few weeks ago after she found the new contracts simply humiliating and degrading to her and to her fellow musicians.)�

Another despicable aspect of SFSO’s fraudulent activities is their systematic practice to overbook musicians. A typical example would be how two years ago about a dozen of musicians were overbooked for one of the concert series and they were paid without even showing at the rehearsal or the concert venue. Of course, this translates into about $10 000 wasted. Yes, that is how public funds are “spent” in South Florida. Most recently, there were few overbooked musicians for the Porgy and Bess performances, as these same overbooked musicians “faked” playing for whole two weeks right in front of Sebrina Alfonso’s eyes and ears which I personally as a conductor find unacceptable.

The bookkeeping of this organization is a complete parody. After I insisted on being paid according to my contract, I was asked to present my own invoice for my work. Aside from the fact that this is the most unusual request you can get from an employer anywhere in the United States, it also means that people in SFSO’s office don’t even bother to keep record on my working schedule.

The most dangerous thing about scams like SFSO is that it easily becomes epidemic. More and more orchestras in South Florida begin to adopt this sinful method of systematic abuse of mainly young an naive musicians and this vicious practice poisons the entire cultural life in a place like South Florida that could easily flourish culturally. Irresponsible behaviour like the behaviour of the SFSO is the reason for many young musicians from Florida to leave their state and to look for career opportunities somewhere else. Such an unscrupulous behaviour is also the reason for the local community to await impatiently every year for good out-of-state orchestras to come and bring high quality music instead of local Florida orchestras to grow up, flourish and undertake this noble task from within.

I would like to encourage every person with power and influence to spread the word and help freeing our community of scams like this.

In what looks like another round of fake news kicked off by an attention-seeking executive at English National Opera, two UK companies say they are encouraging the booing of stage villains by first-time oepragoers.

Stuart Murphy, chief executive of English National Opera, said the company had noticed booing on Saturday nights, when under-18s are given free seats in the balcony as part of a series of measures to entice new young opera-lovers.

“I certainly think there’s a thing that people are comfortable being more vocal nowadays.

“People feel – I don’t know if it’s an American thing – people feel more comfortable being expressive.”

Anybody at ENO ever been to La Scala, Vienna or Bayreuth?

Read on here.

 

The 26th Verbiaer Festival has just bee rolled out with all the usual yodelling and sycophancy.

Gergiev is in charge of the festival orchestra.

There will be a concert performance of Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Matthias Goerne and Nina Stemme and a concluding show of Mahler’s second symphony in a perfectly inadequate acoustic.

Details below.

Festival highlights include:

World premiere of Three Lullabies for viola and piano by Thomas Adès, commissioned by The Verbier Festival
Concert staging of Strauss’s opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Nina Stemme and Matthias Goerne
Leading soloists including Renaud Capuçon, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Leonidas Kavakos, Evgeny Kissin, Vadim Repin, András Schiff, Daniil Trifonov and Arcadi Volodos
150 masterclasses with top musicians such as, Kristóf Baráti, Pamela Frank and Jian Wang
“You can think you know everything about Verbier, but once there you’re in for a surprise. That’s one of the Festival’s key elements” Vadim Repin

The Verbier Festival, now in its 26th year, presents 17 days of performances, masterclasses, talks, screenings and education events. The Festival runs from 28 July to 3 August in the picturesque setting of the Swiss Alps, with repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary, including the world premiere of Three Lullabies for viola and piano by Thomas Adès, commissioned by the Festival.

The Festival’s mission is to encourage encounters between great musicians and young aspiring artists from around the world. Audiences witness these unique encounters and partnerships through the Festival’s programme of concerts and free events set in the unrivalled surroundings of Verbier. Having just celebrated its 25th anniversary, the Festival’s attendance is at an all-time high with a 16% increase in ticket sales.

Summer 2019 sees the Festival continue its trademark programme, featuring today’s most sought-after musicians in its two main venues – the Salle des Combins and Église de Verbier. The programme includes 75 leading international artists who will perform solo, chamber and orchestral concerts alongside the next generation of artists in the Verbier Festival Academy, Verbier Festival Orchestra and Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra. Visiting musicians include András Schiff, Evgeny Kissin, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Leonidas Kavakos, Nina Stemme, Vadim Repin and Renaud Capuçon.

The Festival’s Music Director Valery Gergiev opens the Festival with violinist Kristóf Bárati who will perform with the Verbier Festival Orchestra for the first time. Gergiev will also conduct one of this year’s most eagerly awaited performances of Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten with a prestigious cast including Brandon Jovanovich, Matthias Goerne and Nina Stemme.

A stellar list of pianists performing recitals include Sergei Babayan, Yoav Levanon, George Li, András Schiff, Grigory Sokolov, Daniil Trifonov. Leading cellists Mischa Maisky, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Jian Wang, and violinists Marc Bouchkov and Alexander Sitkovetsky perform recitals this year.

Two quartets – Quatuor Arod and Quatuor Ébène – perform recitals, and a number of new partnerships are formed between visiting soloists such as Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, Marc Bouchkov, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and George Li who will perform Elgar’s Quintet for Piano and String Quartet.

Other highlights include Leonidas Kavakos in concert with Evgeny Kissin and Karita Mattila, and Renaud Capuçon in concert with András Schiff. The Festival concludes with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 featuring Golda Schultz and Ekaterina Gubanova alongside the Verbier Festival Orchestra and Oberwalliser Vokalensemble.

As in previous years, the Verbier Festival continues to nurture the next generation of musicians through its Verbier Festival Academy, Verbier Festival Orchestra and Junior Orchestra, working with musicians from around the world between the ages of 15 and 35. The 220 musicians this year will be trained by leading musicians through over 150 masterclasses, rehearsals and workshops. The Academy and Orchestras will perform throughout the Festival with visiting conductors and soloists. The Verbier Festival Academy has an impressive list of alumni from over 60 countries who have been engaged by the world’s leading orchestras since training at Verbier, including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre and the New York Philharmonic.