From cellist Marc Coppey:

L’Europe est aussi incarnée, depuis toujours et glorieusement par la musique. Ce jour, le Centre Européen de Musique fondé par le musicien humaniste Jorge Chaminé a été lancé à l’Elysée. J’ai eu l’honneur de jouer devant le Président de la République la 3ème Suite de Bach dont les danses d’origine diverse et l’art polyphonique disent l’harmonie dans la diversité

Europe is also defined, always and gloriously by music. Today, the European Centre for Music founded by the humanist Jorge Chamine, was launched at the Elysée. I had the honour of playing before the President of the Republic the third suite of J S Bach in which dances of diverse origin and polyphony proclaim our harmony in devisity.

Conductor Karina Canellakis was making her debut with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal last night when she was told just before the concert that piano soloist Daniil Trifonov had fallen ill and been taken to hospital.

The programme was Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde excerts and Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra in the first half, with Trifonov in Rachmaninov’s 3rd piano concerto after the break.

Here’s how it ended, according to a post from double-bass Scott Feltham:

Daniil Trifonov, tonight’s scheduled piano soloist, became suddenly ill just before the beginning of the concert and had to be taken to the hospital. … Instead, Madeleine Careau, our CEO, announced Trifonov’s illness and the resulting change in program. We performed Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Cold. No rehearsing. In front of 2,000-ish people. Bravo to all my colleagues. Bravo especially to maestra Karina Canellakis, conducting us for the first time. Time for a beer.

A year ago, the Hamburg State Opera fired the French soprano Julie Fuchs on discovering that she was four months pregnant.

It claimed that her condition had compromised the ‘artistic integrity’ of its Magic Flute production.

Julie got a lawyer and has just announced the outcome:

‘Hamburg State Opera and I have reached an agreement regarding the conditions of the termination of my guest contract for the role of Pamina in ‘Die Zauberflöte’ in May 2018. One year on, I am happy to announce that following proceedings at the Stage Arbitration Court in Hamburg, I have received my full agreed fee as compensation for the short-term cancellation of my employment in the production. As some of you may remember, apart from my initial announcement, I have gone to great lengths not to talk about this matter publicly. Now that the agreement has been reached, I’m proud to have stood up for what is right, and I hope this incident and the ruling will help set a good example for other pregnant women and other opera houses.

‘Thank you for your support during this time.’

In the season when he was fired from the Metropolitan Opera, former music director James Levine was paid $936,755 through his company Phramus, tax records have revealed.

Levine was paid $1,827,615 by the Met in calendar year 2016, and $1,543,119 in 2017.

Both sides are still suing each other in a case that is staggering its way towards court.

The current board chair of the Salzburg Easter Festival, Sarah Wedl-Wilson, has been voted in as principal of Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Berliner Hochschule für Musik.

Wedl-Wilson, 49, has been acting rector of the Salzburg Mozarteum through a period of turbulence.

Before that, she was managing director of the Camerata Salzburg and the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, having first worked at IMG.

Message from the suffering South African soprano:

It grieves my heart and soul that I have to unfortunately not perform my scheduled engagements as Amina @deutscheoperberlin due to the gravity of my health circumstance that I’ve been enduring the past few weeks. I’m terribly sorry to all my fans and family in Berlin. I promise to come back even stronger as soon as I and my health advisers have this sorted. I’m ok, I’ll be even better. Thank you all for your understanding when you don’t see much of me on social network for a while.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra has replaced Leif-Ove Andsnes on its present tour with this statement:

Leif Ove Andsnes is recovering from pneumonia and with enormous regret must withdraw from his remaining concerts on the Mozart Momentum 1785/1786 tour with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in France and Portugal.

This tour was to have been the launch of his Mozart Momentum 1785/1786 project with the orchestra so it is especially disappointing for him.

Lars Vogt has jumped in.

Where do you catch pneumonia? In planes.

Marin Alsop founded the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship in 2002 to mentor talented young women conductors. A Frenchwoman, Chloé van Soeterstede, has just been selected as the 2019-2021 Taki Concordia Conducting Fellow.

She will make her debut next season with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and with several French orchestras.

There is also a Taki Award to be given to three runners-up: Maria Badstue, Holly Hyun Choe, and Rebecca Tong.

Past Taki beneficiaries include: Marta Gardolinska (Bournemouth SO), Valentina Peleggi (Theatro de Opera São Pedro/Principal Conductor), Ruth Reinhardt (Opus 3), Karina Canellakis (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra), Mei-Ann Chen (Chicago Sinfonietta) and Carolyn Kuan (Hartford Symphony Orchestra).

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has issued news of the death of its founder, James Arkatov.

Russian born, James reached San Francisco at age 5, studied cello and formed a string quartet with Isaac Stern when he was 9.

Working in Hollywood orchestras as pincipal cellist, he founded the LACO in 1968 on the lines of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and with the late Neville Marriner as its principal conductor. ‘The idea was to create a group that would play works written expressly for chamber orchestra, many of them from the baroque era—music that the LA Philharmonic either wasn’t interested in or suited to,’ said Arkatov. He succeeded.

Marriner arm-wrestling Arkatov

From our weekly diarist Anthea Kreston:

Not enough sleep – but excited to be heading to Vienna for one last time to play at the glorious Konzerthaus. The Artemis has been in residence there since before I joined – I have played in the egg-shell blue, rectangular wooden hall more than 20 times. With its pristine acoustics, generous stage, velvet-lined seats and devoted audience (we play two nights in a row, same program, to sold-out audiences) it feels the most comfortable of all of the stages I have had the privilege of getting to know these past years. These next two times, my last here in Vienna, will be as a guest violist – playing alongside the new formation, in a joint pass-off concert with the other guest departing member, cellist Eckart Runge. The program (we have already played it a number of times – most recently last night in the Philharmonie in Berlin) is the first Brahms Sextet, followed by Berg Sextet (the arrangement of the Op. 1 Piano Sonata by original Artemis violinist Heime Müller), and then the new Artemis (Harriet Krijgh and Suyeon Kim joining veterans Gregor Sigl and Vineta Sareika) playing the Smetana Quartet.

The roll of a guest in any chamber ensemble (or orchestra) is as an observer. Listen, watch, match, enhance. Learn from the others, quickly, resist asking questions or commenting – rather be open to comments and observe, observe, observe. In addition, playing viola instead of violin means that alliances have shifted – I am no longer the main duet partner of the first violinist – I now pair most often with the first violist, am on the opposite side of the second violin/viola rhythm section, or play as back-up to second cello. It has given me new insight to someone I felt I had known so well – the violist Gregor Sigl, whose facility and emotional freedom with the audience has always impressed me – now I learn and match his viola bow-speed, depth of sound and vibrato width. Slow it down, dig in, offer harmonic support from the C string – a sound which I have always loved, and which informs my violin playing. I am always searching for the darkness in my violin playing, or, conversely, the brightness of the violin e-string encourages a clear, bright sound in the top registers of the viola. For me, the viola and violin are one extended instrument – to play both is to learn from yourself, and to broaden the technique and sounds inherent in each instrument.

I can already hear that the Artemis has shifted gears – they have quickly developed a new sound – something with a bit more air and lightness. Anyway – that’s how it feels from inside, and it’s exciting to see and hear a new life and direction, from within as well as from an audience perspective.

I had expected that I would feel nostalgic or somehow have moments of regret that I decided to step away from this quartet – I have worked so hard, and this opportunity is the pinnacle of anything that I, personally, could have ever hoped for in my career. Especially considering that I had made a conscious decision 9 years ago to step away from pounding the career path, and moved to a small town in Oregon to have children. But, sitting at the tippy-top of the Philharmonie Hall last night, next to old friends, watching the new formation weave a spell – I felt nothing but joy and lightness. They sound just tremendous, and these last concerts are cathartic and freeing. The things I have learned, the places I have traveled, the music I have performed, the flights, hotels, dinners, support staff and colleagues – these memories are preserved because of Norman Lebrecht – because of you – allowing me to be present every moment – to feel and respond and to write. Thank you, Slipped Disc! And I can’t wait to share with you the next phase – already underway, and under wraps, for now.

An agreement was signed in Warsaw yesterday under which the Polish state will take over the management of the composer’s 30 hectares near Lusławice.

Krzystof Penderecki, 85, and hs wife Elzbieta live in an 18th century manor house with a huge arboretum of 1,800 trees and shrubs, bought from private owners in 1974. They also manage the European Center for Music on five hectares donated by the State Treasury to Penderecki.

Mow here.

Edward Snowden (below) may be a regular and there will be VIP seats for the Assads and the Maduros, but the Bolshoi is still tied too closely to the Kremlin to attract visitors of conscience.

Its new opera productions are:

September 26, 2019, The Tale Of Tsar Saltan by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Music director — Tugan Sokhiev.
December 5, 2019 — Dido and Aeneas, co-production with International Opera Festival in Aix-en-Provence. Music director — Christopher Moulds
February 14, 2020, Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Director — Dmitri Tcherniakov. Music Director — to be announced.
March 5, 2020, The Little Chimney Sweep by Benjamin Britten Music Director — Ayrat Kashaev Director — Oleg Dolin
March 6, 2020 – Mazeppa by Tchaikovsky, concert version Conductor — Tugan Sokhiev
May 24, 2020 Anna Boleyn by Gaetano Donizetti, concert version Conductor — Tugan Sokhiev
June 17, 2020 Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Music Director — Tugan Sokhiev. Director — Semyon Spivak
July 2, 2020 Les Pêcheurs De Perles by Georges Bizet. Music Director — Alexei Vereschagin. Director — Vladislav Nastavshev