Elina Vähälä, has been appointed Professor of Violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She will start in October 2019.
She said: ‘Vienna is the centre for classical music, the greatest geniuses of the history of music have lived and left lasting legacies. It is hugely inspiring to be able to work in such environment and in an institute of such high reputation. To me it’s personally important, that the University went out of their way to appoint a performing artist with an active international career.’
It’s a cool appointment, a breach with Viennese nepotism.
The veteran Gerard Schwarz has been named Music Director/Artistic Director of Palm Beach Symphony.
He starts in September.
The theatre plans to show Puccini’s original version that was booed off in 1900.
Davide Livermore directs, Riccardo Chailly conducts. December 7. Be there is you can.
Another season highlight: Claude Debussy’s ‘Pelleas et Melisande’ conducted by the thoroughly cleansed Daniele Gatti.
The Russian Ministry of Culture has posted the wage bill for the opera and ballet theatre theatre at Perm.
The artistic director Theodor Currentzis earned 18.8 million roubles in 2018, about quarter of a million US dollars.
That’s around 2.5 times as much as the next artistic employee.
President Trump yesterday presented a viola to the new Emperor of Japan, an enthusiastic player.
What’s its provenance?
Slipped Disc has learned that the viola was sold to the US State Department by a violin shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was made in 1938 by Ivan W. Allison of Charleston, West Virginia.
Message from Joe Joyner, owner of the Little Rock Violin Shop:
On April 30th I heard a news story that Japan’s Emperor Akihito was stepping down and that his son, Naruhito, would be taking his place. 24 hours later I received a call from the U.S. State Department seeking an American made viola to give as a diplomatic gift. Shortly after this call, I began seeing news stories about Japan’s new Emperor Naruhito being a violist.
Nearly a month later, I can now say that last week I sold the Emperor’s new viola, an instrument made in 1938 by Ivan W. Allison of Charleston, West Virginia. The instrument was presented to Emperor Naruhito by President Donald Trump today.
