Weeks after announcing a summer season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra today cancelled it.

‘These decisions were extremely difficult to make and were not entered into lightly, but they are the right ones if the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is going to continue to exist as a nationally renowned organization,’ said BSO President and CEO Peter Kjome. ‘If the BSO is going to survive, our business model needs to change, and that change begins in earnest today.’

Every lone step forward at Baltimore is followed by two steps back.

These are the events affected:
New Music Festival – June 20-22.
Oregon Ridge Star-Spangled Spectacular – July 3.
Leslie Odom Jr. – July 5.
Harry Potter film with orchestra – July 11-13.
BSO performance at Artscape – July 19.
Cirque Dances – July 26-27.

 

Message from the Kronos Quartet:

It is with great regret that the Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) announces that Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté is unable to travel to the U.S. to be part of Kronos Festival 2019 on June 1. Her cancellation is due to the U.S. Department of State’s failure to issue her required P-3 visa in a timely fashion.

Kronos Quartet, Valérie Sainte-Agathe and the San Francisco Girls Chorus will perform the world premiere of Tegere Tulon, Diabaté‘s new work for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, as planned.

Diabaté’s work authorization was approved by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) without issue. Although she has previously traveled to the U.S. and been approved for multiple U.S. work visas in the past, the U.S. embassy in Bamako, Mali, unnecessarily chose to subject her application to the current administration’s “extreme vetting” procedure, a process that is known to indefinitely delay visa issuance.

“We are extremely disappointed that Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté will not be able to travel from Bamako to San Francisco to take part in our festival,” said KPAA Managing Director Janet Cowperthwaite. “It is deeply upsetting that such an amazing vocalist would be prevented from sharing her unique artistry here. What a missed opportunity for Kronos, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and our audiences.”

 

The exuberant Harry Ogg, a finalist at the last LSO Flick contest, has been collared by the leading London agency and landed with a first job – associate conductor at Welsh National Opera.

 

L’Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, France, has announced the death this morning of its director Eva Kleinitz, of an unspecified long illness, reportedly cancer.

Eva, who was about 47, joined the company in September 2017 and continued working to the end.

Originally from Hannover, she arrived in Strasbourg from a successful stint at Stuttgart Opera and made an immediate impact with her positive attitude and artistic connections.

She will be sorely missed.

We hear that some parents have expressed concern on finding Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow listed in the ABRSM Grade 4 piano exams.

They recognise the title as a tune used in porn films to precede sexual activity and are concerned that children might be able to identify it.

Obviously, one would not expect anyone at ABRSM (or at Slipped Disc) to know that.

 

Dallas Opera’s Hart Insitute, which has yielded some stunning talent since 2015, is ready with its next set of interns.

They are:
– Tiffany Chang (USA)
 Jiannan Cheng (China)
 Tamara Dworetz (USA)
 Marta Kluczyńska (Poland, pictured)
 Madeline Tsai (Taiwan)
 Molly Turner (USA)

The six finalists were selected from a list of 90.

 

Operanostalgia reports the death of Michèle Vilma, a mezzo from Rouen who sang Waltraut at Bayreuth in Die Walküre in 1972 and, two years later, Brangäne at the Met in Tristan und Isolde.

She starred for much of her career at La Monnaie in Brussels, and across France.


 

Just in from the Singapore Symphony:

Due to health-related reasons, Martha Argerich has regretfully postponed her concerts in Singapore, to future dates to be confirmed. All ticketholders will be fully refunded.

She had been due to give three concerts. Eric Lu steps in for one of them.

 

In the first action of the summer transfer market, Antonio Pappano has persuaded Piero Monti to leave the Teatro Massimo in Palermo after six years and join him at Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Monti is reckoned to be the best chorus trainer in Italy, possibly in Europe.

He will be replaced in Palermo by Ciro Visco, head of Choir at Santa Cecilia since 2010.

Monti will kick off in Rome next season with the Berlioz Requiem.

 

The Mirjam Helin Competition, where judges are not allowed to discuss contestants, was won last night by Stefan Astakhov and Johanna Wallroth.

The judges’ rankings were:
Men:

1st prize: Stefan Astakhov, baritone, German
2nd prize: Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo, countertenor, Italian, Venezuelan
3rd prize: Bryan Murray, baritone, American
4th prize: Jussi Juola, bass-baritone, Finnish

Women:

1st prize: Johanna Wallroth, soprano, Swedish
2nd prize: Olga Cheremnykh, soprano, Russia
3rd prize: Teaa An, mezzo-soprano, South Korean
4th prize: Palesa Malieloa, soprano, South African

1st prize €30 000, 2nd prize €20 000, 3rd prize €15 000 and 4th prize €10 000.

The members of the Jury vote independently and do not discuss the performances during the voting procedure. The chairman of the 2019 Jury is the Artistic Director of the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Jorma Silvasti. The members are Olaf Bär, Ben Heppner, Vesselina Kasarova, François Le Roux, Waltraud Meier, Deborah Polaski and Kiri Te Kanawa.