I would expect to read in the Guardian – a Left-wing journal – constant probings of our ubiquitous pop industry and its umbilical link with the rich and powerful. But probings I find none. What I do find (which reminds me also of the BBC) is breathless, adoring praise for events such as the Glastonbury Festival and the elevation of the decidedly mediocre and banal to iconic genius status….
The fact is that the pop-dominated, mass-produced culture industry and big business are inherently bound together to make a large-scale system of control and exploitation. In comparison to this behemoth, the experience of classical music for most of us is of a struggling, hard-pressed cottage industry. Those of us involved in it spend a lot of time fighting the political class (something the Guardian used to do) which is presiding over a state education system that marginalises music and the other arts.
This is the Polish flute professor, Krzysztof Maciej Kaczka.
His technique is called Kaczkaesque.
The Festival has tweeted that the mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova was injured in a stage rehearsal and will miss the opening night of Tannhäuser.
Besetzungsänderung der ‚Venus‘ in „Tannhäuser“:
Ekaterina Gubanova, Sängerin der ‚Venus‘, hat sich bei einer Bühnenprobe zur Neuinszenierung „Tannhäuser“ leider verletzt und wird daher auf ihr Bayreuth-Debüt bei der Festspiel-Eröffnung am 25. Juli 2019 verzichten müssen. pic.twitter.com/TjzHsgGPBf
— Bayreuther Festspiele (@WagnerFestival) July 12, 2019
Her replacement is Elena Zhidkova who first sang at Bayreuth in 2001.
The conductor is Valery Gergiev, making his Bayreuth debut.
Gubanova adds: ‘My dear friends, with a great sadness I have to announce that I have seriously injured my knee during the rehearsals this Wednesday. Misplaced the meniscus and torn a ligament. Yesterday I was operated in Augsburg by one of the best surgeons in Germany. I will recover fully in about 6 to 8 weeks, which is unfortunately not fast enough to be able to perform Venus in this year’s new production of Tannhäuser at Bayreuther Festspiele. I was so looking forward!! ‘
We are sorry to hear of the death in Amsterdam of the composer René Samson, after suffering a heart attack while riding his bike.
René was 71.
Born into a Jewish family in Surinam, he worked as a chemist for Shell, studying various instruments in his spare time until, at 40, he became a fulltime composer. His works were mostly for chamber ensembles.
The last one listed is a Lieder cycle, The Scent of Pink.
My brother-in-law, Jerry Epstein -literally my brother and best friend for 35 years, my favorite playing partner passed away this afternoon at 4:30 PM Los Angeles time. I weep because the world has lost a kind and gentle soul and I have lost a piece of my heart.
Jan Hoffmann, deputy music director of Stadttheater Gießen, will take over as chorus director at Dresden’s Semper Opera from next month.
He will also remain head of the Frankfurt Singakademie.
The Toronto-born Yves Abel has been named principal conductor of San Diego Opera.
Abel, 56, is chief conductor of the NordwestDeutsche Philarmonie, Germany, and former principal guest with the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
The tabloids report the death of Katya Tsukanova, a violinist who had played at the Royal Opera House and Royal Albert Hall, in what is alleged to have been a drugs party at her father’s Kensington flat.
Katya was a music scholar at Wycombe Abbey.
Her father Igor Tsukanov, a Russian banker, found her unconscious at home on June 18.
The drug that killed her was said to have been ‘a deadly cocktail of cocaine and ketamine’ known as a Calvin Klein’.
She performed a Tchaikovsky concert at the Royal Opera House on June 10.
At one point she was a student of the controversial Zakhar Bron, whose Foundation her father supported.
Our thoughts are with her devastated family.
Tim Redmond has been named music director of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, starting next month.
He is also chief conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic and professor of conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
His appointment was greeted in local media with the headline: The Brit’s a Hit.
David Bromberg’s unique Wilmington collection of 263 historic American violins was meant to be going to the Library of Congress.
But no-one has come forward in three years with the funds to curate it in Washington, so the trove is to be dismantled.
Bromberg, 73, is a former folk-rock musician who has worked with Bob Dylan and George Harrison.
For a touring musician, waves of intense, complicated and high-pressure periods are intermixed with stagnant lulls, reminiscent of a boat lost at sea, arms languidly draped over the side, waiting for even a hint of a breeze or the spotting of a seagull in the distance. You will also be experiencing a jolt of shock between the worlds – home could be filled with chaos and diapers, complete loneliness, or sense of measured calm. Away can have 5-star or disgusting airport hotels, fancy dinners or ramen in your room, library concerts or Carnegie Hall. Just depends person-to-person. But anyway, the differences between your two worlds will certainly be stark, no matter what. And these periods – both of them – are always different lengths. Two weeks of crazy intense travel and performances with erratic sleep and eating, 3 days at home with shopping, cooking, doing taxes and helping with math homework. Or 4 days away, 2 weeks home. In any case, the only thing that remains steady is the flopping back and forth.
This pattern is disorienting – to remain stable emotionally takes vigilant care, and if you have a relationship at home, the maintenance of that – both during the home and away periods – can’t be controlled. You are dealing with your own rollercoaster emotions and those affect others – and those other people have their own s*** to deal with – and their own patterns of dealing with you showing up or disappearing willy-nilly.
When I get done with a busy period, I often do a number of things to settle – I take a jog in the woods every day, pull out a huge puzzle, reorganize the kitchen. And I play video games late at night after my family is asleep. I just finished a charming puzzle of dogs sitting on apples, made a pot of curried chickpeas, can fit back into my favorite jeans, and am once again playing Red Dead Redemption 2, a single-person period game based in the early 1900‘s in the Wild West.
I was invited to the Mayor‘s House in Saint Denis recently, the largest city in Red Dead – it’s like a brand-new New Orleans with a heady mix of new arrivals from different lands, risky new business ventures, new money and scientific discovery, squalid living and gargantuan mansions. I went to the haberdashery, got my mutton-chops trimmed, saddled up and headed to the big party. I was enjoying a cigar on the wrap-around porch, overlooking the garden teeming with the “who‘s-who“ in town – plumes on hats, waiters in tails, and hired guns patrolling the perimeter. While planning an intricate heist of a gambling riverboat, I distinctly heard a very chunky and powerful rendition of the scherzo of the Death and the Maiden String quartet. Where on earth did this quartet come from? On my forays through town, I saw no advertisements of “Geigenbauer“ or “Orchestra Concert Tonight!“. Who does rehairs in town, and can I get a lesson? These questions and more prompted me to excuse myself from the planning meeting and to try to find this quartet.
The garden was immense, but eventually I found a charming gazebo, with four burly men in tuxes and handlebar mustaches. The cellist was having some sort of endpin problem, but what can you expect when dealing with this extreme humidity? Their bowing were great – by the time I had reached them they had switched to Haydn – no Flonzally Favorites for this group. Had they come over on a boat with Dvorak? Or perhaps they had travelled on the very riverboat I was planning on robbing? Maybe they were ex-students of Joachim, or possibly was the second violinist Florizel von Reuter? He was born in Iowa in 1890 – I had heard so much about him – he had studied in London and Geneva, and was renowned also as a medium and psychic. His books on his conversations with deceased musicians were still forthcoming – that page-turner “A Musician‘s Tales with Unseen Friends“ is a must-read for anyone interested in the latest in double-degree offerings at The National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City.
These guys were just at their break, and I was able to catch up with the cellist, while the others ran quickly to the buffet table, where they were shoving pastries in their mouths like gerbils preparing for a harsh winter, and shoving wedges of cheese into their tux pockets (some things never change). Turns out his name was Andrew Yee, and the quartet – Attacca – was based in New York City. They had recently played the entire Beethoven Cycle in Buffalo and seemed to be quite busy playing concerts all around the darned place. Amidst conversations about where to get a decent adjustment or how to craft a bow from salvaged materials, I was able to get some real answers as to how they managed to get this tasty gig.
Anthea: how did you get this tasty gig?
Andrew: I think they had seen our Star Wars Video we made a couple of years back. They just said they were motion capturing a string quartet for an unnamed project. We weren’t sure if it was for the next Grand Theft Auto or what, but it was exciting because we are all gamers. We are more of a Nintendo quartet though. We all love Zelda, and have played most of the titles.
Anthea: What was that day like, when you did the gig?
Andrew: The day we got in we were suited up in motion capture suits and they had asked us to play specific quartet movements all in d-minor. It was actually fun to be assigned these pieces that we already knew so we could just go in and have fun.
Anthea: Can Players interact with you during the game?
Andrew: I haven’t actually played the game, but I think initially you were supposed to be able to interact with us, but they added a barrier. I think they said that f-ing with us was going to be against the rules in the final product, but I don’t know if that panned out.
Anthea: Do you look like that in real life?
Andrew: Our quartet is split gender and in the game it is 4 men with gigantic mustaches, which is kind of historically accurate in its own way, I guess… I think the cool thing is that up bows are up bows and down bows are down bows. It’s actually really funny to see a video game character make suspicious bowing choices that I really believe in.
Anthea: Do you normally do work like this? I know you also just played the Beethoven Cycle in Buffalo….
Andrew: We do a lot of studio work, but it is mainly for rock bands and things like that. We are hoping that Nintendo will see how well we translate to video games and poach us. We have so much rep already learned!
