Soprano Adriana Gonzalez from Guatemala and tenor Xabier Anduaga from Spain have been named First Prize winners of the 2019 edition of Operalia. They receive $30,000 each.

Second prizes of $20,000 were awarded to Maria Kataeva, a mezzo-soprano from Russia and Gihoon Kim, baritone from South Korea.

Christina Nilsson, soprano from Sweden and Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor from USA/Germany took the $10,000 third prize.

Message to all Curtis alumni from college president Roberto Diaz:

To the entire Curtis community:

Yesterday we communicated with all of you in a way that was not consistent with our values.

We have understandably lost your trust and for that I am profoundly sorry.

I promise you we will do whatever is needed to make this right. As a first step toward this promise, Curtis will establish an anonymous reporting hotline. We will reach out again with more information about this service in the coming days.

It’s not entirely clear whether he’s apologising for an official urging everyone to keep quiet, or indirectly about the alleged historic abuse itself.

The baritone has tied the knot with longterm girlfriend Hannah Stone, former harpist of the Prince of Wales. As of today, she’s Lady Terfel.

The venue was Caersalem Newedd Baptist Church in Hannah’s home town, Swansea.

We wish them every happiness.

Another article from Jeffrey Arlo Brown in Van, the magazine which goes where other classical outlets fear to tread.

This to start:

Recognition is a basic neural pleasure. The first five notes of “Parsifal” are thrilling if we expect the sixth, an agonized A-flat. Something similar is at work with names like Bejun Mehta, Ken-David Masur, Kristjan Järvi, Michael Barenboim. On albums and concert posters, the names sound like transcendent concerts. They radiate prestige, competence, familiarity, proximity to greatness. “And he’s happy to talk about his father,” a publicist once wrote in an email offering me an interview with Michael Barenboim….

And this to follow:

… many people at the center of classical music life grew up immersed in the culture. To name just a few: the composer John Corigliano’s father, John Sr., was the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and a friend of Samuel Barber. Andreas Ottensamer, principal clarinet of the Berlin Philharmonic, is the son of the late principal clarinet of the Vienna Philharmonic (a post Ottensamer’s brother now holds). The parents of the cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the conductor Joshua Weilerstein perform together in the Weilerstein Trio, an ensemble in residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. Nadia Sirota, the violist and host of Meet the Composer, is the daughter of Robert Sirota, a composer and conductor. Matthias Schulz, the artistic director of Berlin’s Staatsoper, recently told a local newspaper that, for his five children, playing an instrument “was as natural a part of their daily routine as brushing their teeth.”

Every classical musician who is not from a musical background has a different story…

Read on here.

Riana Anthony, USA
Beata Antikainen, Finland
Friederike Luise Arnholdt, Germany
Basile Foreigners, France / Switzerland
Joel Blido, Germany
Nepomuk Braun, Germany
Konstantin Bruns, Germany
Pin-Jyun Chen, Taiwan
Min Suk Cho, South Korea
Ye Lin (Stella) Cho, South Korea
Hayoung Choi, South Korea
Yehjin Chun, South Korea
Elia Cohen-Weissert, Germany / Israel
John-Henry Crawford, USA
Christoph Croisé, Germany / France / Switzerland
Simone Drescher, Germany
Chiara Enderle Samatanga, Switzerland
Rolando Fernandez, Mexico
Jeremias Fliedl, Austria
Jérémy Garbarg, France
Wassily Gerassimez, Germany
Johannes Gray, United States
Fedor Grigoriev, Russia
Anouchka Hack, Germany
Sihao He, China
Christoph Heesch, Germany
Natania Hoffman, Italy
Stéphanie Huang, Belgium
Raphaël Jouan, France
Minji Kang, South Korea
Ivan Karizna, WeißRussia
Min Ji Kim, South Korea
Stanislas Kim, France
Marcel Johannes Kits, Estonia
Anastasia Kobekina, Russia
Maciej Kulakowski, Poland
Benjamin Lai, United States
Christine JeongHyoun Lee, South Korea
Kanghyun Lee, South Korea
Yeong-Kwang Lee, South Korea
Olivier Marger, France
Laura Moinian, Germany
Guilherme Nardelli Monegatto, Brazil
Dilshod Narzillaev, Uzbekistan
Erica Piccotti, Italy
Florian Pons, France
Nadège Rochat, France / Switzerland
Senja Rummukainen, Finland
Haruma Sato, Japan
Andreas Schmalhofer, Germany
Katarina Schmidt, Germany / Sweden
Oleksiy Shadrin, Ukrain
Lev Sivkov, Russia
Ivan Skanavi, Russia
Anton Spronk , Netherlands / Switzerland
Sayaka Selina Studer, Japan / Switzerland
Ildikó Szabó, Hungary
Laura Szabó, Hungary
Friedrich Thiele, Germany
Michiaki Ueno, Japan
Volodia Van Keulen, France
Guillaume Wang, Australia
Sul Yoon, South Korea

The organist Paul Jacobs is one of the most thoughtful, self-searching practitioners on any instrument. A Grammy winner who played the complete works of J S Bach in an 18-hour unbroken marathon, he talks to Zsolt Bognar about pain, anxiety, struggle… it’s not easy.

Watch.