Naomi Woo, named today in CBC’s 30-under-30 list, has been appointed assistant conductor in Winnipeg.
From Katinka Kleijn of the International Contemporary Ensemble:
My dear colleague Brandon George lost his cousin in the Dayton shootings. These beautiful children, one a newborn, are left without their mother. Please help if you can and please support common sense gun laws.
One of the victims, Lois Oglesby, 27, is the daughter of LaSandra J., who has worked for MVCAP for almost 23 years.
Lois leaves behind two children, a newborn and six year old. Our agency is collecting for the family, not only for funeral costs, but for the long-term care of the children.
You can donate: through our agency Facebook donate button, through PayPal, or by mailing a check to the agency, made out to the agency: Miami Valley Community Action Partnership 719 S. Main St. 45402 on any memo portion please note: F.B.O (for the benefit of) Lois Oglesby Family.
(Please be cautious of any fundraising sites. This fundraiser is approved and with permission of the family.)
The festival posted its closing notice tonight:
The 26th edition of the VF has come to a close. Thank you to all participants, concert goers, artists, musicians, sponsors, donors, journalists, collaborators…
17 remarkable days where music resonated throughout our community with 56 mainstage concerts featuring upwards of 160 artists, more than 220 Academy musicians, 127 master classes and open rehearsals, as well as 107 free and accessible Unlimited activities. 6 sold out concerts and preliminary box office results point to a successful 26th edition.
We have seen hardly any media coverage through the past fortnight. Under the direction of Martin Engstroem and Valery Gergiev, Verbier seems to add very little to the wider musical discourse.
Compared to Bayreuth, Salzburg, Lucerne, the BBC Proms, it creates not a bang but a whimper.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has published an appeal from a member of the founding Zimbalist family for an independent inquiry into sexual abuse allegations at the Curtis Institute.
David Zimbalist writes:
My cousin Efrem Zimbalist began teaching at the Curtis Institute in 1928, and served as its director from 1941 through 1968. He was also the second husband of Mary Louise Curtis Bok, the founder of the prestigious music conservatory….
Curtis should pay for a third-party agency to take future reports of abuse.
And anyone involved with issuing that recent denial email should resign immediately.
Despite the Inquirer’s persistence, one gets no sense of movement from Curtis.
On the morning of Friday 8 August 1969, the four Beatles lined up on the Abbey Road crossing outsde the EMI studios for the most controversial and iconic snapshot in the whole of rock history.
Today, the site is thronged by tourists, all trying to replicate the original shot (to the frustration of those of us who chose to live in the neighbourhood).
Austrian media are having the vapours this morning at the discovery that the Salzburg Festival used undue influence in 1975 to procure an honorary doctorate for Herbert von Karajan.
The University of Salzburg resisted, saying the conductor had no academic pedigree whatsoever.
The Festival insisted, adding: whatever you do, don’t mention the War (or words to that effect).
Read here.
The question we should be asking is who wielded the big stick to get Karajan an honorary doctorate from Oxford three years later? My guess is Edward Heath, the former prime minister.
We are reliably informed that staff at English National Opera can no longer access the Slipped Disc website on their work computers, following measures taken by the chief executive Stuart Murphy.
This is usually a sign of panic – and imminent regime change.
As far as we can see, ENO peeps are still getting Slipped Disc on their phones, tablets and other devices. We’ll keep telling them what’s really going on in the Titanic captain’s cabin.
UPDATE: More scorn for ENO chief from the Guardian (with namecheck for Slipped Disc).
I took a bit of stick yesterday for commenting on how Dalia Stasevska’s kimono-like garment got in the way of good conducting at her BBC Proms debut.
One musician wrote: It’s hard enough to be a woman in a profession where nobody takes you seriously. When you lead off your introductions of both women with how their clothes affected them you continue to put women in the “pretty things obsessed with clothes” category. You may have legitimate complaints about the performance— I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know— but surely someone with as much experience as you can come up with a better way to discuss this situation… I’m quite sure your critiques of her performance would stand had she worn something more acceptable to you. Surely we can all see that commenting on women’s appearances is unprofessional.
My response:
It is not unprofessional to report on an item of clothing – chosen by an artist of either sex – when it gets in the way of what the performer is supposed to be doing, which is communicating with the musicians and the audience. What if she had worn a flashing bow-tie? This is not a comment on her appearance per se: it is on her decision how she wants to appear and be perceived in the public eye. That is the very definition of public domain.
Your thoughts, please?
