Nino Machaidze posted this tonight:
Here we are, Salzburg Festival’s “Luisa Miller” family, happy after fantastic first Orchestra rehearsal 💖 This Opera is a real piece of magic and I’m always incredibly happy to sing this role, especially when the colleagues are such amazing people and incredible musicians, as well as great friends and wonderful human beings 🤗
James Conlon conducts.
All that is missing from the message is FU #Me2
New York City Opera will mark its its 75th Anniversary with a free concert in Bryant Park on September 9 at 6pm.
Whether it can put on a season after its main backer withdrew remains to be seen.
The International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians is holding a crisis meeting in Utah.
‘We are losing orchestras,’ says ISCOM chair Meredith Snow, a Los Angeles Philharmonic violist. ‘We’re a little bit like the canary in the coal mine because we’re so dependent on public support and funding that … we lose oxygen first.
‘There’s no symphony orchestra that sells enough tickets to keep themselves afloat. It’s just not how the business model works. You have to have private funding and people who donate to keep the doors open … and those people are harder to find.
‘You look at most orchestras, we’re very white. Our donors are white and our patrons are white, and that does not reflect the society that we live in,” Snow said. “We need to be looking at inclusion and diversity, and offering female composers and conductors and people of color and Latinx — all of those things are relevant to how we maintain ourselves. We’re definitely behind the eight ball.’
Read on here.
UPDATE: Meredith Snow has sent us this clarification:
The 2019 ICSOM conference is not a “crisis meeting.” Rather, it is our 57th annual conference. We’ve been holding it every year since 1963, in good times and bad. While there is always discussion at the conference regarding the challenges facing our orchestras, we firmly reject the notion that there is a “crisis” among ICSOM orchestras; to the contrary, despite a small number of workplace disputes over the past year, the vast majority of ICSOM orchestras are alive, well, and thriving.
In fact, the majority of ICSOM orchestras who recently bargained successor agreements have settled with progressive, non-concessionary contracts. This includes the Atlanta Symphony, Columbus Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Hawai’i Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, MET Opera Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Nashville Symphony, New York City Ballet Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Utah Symphony, and Virginia Symphony.
Similarly, the quote “we are losing orchestras” was taken entirely out of context. In the interview with Deseret News, that statement was made in the course of discussing economic crises in 2003 and 2008, in which some orchestras indeed faced difficulties. That is simply no longer the case.
Orchestras, like other arts organizations, will always require the support of patrons. But the arts in America are an economic engine: according to Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts and culture industries generated $166.3 billion in total economic activity and supported 4.6 million jobs in 2015. Creative solutions to the economic challenges that face orchestras are evident in the hundreds of cities across America that support orchestras of every budget size. ICSOM sees a bright future for symphonic music, and for ICSOM orchestras in particular.
The politically engaged Turkish pianist Fazil Say has given an open-air concert for thousands of spectators in the northwest province of Canakkale to protest against Government-sanctioned deforestation by a Canadian gold-mining firm, Alamos Gold Inc.
Fazil calls it ‘a massacre of nature… of plants andn anmals.’
Julien Gauthier, 44, composer in residence with the Orchestre de Bretagne, has died in horrific circumstances in Canada, a country where he grew up.
In search of inspiration for a symphony, Gauthier was camping with photographer Camille Toscani near the Mackenzie River at Tulita in northwestern Canada when, in the middle of the night, he was grabbed by the neck by a grizzly bear and dragged into a forest.
His body was found the next day.
More here.
Julien’s last message: Quelques nouvelles de notre expédition avec Camille Toscani et quelques photos après déjà 5 jours de canoë et de camping sauvage (dont 3 sans avoir croisé âme qui vive… à part 4 ours 🐻
quantité d’oiseaux en tous genres, et une trace de loup qui est apparue pendant la nuit 20 mètres en dessous de la tente!) Ce soir c’est repos bien mérité (après 1 journée de pluie incessante) dans un petit village d’une cinquantaine d’habitants, Jean-Marie River, et ici il y a la wifi 😉 Les paysages et l’expérience sont pour l’instant incroyables, le temps passe de la chaleur étouffante au froid, bref c’est intense, fatiguant et inspirant! Et déjà quelques sons très marquants enregistrés:) D’autres nouvelles la prochaine fois qu’il y a du réseau!
UPDATE: The orchestra’s director has posted this message:
My dear friends,
I am deeply saddened to announce the passing of our road companion, the composer and associate artist of the symphonic orchestra of Brittany, Julien Gauthier. He went on the Mackenzie River in the great Canadian North to collect sounds and photograph this land that is still little touched by man. He was accompanied by Camille Toscani, a researcher he had met at the islands islands.
He was a sensitive, generous and talented man that many of us had the chance to know by his work and the gift of his friendship. His work was faithful to his curious spirit, humble in front of the vast power and beauty of nature. First of all, he wanted to transmit by his music to the public his love and respect for nature.
On a personal note, I am extremely happy to have known Julien. He brought me a sense of adventure, wonder and a rare intelligence. I’m gonna miss him terribly. We still had so much way to go together.
Tonight we are thinking about his friend Laura, his father Alain and all those he touched.
Marc Feldman
Baroque soprano Giulia Semenzato took the precaution of securing a degree in law at the University of Udine before making singing her career.
She has just earned international representation at AskonasHolt.
The superb Argentine soprano Adelaida Negri has died in Buenos Aires.
A graduate of the London Opera Centre, she sang major roles opposite Pavarotti and Domingo, appearing in all the leading European opera houses.
