The German Orchestra Association (DOV) has released figures showing that concert attendances are rising – up from 5.9 million people in 2000/2001 to seven million in 2016/17.
Opera ging has fallen from 4.7 million to 3.8 million, but that does not account for tens of thousands who now watch opera in cinemas.
Last weekend, 35,000 turned out in Berlin to see Kirill Petrenko’s opening concert with the Philharmonic.
Christopher Coletti is leaving the group after 10 years, following the birth of his second child and an academic appointment in Ithaca.
He will be replaced from November by … his predecessor, Brandon Ridenour.
What goes round, goes round.
The Philadelphia Orchestra has appointed Christine Lim to the second violins.
She replaces Mei Ching Huang, who has been moved up to the first violin section.
Christine Lim started violin studies at the age of three. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. She is currently working on her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music where she studies with Soovin Kim and Paul Biss. Lim has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Suwon Philharmonic, the Gwacheon Philharmonic, the Rzeszów Philharmonic, the KBS Symphony, the Euro-Asia Philharmonic, the Kyunggi Philharmonic, and the South Bohemian Orchestra.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has reported the death on August 23 of Mario Davidovsky, an Argentine electronic evangelist who won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Synchronisms 6.
He was greatly lauded in the 1970s.
Davidovsky studied with Copland and Babbitt and taught at Mannes.
The Vienna Philharmonic, which is giving Bernard Haitink’s final concerts at the Salzburg, BBC Proms and Lucerne festivals, today named him an Ehrenmitglied, or honorary member.
Haitink first conducted the orchestra in 1972 and has appeared with them more than 100 times.
Haitink with VPhil chairman Daniel Froschauer/ photo: Terry Linke
The Maggio Musicale in Florence is about to name Alexander Pereira, dropped by La Scala, as its new boss.
His title will be Sovrintendente of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Pereira, 71, negotiated the deal in person with the Mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella.
He is expected to start work immediately. His predecessor Cristiano Chiarot quit last month after a falling-out with the Mayor, followed by the music director Fabio Luisi.
The company has been in perpetual financial crisis for a decade.
One of Pereira’s first acts will be to engage Cecilia Bartoli, who huffed out of La Scala upon his dismissal.
In the soap opera that is Italy’s opera industry, the same names go round and round.
The medieval music performer Belinda Sykes is making it known that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
She is sharing the news in order to raise money for Sarcoma UK and to spend her remaining time ‘gigging and celebrating life’.
Belinda grew up in Lewes listening to English folk songs. She studied oboe and recorder at the Guildhall, going on to obtains a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology and Arabic music from SOAS. She studied the Arabic language, vocal and dance styles, and Judeo-Spanish song, voice and improvisation during fieldwork in Morocco, Bulgaria, Spain, Jordan, Israel, Syria and India.
In 1992 she founded the medieval band Joglaresa. As an oboist she has played with the King’s Consort, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hanover Band and more.
Here’s Belinda’s press release:
Following a series of misdiagnosed symptoms in the summer of 2018, Belinda Sykes had a Total Abdominal Hysterectomy and Bilateral Salpingo-oophorectomy in October 2018. The operation left her temporarily unable to use her abdominal muscles, which meant she could not sing or play wind instruments. As a result, her career ended rather abruptly just when she was about to collaborate with Evelyn Glennie at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Five weeks after her operation, Belinda was diagnosed with Uterine Leiomyosarcoma – a very rare form of Sarcoma.
In March 2019, at one of her three month scans, doctors at The Royal Marsden told Belinda that the cancer was back and growing at an aggressive rate of 1cm per week. Belinda is now on a treatment plan of monthly palliative chemotherapy sessions to help slow the growth of her tumour. The good news is that she can now use her abdominal muscles ‘professionally’ again and plans to spend her remaining time and energy gigging with her beloved early music ensemble Joglaresa.
Belinda is one of the most striking and original voices in the medieval music world and her sense of humour is evident in her compositions as well as her live performance – she wanted a media campaign along the lines of “book Joglaresa before it’s too late”, but we managed to convince her that not everyone shared her dark sense of humour!!
Belinda said; “Gigging with Joglaresa is what I live for and I want my remaining time to be spent performing and sharing the music I love with as many people as I can. One of Joglaresa’s unique features is that it is not a solo singer with backing band, but a team of soloists and we proudly allow our different vocal qualities to shine out (the antithesis of the ‘blended’ English Choral Tradition).”
Belinda has championed women’s medieval song and extensively researched European Medieval music as well as music of the Ottoman and Arabic Empires. Her ensemble Joglaresa is considered early music’s ‘bit of rough’ who push, and often transcend, the limits of what is thought of as early music. Belinda has also been a regular contributor and presenter across BBC Radio and TV, performed in many live radio broadcasts around the world and has been vocalist and ethnic wind player for film and TV.
Belinda added; “I’ve spent decades finding characterful singers who can be both divas and team players. The greatest joy I have in life is standing amongst these singers.” Joglaresa are performing a series of concerts across England over the coming months and will be donating 100% of the sales of their back catalogue to raise money for Sarcoma UK, the only bone and soft tissue cancer charity in the UK focusing on all types of sarcoma. To donate please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/joglaresasarcoma
Glyndebourne has just closes after a fairly tough season of scant media attention and some box-office anxiety.
It has announced a new Fidelio and Alcina for next summer.
Bayreuth is about to end, and on a high note.
Despite high-profile Russian absenteeism – Netrebko cancelling her debut and Gergiev facing fierce criticism for inadequate rehearsal (he won’t be back, either) – the new Tobias Kratzer Tannhäuser has proved a hit and the Katharina Wagner-Christian Thielemann regime appears to have stabilised.
A star was born in the Norwegian Lise Davidsen, 32 years old and a superb Elisabeth.
There will be a new Ring cycle next summer.
Gustavo Dudamel will make a rare return on September 11 to Gothenburg, where he cut his teeth as music director, for a World Childhood Foundation gala hosted by the King and Queen of Sweden.
The World Childhood Foundation, founded by the Queen in 1999, works to prevent violence and sexual abuse of children.
The Yehudi Menuhin School announced today that it will set up international music school in Qingdao, China, equidistant between Shanghai and Beijing. The campus is scheduled to open in 2022-23.
YMS will appoint the Head, Director of Music and Bursar and will share the Yehudi Menuhin School name and expertise in running the place. There will also be teacher and pupil exchanges between the two campuses in China and the UK.
Star Menuhin graduates include Nigel Kennedy, Nicola Benedetti, Tasmin Little and Kathryn Stott.
The singer will appear tonight in Szeged with Placido Domingo Jr, the US soprano Ana Maria Martinez, a 15 year-old local pianist Soma Balázs-Piri and an orchestra conducted by Eugene Kohn.
Although Domingo is untouched in Europe by an AP sexual harrassment report, demands are being heard in the US that he should voluntarily withdraw from the Met’s revival of Verdi’s Macbeth, where he is scheduled to appear on September 25, opposite Anna Netrebko.
The Met says it is waiting on LA Opera’s investigation of the AP charges before confirming his participation, but the date is drawing near and the uncertainty is doing no-one any good – least of all the Met box-office.
Domingo, 78, shows no sign of stepping down.
The Chinese pianist, long sidelined with an arm injury, has pledged to play Beethoven’s second piano concerto at the New York Philharmonic’s big gala on October 7.
It will be his first appearance with the orchestra in exactly three years. They will perform Beethoven’s fifth symphony in the second half.
