The Italian instrument maker Renato Scrollavezza has died at 94.
Active in Parma, he modelled his instruments on Guadagnini and taught at the Arrigo Boito conservatoire.
He was entrusted by the city of Genoa with the care of the Guarnerius that was owned by Paganini.
We hear that the Prazak Quartet are splitting up. They will finish playing in 2021, after half a century on the road and 3,000 concerts.
Their legacy consists of more than 60 recordings.
Present members are: Jana Vonášková, Vlastimil Holek, Josef Klusoň and Michal Kaňka.
The English director Polly Graham has been called to the rescue of Olga Neuwirth’s new opera Orlando, opening December 8.
She replaces Karoline Gruber in what is described as ‘a consensual departure’.
Also dropping out is Fiona Shaw, the intended narrator. She has landed a film role in the US.
Polly Graham (pic) is artistic director of Longborough Festival Opera.
The pianist Igor Levit has dedicated his Opus Klassik instrumentalist-of-the-year award on Sunday to victims of the recent attack on a synagogue in Halle.
‘I dedicate my prize to those who have been fighting silently or loudly for years against right-wing extremism, against anti-Semitism, against Islamophobia and against anti-feminism. All of these concepts combine absolute contempt for humanity,’ he said.
The wonderful German mezzo-soprano has written about some of her stage partners in an autobigraphy that has just hit the shops.
She describes Domingo as a persistent womaniser who came on to every woman within reach.
They performed together in Werther in 1978. ‘His fruitless approaches to me during rehearsals must have been exhausting for him,’ she writes.
‘Domingo war verschrien als unermüdlicher Frauenheld, er flirtete mit jedem weiblichen Wesen, das ihm unter die Finger kam. Vor seinen Avancen war keine sicher… Seine fruchtlosen Bemühungen um mich während der Proben müssen für ihn, den in jeder Beziehung Erfolg Gewohnten, ziemlich anstrengend gewesen sein.’
She adds that she was in love at the time with the stage director, Kurt Horres.
Her reminiscences were written before the recent Domingo uproar.
Joan and Sanford Weill have just topped up their donations to Carnegie Hall, where he is president, by an extra $14.6 million.
That brings their total gift to $100 million.
The sum of $5 million is ringfenced for the Hall’s music education and teacher training programs in New York City public schools.
Other halls, dream on.
Vladimir Jurowski has renewed his music director contract with the Svetlanov State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia until summer 2021, taking him up to ten years in the post.
He is also music director of the Berlin Radio Symphony until 2023 and incoming MD of Bavarian State Opera in Munich (while outgoing at the LondonPhilharmonic).
Never an idle moment. IMG Artists takes its cut.
Nicely timed for the release of an album of Vienna songs, the tenor was awarded the Goldener Rathausmann der Stadt Wien last night by the Mayor of Vienna.
The award followed a recital at the Vienna Konzerthaus.
photo: C. Probst
The singer has asked to be excused from the award of this year’s Europe Culture Prize in Vienna at the weekend.
‘Placido Domingo and the European Cultural Forum have jointly decided to postpone the award to October 3, 2020 in Bonn,’ is the official line.
The jury has been chosen for the next Van Cliburn Competition and it’s a 5-4 f-m split:
Wu Han (Taiwan) Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (France)
Anne-Marie McDermott US) Rico Gulda (Austria)
Gabriela Montero (ex-Venezuela) Andreas Haefliger (Switz.)
Orli Shaham (Israel) Stephen Hough (UK)
Lilya Zilberstein (Russia)
Marin Alsop will conduct.
The independent testomonies are piling up at Ian Pace’s log of multiple abuses of children at Chetham’s Music School in Manchester. This is one of the worst yet:
My Mother told me that after my first half term, I came home with a suitcase full of diarrhoea covered clothes and everything fastened with safety pins. I fainted in church one Sunday morning because I was starving, I used to go to the 9 o’clock service as well as the other one we had to go to. I would go because we got tea and toast with butter afterwards. I had dry bread at school for 5 years as the ‘axle grease’ made me violently sick. Nobody looked after me at all that first year …
Boss pulled down my pants, over his knee and smacked me. After that incident Boss ordered all the doors to be taken of our dorms. He would come down our corridor unannounced quite often.
I also ran away with another girl , very unsuccessfully, we laugh about it now but I was told by boss if I did it again I’d be expelled. I was deeply depressed for the rest of my time there. My form teacher in my first year in the senior school , William Clarke, otherwise known as WC or bog face, gave a report that said ‘[Redacted]’s attitude to school and life is deplorable’. I have had a complete block to do with maths and French since then because of him….
I gave up playing finally a few years ago after a pretty successful orchestral career but complete burn out in the end. I had been playing professionally since the age of 15. When I gave up I heaved a huge sigh of relief, I realised that I’d always done it for someone else.
