The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra has named Clara Marrero to succeed Adrian Jones as general manager.

Take a look at her CV:

2005-12 concert and tour director of Saxon Staatskapelle Dresden with Fabio Luisi and Christian Thielemann

2012-17 orchestra manager at Staatskapelle Berlin with Daniel Barenboim

2017-19 career break and freelance

She starts work in a fortnight.

The numbskulls who decide on honorific titles for provincial plances have chose Bad Ischl in Austria as one of the continent’s Capitals of Culture for 2024.

Bad Ischl is a fading spa of 14,000 inhabitants where the only noise to be heard is the defibrillator applied to ailing visitors.

Its twin claim to renown is that Brahms summered there and Kaiser Franz Josef signed the declaration ‘An meine Völker’ that proclaimed the start of the First World War and all our subsequent miseries.

City of Culture? Someone’s having a laugh.

As chair of the jury of the Long Thibaud Crespin Competition, Martha Argerich has squeezed local talent into the final round.

Here’s the list: