The troubled enterprise has turned to Ernest H. Harrison to put them back on the rails after accusations, resignations and defections.
Harrison is associate conductor of the National Children’s Chorus, conductor of Pasadena Conservatory’s Cantare Chamber Choir and assistant conductor at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church.
LA Times reports: He will be the first permanent music director and conductor since Joe Nadeau left as the chorus’ music director in December. Gavin Thrasher, who served as interim music director, departed in August to lead the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.
The Bertelsmann-owned label has dipped a toe back in the water with a contemporary series on CD.
The press release arrives a bit late as we’ve already reviewed the first of the releases.
BERLIN – NOVEMBER 14, 2019 – BMG today announced the launch of Modern Recordings, a label for new classical, jazz and electronic music, mostly instrumental but also extending to singer-songwriters.
The label – the first new imprint to be launched by BMG since its launch in 2008 – will be led by renowned Berlin-based music executive Christian Kellersmann, who will serve as Senior Vice President New Classics & Jazz.
Modern Recordings will capitalize on the growing international appetite, also driven by streaming, for new leftfield music arising out of the classical and jazz worlds.
The firsts artists signed to Modern Recordings include Scottish composer Craig Armstrong, producer Robot Koch, composer Meredi, and producer, composer and conceptual artist Hendrik Weber aka Pantha du Prince.
Its first release is German countertenor Andreas Scholl and pianist Tamar Halparin’s Twilight People, out this Friday, November 15, 2019, which is already attracting rave reviews with renowned classical critic Norman Lebrecht describing it as “pure pleasure”.
Said Christian Kellersmann, “The first releases show the breadth of ambition of Modern Recordings. We will give international musicians a home to realize extraordinary projects. Across borders. Across genres. Across boundaries. We see a great opportunity to offer such artists all the benefits of BMG’s global approach to records.”
Richly deserved, but still…
Press statement from the city of Leipzig:
Die Bach-Medaille der Stadt Leipzig geht 2020 erstmals an eine Frau…
In 2020, the City of Leipzig Bach Medal will for the first time be awarded to a woman: the Canadian pianist globally acclaimed for her interpretations of Bach and for her Bach tours, Angela Hewitt. The jury, consisting of the president of the Bach Archive, Prof. Dr. Ton Koopman, and its director, Professor Dr. Peter Wollny, Thomaskantor Prof. Gotthold Schwarz, Gewandhaus kapellmeister Andris Nelsons and the rector of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre Professor Martin Kürschner, wrote in the award justification:
“…Never since the Canadian Glenn Gould has there been an artist who has placed Bach interpretations on the modern concert piano at the centre of their work as much as Gould’s compatriot, Angela Hewitt. …”
The 2020 Bach Medal will be awarded to Angela Hewitt by the Mayor of the City of Leipzig, Burkhard Jung, in Bachfest 2020 on 20 June during a gala concert in which she will perform the Goldberg Variations. The concert is sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Goverment of Canada.
Past medal holders are:
2003 Gustav Leonhardt †
2004 Helmuth Rilling
2005 Sir John Eliot Gardiner
2006 Ton Koopman
2007 Nikolaus Harnoncourt †
2008 Hermann Max
2009 Frieder Bernius
2010 Philippe Herreweghe
2011 Herbert Blomstedt
2012 Masaaki Suzuki
2013 Peter Schreier
2014 Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
2015 Peter Neumann
2016 Peter Kooij
2017 Reinhold Goebel
2018 Robert Levin
2019 Klaus Mertens
Now you can test your voice against his …. and it’s for a good cause.
Queen have just launched a campaign, together with Google, to raise funds for the Mercury Phoenix Trust by getting people to test their voice against the Freddiemeter.
You read about it first on Slipped Disc.
Warning: this might disrupt your working day.
It may also prove addictive. Try here.
We are the champions.
Here’s the Slipped Disc review of the latest concert in the CBSO100 year. All reviews are readable here:
CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★
Nostalgia, anti-colonial anger, maternal tenderness and the unbuttoned joy of dance – Xavier Montsalvatge’s 5 Canciones negras packs a lot into its twelve minutes. The Spanish mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz sang three of the Catalan composer’s “Five Negro Songs” on Radio Three last week in their original 1945 form with piano accompaniment. Here in the composer’s later orchestral version her vivacity, exuberance and ability to bring the poetry’s vivid scenes to life with vocal colouring was thrilling. There are gains and losses between the two versions.
In Cuba in a piano the singer rails against the Americanization of post-war Cuba, when “Si” was replaced by “Yes”, the last word of the song flung out defiantly by Mouriz, was much more biting with just the piano. But the orchestral Habanera was gorgeously sultry and Mouriz’s lullaby, with muted orchestra throbbing away like a maternal heartbeat, was irresistible.
The CBSO’s assistant conductor Jaume Santonja Espinós (pictured with an unidentified pianist) chose this work and the Suites 1 & 2 from Falla’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat – where he instantly communicated his love of them to us – and the CBSO eloquently conjured up the dances’ stamping rhythms, heat, humour and hectic gaiety. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7 is wonderfully deft and deceptively simple, with dark undertones; like Dickens’ writings on childhood. Espinós balanced ebullience, the lashings of percussion and the final madcap gallop, with pathos; its quiet ending with death as the winding down of a music box mechanism. Best to pass over a crudely deafening performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’sCapriccio Espagnol.
Norman Stinchcombe
Janice Thomson, oboe and English horn player in the Greater Miami Symphonic Band, fell to her death down a flight of stairs a few moments before the first concert of the season.
The orchestra reports: Our GMSB Family suffered a great loss this week. About 20 minutes before our season-opening concert on Sunday night, our wonderful Oboe/English Horn player, Janice Thomson, fell down a flight of stairs at Gusman Hall. She was transported to an area hospital by ambulance, followed by her husband and parents. Sadly, Janice succumbed to her injuries on Monday, November 11th.
Janice was 62.
Heavy hints are being dropped, here and elsewhere, that the Russian president will grace next summer’s centenary festival with his lowering presence.
That’s no great surprise given that the festival’s new sponsor is the Russian state polluter Gazprom, and that Anna Netrebko will appear as Tosca.
What is surprising is that the festival directors think that the Crimea and Syria warmonger will add lustre to the event.
But maybe what the festival needs is a dash of creative tension.The programme is heavily reliant on borrowed productions.
The conductor Brandon Keith Brown, who lost his job at Brown University two years ago after student complaints of harshness, has published an extensive article accusing every corner of classical music of prejudice against minorities.
He argues:
Each season, administrators, musicians, and artist managers exclude Black conductors from subscription concerts. Perhaps they believe racial equity will increase competition, decrease their control, opportunities, and power, and compromise white superiority. In any case, audiences learn we’re inferior.…
Musicians may work their whole lives without experiencing Black conductors, and never realize a sense of loss. Musicians learn we lack competence, and our musicianship has no value.
Bias through suspicion, and doubt accompany guest engagements. We’re regarded as disposable tokens, hired at the grace of White administrations, not because we earned it. Musicians sometimes disrespect us with impunity.
Behavior includes:
Physical assault
Cursing
Not playing when cued or at all
Talking back/arguing
Refusing correction
Overly disgruntle/uncooperative behavior
Lack of attention and focus
Vocal hostility (i.e. yelling)
Disseriousness
Changing parts at the concert to cause confusion
Not showing up to rehearsals on time or at all.
Read on here.
The soprano, formerly married to Andris Nelsons, has been unexpectedly joined in Dresden by the Chilean-American tenor Jonathan Tetelman, who will jump in tonight as Cavaradossi in place of Riccardo Massi.
Kristine writes: ‘Jonathan and I will sing our first operatic performance together! We have sung a few galas together before, but never a fully staged opera. We’re very excited to sing Tosca and Cavaradossi and hope you can join us @semperoper Dresden. It will be Jonathan’s house debut at Semperoper and only my second performance in this beautiful opera house.’
Here’s one from their Twitter album:
La Fenice has cancelled rehearsals for its season-opening production of Verdi’s Don Carlo after the worst flooding in 50 years.
Tonight’s recital concert is in doubt.
