Cristian Măcelaru, the youngest of 10 in an impoverished Romanian family, opened an envelope one day to find he’d been offered a full scholarship to attend the Interlochen Academy in the USA.
He spent two years at Interlochen, 1997-99, one of them as concertmaster of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Today, he became artistic director and principal conductor of the Interlochen orchestra.
Elsewhere, he’s music director of the Orchestre National de France, the WDR Sinfonieorchester and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.
The Atlanta Symphony, in its 75th season, has six new players:
Readers have since pointed out that she had pedigree.
Nancy’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was a close friend of George Gershwin’s. Joan Peyser, in her disputed 1993 biography of Gershwin, claimed that George fathered an illegitimate daughter with Van Norman.
Nancy strongly believed this was the case, and she was the daughter.
Howard Pollack, in his 2007 biography, claims that Van Norman was so overwhelmed by Gershwin’s death in July 1937 that she suffered a psychotic breakdown and spent much of the rest of her life institutionalised, until her death in 1997.
In a 2002 interview Nancy said: I can tell you that my mother and George were exceptionally close, and that there’s a correspondence in the Library of Congress between my mother and George Gershwin, as part of the Gershwin Archives. ALBURGER: Your mother’s name? DEUSSEN: Julia Van Norman. But, as far as I’m concerned, it’s nothing that I ever want to try to use to promote myself in any way. I am who I am.
Mariss Jansons has cancelled five concerts with the Vienna Phiharmonic Orchestra due to an Achilles tendon injury.
Jansons, 76, missed several concerts on the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s recent tour due to bouts of ill health and resentment was expressed in Munich that, while unable to conduct his own orchestra, he was still fulfilling a date with Vienna.
His short-order replacement in Vienna will be Jakub Hrusa, making his Philharmonic debut.
Offficial statement: We regret to announce that Maestro Mariss Jansons has had to cancel the following concerts with us due to a torn Achilles tendon:
November 28, 15:00 (Jeunesse Abo 01) November 29, 19:30 (2. Soirée) November 30, 15:30 (4. Abonnementkonzert) December 1, 11:00 (4. Abonnementkonzert) December 2, 19:30 (Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna)
We would like to thank Maestro Jakub Hrůša Conductor for taking over these concerts with a slightly altered program:
▪️Antonín Dvořák: Overture to “Carnival”, op.92 ▪️P. I. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, op.63 with soloist Denis Matsuev ▪️Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz 116
“We are pleased to introduce Jakub Hrůša, a conductor of the younger generation whom the orchestra has already met in a production of Leoš Janáček’s “The Makropulos Affair” at the Vienna State Opera.” says Michael Bladerer, CEO of the Vienna Philharmonic.
The outstanding violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is giving a charity concert in Zurich for a children’s cancer hospital.
She will be accompanied at the piano by one of the oncologists, Dr Nicolas Gerber.
Pat Kop says: ‘Nico has the makings of a brilliant pianist. When he wavered between music and medicine, we performed together several times. Since then we have done chamber music privately together. Now we are reactivating our concert activity for a good cause.’
Nice.
Posters are going up around Los Angeles for an opera by the US rapper Kanye West.
The title is Nebuchadnezzar, previously treated by Giuseppe Verdi.
And let us know afterwards if it was anything like this.
The California composer and neo-tonal activist Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at 88.
A student of Vittorio Giannini, Lukas Foss, Ingolf Dahl and Wilson Coker, Nancy founded the San Francisco branch of the National Association of Composers, USA, and served as its president for many years.
The Lucerne Festival is promoting its next saviour with a video that is causing bewilderment and dyspepsia across the classical world.
Not to be outdone, the Dutch have awarded their Edison Klassik to Teodor Currentzis for a Sony recording of Mahler 6.
Any more hype and hot air and he’ll become Icarus.
The death has been reported of Russell Dawson, a violinist in the BBC Symphony Orchestra for 27 years until hearing loss forced him into early retirement in 2003.
Moving to Poundbury, Russell formed the Dorchester Piano Trio with Peter Oakes and Sally Flann. He was an active music teacher, alongside much charity and church work.
At the Berlin Phil, Petrenko gets landed with headline soloists and sometimes has little say in who plays concertos.
But when guest conducting abroad he can choose his own…. and it’s a clue to his own personality and contemporaries to see who he picks.
In Israel next month, he will conduct Mozart K491 with the ex-Yugoslav pianist Tamara Stefanovich, 46, who is married to Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Not a big name, but an artist for cognoscenti.
