The opera festival has parted company with Gareth Hancock, a member of the music staff, after receiving a complaint, apparently from a singer.
Glyndebourne have issued this statement to Slipped Disc:
Glyndebourne would like to clarify the internal process that led to the conclusion of our professional relationship with Gareth Hancock.
In October 2019, an employee brought a complaint of inappropriate behaviour by Gareth Hancock to Glyndebourne’s HR department, who immediately alerted senior management and launched an internal investigation.
During the investigation, clear evidence of inappropriate behaviour from Gareth Hancock came to light, and Glyndebourne took the decision to withdraw his 2020 contract. No further evidence of similar behaviour towards other employees has come to light..
Glyndebourne regards as our highest priority the safety and right to dignity of all our staff and does not tolerate or condone any behaviour that contravenes our policies and standards. Glyndebourne is a member of the Guardians programme set up by The Old Vic, has a written Dignity at Work policy that is shared with all employees, and a safeguarding policy outlining 10 Principles To Encourage Safer and More Supportive Working Practices in Theatre. Glyndebourne has also undertaken a project in 2019 looking at all aspects of working culture.
Gareth Hancock is also Head of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music and a frequent conductor at UK opera companies. We understand that the complaint concerned a text. No physical act was involved.
We have been unable to contact Mr Hancock.
Scherzo reports that Pablo Heras-Casado has resigned immediately as director of the International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada for ‘strictly personal reasons outside of the festival’.
He will not work out his contract, which runs to 2021.
Something’s up.
We’ve been bombarded by PR releases and some readers have asked why we don’t report them.
Simple.
Because the Grammys themselves have relegated classical music to nonentity, show none of the winners on TV and barely trouble to have the final results reported in media small print.
We’ll let you know the winners when they’re announced, but the shortlists are a waste of your precious attention.
Undaunted by his US troubles, Domingo issues a new recording today with the popular French tenor Vincent Niclo.
He’s also performing live in Beijing.
Conrad Tao, 25, made his Carnegie debut last night in the Weill recital hall, playing a piano recital of modern works without socks or shoes.
When it came to the encore, he sang a song.
The audience had come out to see and support the pianist, and they were ecstatic, so he owed them an encore. He gave them something one is certain has never before been part of a classical recital, the song “True Love Will Find You In The End,” by the recently deceased outsider musician Daniel Johnston. It was clear only the younger crowd knew what to expect, but when Tao followed a gorgeous opening improvisation by singing the song as he played, everyone knew its touching, tender hope.
That counts, we guess, as a statement debut.
Next time, he’ll sock it to them…
This weekend, the Philharmonie de Paris will revive a synthetic Beethoven tenth symphony, a tape collage made by the late musique concrète composer Pierre Henry from extracts of the other nine.
The piece has been performed once before, at Bonn in 1979.
Details here.
Klagenfurt, a small opera company has just selected the German director Aron Stiehl as its next intendant. He was chosen from a list of 48 applicants, all of them competent and experienced.
The Vienna State Opera has just advertised for a commercial director to work with the incoming chief Bogdan Roscic. As of today, 53 credible applications have been received.
When English National Opera advertised for an artistic director recently, the field was so thin that on a shortlist of five only two were even marginally worthy of consideration.
That’s how far ENO has fallen on the international scale.
