The Hampstead house where musical iconoclast Hans Keller lived with his artist wife Milein Cosman has been commemorated by the Association of Jewish Refugees. Those who knew them will understand why.
Keller’s influence on English music was immense.
Report here.
Great sadness at the death of Bob Willis, the most elegant fast bowler that ever drew breath and England’s cricket captain in the bleak mid-1980s. Less well known was his passion for Wagner: he used to play Ride of the Valkyries before he went out to bowl at Australia.
Bob died today of prostate cancer, aged 70.
Here’s a fond reminscence from Christopher Morley:
So many, musicians have been passionate about cricket, and so many cricketers passionate about music: John Barbirolli; Neville Cardus; Michael Kennedy; Julian Lloyd Webber; and, coming the other way, Donald Bradman (an accomplished pianist putting his hands in danger) and Bob Willis, now sadly gone from us.
Willis loved Bob Dylan — and Wagner. I once sat behind him during a Ring cycle from Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome, and could just about see through his mane of hair.
Test cricket and the Ring cycle have similar characteristics. They both take the long view and enthral us. Willis was an expert at both of them.
This was his greatest match.
The Board of the Grand Teton Music Festival met last night and decided to reinvite three musicians who had been dismissed for ‘disruptive behaviour’. Two of the musicians, Kristen Linfante and Juan de Gomar, are members of the orchestra’s Players’ Committee; the third, Jennifer Ross, was principal second violin of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Their dismissal provoked widespread protests, together with a threat from conductor Donald Runnicles to quit the festival. Runnicles Donald flew in to attend this board meeting.
High-profile coverage on Slipped Disc and local media have forced the festival director, Andrew Palmer Todd, to back down.
There seems to be a rule that the lovelier the landscape, the worse the human ecology.
Here’s the result of a legal referral, following a complaint by a departing employee against the director, Michael Haefliger:
In response to the reproaches about harrassment which were mentioned in several media, we would like to inform you that the investigation of the Board of Trustees in cooperation with a lawyer who is specialised on labor law, has led to the following result: There was indeed an employee who has expressed his discontent and there is a labor conflict, but there were never an evidence for harrrassment.
Wir möchten Ihnen heute betreffend der in verschiedenen Medien erwähnten Mobbing-Vorwürfe mitteilen, dass die Abklärungen des Stiftungsrates in Zusammenarbeit mit einer auf Arbeitsrecht spezialisierten Anwältin ergeben haben, dass zwar ein Mitarbeiter seine Unzufriedenheit geäussert hat und es in diesem Zusammenhang einen Arbeitskonflikt gibt, aber keine Anhaltspunkte für Mobbing bestehen.
That’s all they’re saying.
Paul Siefried, a leading restorer of antique bows, has died at 69.
Obit here.
Sakurako Fisher is leaving after 11 years as president of the San Francisco Symphony. V-P Priscilla B. Geeslin will step up to replace her a year from now when Esa-Pekka Salonen arrives as music director.
The upper midwest orchestra has been spending like there’s no tomorrow.
The 2019 operating deficit of $8.8 million is the biggest in its history, larger than the $6m in 2012 when the orchestra was shut down in a long standoff over musicians’ pay.
This time round President and CEO Michelle Miller Burns says it’s in a ‘strong financial position with $26.3 million raised this year in donations.
Read here.
Graz Oper, in Austria, is casting Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger, an extraordinarily sensitive work about Auschwitz survivors and guards.
The company’s call-out for extras displays a bluntness wholly inappropriate to the circumstances.
Judge for yourselves:
Für die Oper „Die Passagierin“, die auf differenzierte Weise berührende Schicksale aus der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus thematisiert, werden Frauen und Männer als Statisten gesucht. Wenn Sie ein gewisses schauspielerisches Talent haben, Teil einer Opernproduktion sein möchten und außerdem folgende Eigenschaften mitbringen, dann bewerben Sie sich für das Casting am 4. Dezember!
Herren mit Glatze oder (auch teilweise) abrasierten Haaren bzw. Männer, die bereit wären, ihre Frisur von Maskenbildnern dementsprechend anpassen zu lassen
Damen mit sehr kurzgeschnittenen Haaren oder Glatze
Damen und Herren, die bereit sind, sich in bestimmten Szenen komplett zu entkleiden
Bei Interesse wenden Sie sich bitte an den Leiter der Statisterie, Florin Ailenei, unter florin.ailenei@oper-graz.com
So Young Park has dropped out of January’s Magic Flute.
Kathryn Lewek and Jeni Houser step in, the latter making her Met debut.
Toi-toi.
The Grawemeyer Award – a life-changing $100,000 prize for the best composer of the year – hit rock bottom this week with the selection of a Californian academic, Lei Liang, who had a climate change piece performed in Boston.
Last year’s winner was Joël Bons, a composer so obscure he lacks a Wikipedia entry.
The award is being driven out of public attention.
No major media – Slipped Disc included – bothered to report this week’s announcement.
Consider, in real world terms, who might have been worthy of the 2019 Grawemeyer:
John Adams
Mark Anthony Turnage, new concertos
Olga Neuwirth
Missy Mazzioli
Mason Bates, new operas
Nico Muhly
Kalevi Aho
Hans Abrahmsen
What’s wrong with these candidates? First, you’ve actually heard of them. Second, they’re performed around the world.
The people controlling the Grawemeyer seem determined to run it into oblivion.
The two named singers among the Associated Press 20 interviewees who denounced Placido Domingo as a sex-pest have issued a statement through their lawyer attacking Domingo’s recent attempts to play down his conduct as ‘gallant’ and ‘chivalrous’.
Patricia Wulf and Angela Turner Wilson said that Domingo’s ‘continued failure to take responsibility for wrongdoing or to express any remorse is extremely disappointing and deeply disturbing.’
They added: ‘He did not behave like a gentleman when he repeatedly propositioned women for sex in the workplace … and when he groped them and kissed them over their objections. He did not behave respectfully when he offered to assist with the careers of aspiring female opera singers if they came to his apartment and had sex with him.’
Referring to his sustained acclaim outside the US, Wulf said: ‘It is deeply upsetting and unfair that Mr. Domingo can retreat to another world without having to come to terms with what he has done to many, many women here.’
Operanostalgia reports the passing of Eno Mucchiutti, an Italian baritone who survived four Nazi concentration camps and went on to make a fine post-War career in the leading Italian opera houses.
He sang with both Callas and Pavarotti and reached his century in May this year.
