The international pianist Lukáš Vondráček has been so annoyed by the reviews he receives in his country’s capital that he has cancelled all concerts there for the forseeable future.

He writes: ‘I have always been a proud Czech who performed with humility and gratitude on Prague stages and represented the culture of our small country abroad. I am very concerned about the conditions prevailing in the Czech musical environment. This environment is, in my opinion, often disrespectful and in many ways completely self-centered and unprofessional. Sadly, a country with such a rich musical tradition as the Czech Republic cannot support high-quality musicians with original musical thinking.’

The immediate trigger was a hostile review by Dita Hradecká of his recital this month in the Rudolfinum, but he is also ppp’d off with the management of the hall which forbade him to practise in the dressing room while another performance was going on and, in general, with the whole state of music in Prague.

You can read his diatribe here (in Czech).

Lukáš Vondráček, 33, won the 2016 Queen Elisabth Competition in Brussels. He lives mostly in the US.

 

In a consumer survey conducted by Which? magazine, BA came one from bottom in consumer satistfaction in the short-haul category, undercut only by its partner-airline Vueling and the bottom-bumping Ryanair.

In the long-haul it was saved from the bottom spot by its alliance partner, American Airlines.

The survey rated food, seat comfort and value for money.

BA says it’s doing fine.

Best short-haul
1. Aurigny

2. Jet2

3. SAS

4. Aer Lingus

5. Swiss

6. Norwegian

7. Lufthansa

8. Eurowings

9. EasyJet

10. KLM

11. Tap Portugal

12. Flybe

13. Tui Airways

14. Wizz Air

15. British Airways

16. Vueling Airlines

17. Ryanair

Best long-haul:

1. Singapore Airlines

2. Qatar Airways

3. Emirates

4. Virgin Atlantic

5. KLM

6. Air Transat

7. Thai Airways

8. Delta Airlines

9. Tui Airways

10. Qantas

11. United Airlines

12. Air Canada

13. Etihad Airways

14. British Airways

15. American Airlines

 

We hear that managing director Alex Buhr will be leaving Decca next month.

Alex has been responsible for signing a brilliant new generation of talent – among them the soaring soprano Lise Davidsen, Jess Gillam, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason, Hilary Hahn and Anoushka Shankar.

Alex has been with DG and Decca for 17 years and is well liked across the industry.

Parting company with him a week before Christmas seems a bit … unfortunate.

His departure has been circulated internally. There has been no word yet from the company.

The orchestra manager David Hyslop, former prez of St Louis Symphony and Minnesota, has made a post-post career of sorting out US orchestras that get their strings tied up in knots.

Hyslop, 77, has been, successively and successfully, interim chief at Dallas Symphony, Louisville, Fort Worth and seven more.

Today he winds up a stint in Orlando with the installation of a new chief exec (press release below).

Where next?

The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra has named Paul Helfrich as its new executive director. Helfrich is currently the President & CEO of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. He succeeds Christopher Barton, who left the Philharmonic in March 2019. Veteran arts administrator David Hyslop has served as the Orchestra’s interim executive director since May 2019 and will continue in the role until Helfrich assumes his new position.

Helfrich comes to Orlando from the Dayton, Ohio where he served as President of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra for four years before leading the merger of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. The Alliance combines ballet, opera, and symphony orchestra into one organization, a first in the nation. At the Alliance, Helfrich held the position of president & CEO for eight years.

The little home on the Wyoming prairie is peaceful once more now that the axe-wielding boss has gone.

Here’s the musicians’ summary of the storm:

Jackson Hole, WY, Dec. 18, 2019 — A month-long crisis at the Grand Teton Music Festival, involving the termination of three longtime festival musicians by President and CEO Andrew Todd, has come to a close. The musicians, each from Grammy Award-winning ensembles, had been disinvited in an unprecedented move by the CEO, for non-artistic reasons. Each was told that they were dismissed for “disruptive behavior” and “comportment” with no further explanation given.

What linked the three musicians was that each served as musician representative for their orchestral colleagues on either the GTMF Board of Directors or Players Committee, voicing the concerns of their musician colleagues. On December 3, the GTMF Board, upon considering the circumstances, chose to reinstate the three musicians that had been targeted by the CEO. While the orchestra was appreciative of the Board’s decision, the Festival Orchestra musicians continued to express grave concerns about the executive leadership of the Festival, and demanded that the person responsible for the act be held accountable. In a show of complete solidarity, all 239 festival musicians submitted a collective letter to the Board stating that they would not return to the festival in 2020 unless Andrew Todd was relieved of his duties immediately.

This strong and unified stance came on the heels of years of negative interactions with Mr. Todd, culminating in his bold move to disinvite the three longstanding musicians. The GTMF Music Director, Donald Runnicles, similarly wrote the Board that he would not return next season while Todd remained CEO; echoed by a call for Todd’s ouster by a distinguished group of past GTMF Board Chairs and Directors. On December 13 th , it was announced that Mr. Todd had submitted his letter of resignation to the Board of Directors.

The musicians are relieved that the festival will now seek new leadership, and are hopeful that the healing process can begin immediately.
We, the musicians, are deeply appreciative of the Board of Directors for its leadership and due diligence. We are thrilled to return to the festival alongside our beloved Maestro Runnicles, and we look forward to working with the board in the most positive, transparent, and collaborative manner possible.

The Grand Teton Music Festival Players’ Committee is profoundly grateful for the deep support of our treasured Jackson Hole community, our esteemed music director Donald Runnicles, and most especially the support of all our musician colleagues, allowing us to strive towards preserving the artistic integrity of our Festival, holding dear the principles upon which it was founded nearly 60 years ago.

 

Arty McGlynn died yesterday, aged 75.

He was a unique interpreter. Just listen.

Among many gigs, he played a fair bit with Van Morrison.

Farewell to the French Eurovision star, Alan Barrière, aged 84.

His greatest hit was, with its unnaturally high entry, Ma Vie.

 

Friends are sharing fond memories of Yossi Gutmann, the outstanding Israeli viola player of his time.

A student of Nadia Boulanger, Odeon Partos, William Primrose, Yehudi Menuhin and Sergiu Celibidache, Gutmann was principal viola in, among others, the Deutsche Symphony Orchestra Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.

He was a founder of the Melos Quartet and the Stradivari Sextet.

May he rest in peace.

Many of the leading opera houses and festivals are posting memorial notices for Guido Levi, a master of his craft.

His philosophy: Light is the source of life, it is our vital energy, if the light goes out everything disappears: feelings, emotions. Light is one of the many means of communication, of expression, which translate the show, the music or the dance, into a dialogue that is established through a stage or an open space, directly with the public, with the people: it is communicating messages. . So even before facing the stage, we should live this light, recovering what is our essence. Years ago I tried to be a little more professional and so I studied the lyrics, I listened to music, and so on, but I felt bad, it didn’t work, because all this created me a preconceived idea of ​​mine. Instead, carefully observing the light in which we live every day, generates in me a capacity for listening, a desire to meet, learn, know, which is the only reason why I can do well what I do and for example even make a director happy.

A Steinway bought by Frank Sinatra in 1949 sold at auction this week for $106,000, over twice the upper estimate.

Could he play? On this movie clip he is dubbed.

Here, too, you see no hands.

Watch the Times Christmas card here.

Suddenly, an orchestra has become a metaphor again. For something or other.

In the new issue of The Critic, out today on all good newstands, I address the unspoken evils of orchestra touring.

Here’s a sample:

Every transatlantic flight uses 493kg of CO2 per passenger, roughly as much as an earthbound person consumes in a whole year. A player flying from London to Rome leaves a 234kg carbon gap (figures from Atmosfair). That’s without configuring the environmental cost of flying giant packing crates of musical instruments. Orchestras are killing the planet, and for no good reason.

On hearing of the Coldplay ban, I did a quick damage count. The New York Philharmonic, I found, flew seven times in 2019, which seems reasonable. Three of those flights were on China tour, the rest in the US. The Berlin Philharmonic flew 15 times, mostly in Europe, which is crazy. They could have taken the Carbon-neutral train, where they can practise cello in the corridor and not fear having their double-basses getting crushed to matchwood in the aircraft hold.

London’s orchestras are the worst offenders….

Read on here.

Think before you fly.