Khori Dastoor, newly appointed general director of New Opera San Jose, has announced her intention to make the company ‘relevant to a wider, more diverse base of music lovers.’

She’s starting with a Bollywood-style Marriage of Figaro, set in India under British rule.

Dastoor, who joined the company as a performer in 2007, worked her way up to chief exec last October.

Press release from Idagio:

BERLIN, 23 January 2020 — Renowned violinist Maxim Vengerov has chosen leading classical music streaming service IDAGIO to exclusively release his newest recordings. …The first album is now available to IDAGIO listeners worldwide, featuring a new recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with conductor Myung-Whun Chung and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, coupled with works by Saint-Säens and Ravel. A second release will be available on February 4. Following Maxim Vengerov’s Royal Albert Hall concert on
June 12, further recordings will be released to mark his 40 years on the stage.

Maxim Vengerov: “This is a new chapter in my recording life. I have specifically selected IDAGIO as a partner going forward because of the high audio quality they offer their subscribers, as well as their remarkably comprehensive and easy to navigate catalogue. IDAGIO is a pioneer in classical music and offers experiences no other streaming service can compete with. IDAGIO is a platform that allows sharing and can broaden anyone’s interest in classical music, whatever the degree of knowledge.”

 

Full disclosure: Idagio and Slippedisc Ltd are currently running a joint Beethoven project.

UPDATE: Classic FM, which keeps exhorting listeners to relax, has just named Maxim artist in residence for the next year.

Classic FM has created the year-long partnership with the world-renowned musician and conductor, ahead of his special anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall this summer to celebrate 40 years on stage.

For the partnership, Classic FM will broadcast exclusive recordings from Vengerov, including concertos by Brahms and Tchaikovsky; an in-depth interview ahead of his special concert and a Maxim Vengerov ‘takeover’ weekend celebrating the man and the music. In addition,
twelve new videos will be released across the year on ClassicFM.com and Classic FM’s social platforms, with Vengerov sharing his advice on performance and study. In Classic FM’s Full Works Concert (weekdays, 8pm to 10pm), there will be further exclusive
recordings of the star violinist’s live performances, including a recital from New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall.

Bilbao Opera has replaced the Welsh baritone for tonight’s Flying Dutchman, the last in the present run.

They say he fell and broke his right foot.

Wish you better, Sir Bryn.

 

Dennis Polkow has just published this unprecedented portrait of a maesro at work.

Whatever your order, do not request pineapple topping.

The new season, just rolled out, is no longer singer-driven:

Il Trovatore
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi, conducted by James Conlon, starring soprano Angel Blue and tenor Gregory Kunde
Sept. 26 and Oct. 4, 7, 10, 15 and 18

Tannhäuser
Composed by Richard Wagner, conducted by James Conlon, starring Issachah Savage
Oct. 17, 25 and 29, and Nov. 1, 4 and 7

La Cenerentola (Cinderella)
Composed by Gioachino Rossini, directed by Stefan Herheim, conducted by Roberto Abbado, starring mezzo-soprano Serena Malfi and tenor Levy Sekgapane
Nov. 21 and 29, and Dec. 2, 5, 9 and 13

Don Giovanni
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by James Conlon, directed by Kasper Holten, starring bass Ildebrando D’Arcangelo
Jan. 30 and Feb. 6, 11, 14, 17 and 21, 2021

Breaking the Waves
Music by Missy Mazzoli, libretto by Royce Vavrek, conducted by Grant Gershon, starring soprano Sydney Mancasola and baritone Alexander Birch Elliott
Feb. 27 and March 6, 11, 14, 18 and 21, 2021

Tamerlano” (concert)
Composed by George Frideric Handel, with Harry Bicket conducting the English Concert and countertenor Bejun Mehta singing the title role
April 30, 2021

Aida
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Francesca Zambello, conducted by James Conlon, starring soprano Liudmyla Monastryska
May 15, 23, 27 and 30, and June 2 and 5, 2021

The Brightness of Light (concert)
Composed by Kevin Puts, conducted by James Conlon, starring soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry
May 16, 2021

This was so last season

From the Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia:

We just received a call from the City Hall said that the government decided to close all LCSD venue starting tomorrow until further notice due to the strong virus around. Please spread the word around so people don’t need to spend time to go to the hall. Ticket refund will be announced later. At the mean time, please stay healthy and thank you for all your support as always, looking forward to see you all next time.

Sincerely
Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia

 

Chetham’s student Poppy Wald-Harding is a very lucky girl.

Last Tuesday Poppy, 18, left an 1804 Joseph Strauss violin on a train at Manchester Victoria station.

Yesterday, it was discovered in the station’s Lost Property Office.

Her mother tweeted:

This is Himari Yoshimura performing last month at Russia’s International Nutcracker Competition for Young Musicians, with Zakhar Bron applauding at the centre of the jury.

She had already won the Grumiaux Competition. Zakhar made sure she went home again with first prize.

One feels nothing but anguish and sympathy for the poor child.

 

Last night’s Birmingham concert in our CBSO100 series:

 

Beethoven Missa Solemnis Ex Cathedra / CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★

Performing this work work just a week after the CBSO’s stupendous Mahler’s eighth symphony was a gamble. With those massive hall-filling forces still in the mind’s eye the sight of a slimmed-down orchestra (just two double basses) and single choir on the platform was a shock. Such comparisons are invidious, after all Beethoven didn’t compose a Mass of a Thousand, but surely it would have suited the scale, and style of this performance to have used the Town Hall instead.

Ex Cathedra is celebrating its 50th anniversary and there was, as always, much to admire here under founder and conductor Jeffrey Skidmore. In his programme notes he wrote: “the music is awe-inspiring but we shouldn’t be overawed.” It’s a compliment, albeit a back-handed one, to say that we weren’t. The triple forte and the trombone entry at “omnipotens” sounded muted and the martial music – which startled and bemused early listeners – merely quaint. What succeeded were the work’s many quiet and reflective passages: the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation; the quiet tread of the organ in the Praeludium; the lovely violin solo, truly dolce cantabile. The choir were first rate as were the soloists, while tucked away obscurely in the choir: the radiant Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Sophie Rennert (mezzo), Andrew Tortise (tenor) and Roderick Williams, although he lacked the ideally resonant bass notes for the Agnus Dei. The interval was a dim idea: people munching ice-cream between the Credo and Sanctus hardly fitted Beethoven’s performance directive – “Mit Andacht” (With Devotion).

Norman Stinchcombe

 

The visual language of Scandiavian murder dramas appears to dominate the Beethoven-themed Point festival in Gothenburg.

Here’s the rationale:
Sten Cranner, General Manager and Artistic Director of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra:
‘Beethoven has like no one else influenced not only European music, but music as an art form. To many composers and musicians, he is still, 250 years after his birth, a great inspiration as well as a towering authority. This year’s Point Music Festival is an exploratory expedition where Beethoven is put in contrast with contemporary composers Bent Sørensen, Hans Abrahamsen, Lera Auerbach, Richard Ayres and Andrea Tarrodi – musical experiences testing our senses.’

 

Arts Council England’s new Let’s Create strategy for the 2020s is a mish-mash of millennial political correctness and post-Brexit shakeout.

The former is represented by such levelling statements as ‘We do not believe that certain types or scales of creative activity are inherently better or of greater value than others: excellence can be found in village halls and concert halls…’

The latter points to more ‘diversity across the creative industries’, a fairer spread of resources around the regions, a lowering of barriers between official and unofficial art forms and a redefinition of the terms ‘art’ and ‘culture’.

Despite a token splutter in the Telegraph, none of this conflicts with the vaguely stated aims of Boris Britain for fewer dinosaurs, more enterprise, less stuffiness.

I’m broadly in favour of what I’ve read.

Some will be quaking in their boots.

Between the lines, I understand, what the report means is more money for deprived areas – mostly Midlands and North – and much less for the London opera houses and orchestras, which will be told to get off their £200 seats and raise more charitable funds.

Not a bad thing at all.

 

Sir Nicholas Serota, ACE chair

We have been sent a 2014 video of the basketball star, tragically killed with his daughter yesterday in a helicopter crash, playing piano in an arrangement of the Moonlight Sonata, which he apparently loved.

The producers say: We had a very narrow window of time to shoot this promotional piece with Kobe. He arrived in the conference room at the Graves 106 Hotel in MN at 6:45pm and 20 minutes later he was gone.

Kobe told reporters that he took piano lessons in order to play the Moonlight for his wife, Vanessa, whose favourite piece it was.

Eternal rest.