Decca are trailing a September release:

A new album from Decca Records and the team behind global sensation Ludovico Einaudi is to be released exploring the inspiring story of a young man caught up in the Albanian conflict in the early 1990s, as he navigates his new life in Italy with his most prized possession: a stolen cello.

The younger son of a cello teacher in Tirana, Albania and a choreographer at the Academy of Tirana, Redi Hasa learnt the entire cello repertoire by the age of 13, performing on an instrument owned by the state Music Academy. In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, Albania hurtled towards civil war, overwhelmed by poverty and financial unrest.

At the age of 20, Hasa was enrolled at the Tirana Conservatory and the clouds of conflict began to gather overhead. “I am afraid to leave the house. We are all afraid,” he says, remembering a period which should have been one of youthful insouciance. Hasa’s older brother, 11 years his senior and living in Italy, encouraged him to join him to escape the escalating violence.

Arriving at the port of Bari in Southern Italy, unable to speak the local dialect, Hasa begins the second act of his life, having taken with him the only item that could be of any help: the Academy cello, no longer on loan, but stolen.

Redi Hasa is now set to release his first solo album The Stolen Cello, having worked for many years as part of Ludovico Einaudi’s hugely successful touring group, and performing on the ambitious Seven Days Walking project (2019). The No. 1 UK Classical Chart album Seven Days Walking: Day One became the fastest-streamed album ever from a classical composer in its first week of release, and Redi performed alongside Einaudi and violinist Federico Mecozzi to packed-out concert halls up and down the country throughout 2019 and early 2020.

Through his new album, Redi Hasa showcases the “singing” nature of the cello, exploiting its human-like voice with a deeply personal story of hope and survival.

LISTEN TO THE FIRST TRACK ‘SEASONS GOING BY’ HERE

The original.

The tinsel

The mash

Milly Forrest first leaped to our attention almost three years ago as an usher at the Wigmore Hall who jumped in when a soprano recitalist fell sick. She is still studying at the Royal College of Music with a promising career ahead. But when the Corona crisis broke she answered to a higher call.

Here’s Milly, writing exclusively for Slipped Disc:

I’ve been working as a hospital porter in Watford general for a week now. I applied after hearing that the hospital was in urgent need and all my singing contracts had sadly been cancelled. At the moment there are just 7 porters out of 16 that are working. Most are isolating, a couple have new born babies and some are simply too nervous to come in. I suppose I can understand why.

Each day more and more wards are being turned into areas suitable for treating covid-19 positive patients. Watford general isn’t a massive hospital. On Tuesday I heard from the gentleman working in pathology that there were 85 confirmed positive patients currently being treated at the hospital. Those numbers are changing everyday as more people are being bought into A&E with severe symptoms. Apparently the doctors have now been told to assume that every elderly patient who comes to A&E has corona virus. I was very sad to hear a teary member of the ambulance staff yesterday saying under her breath “I can’t do this any more” to a nurse dressed in full protective clothing.

Because of the pandemic, all non-urgent appointments have now been cancelled until the end of June and all patients who are able, have gone home. There are no visitors allowed at the moment apart from in the maternity building which makes much of the hospital seem eerily deserted. Even then, women are only allowed to have their partners with them once they go into labour! Everywhere is quiet apart from the wards treating covid patients.

The porters are not given PPE. We are only given gloves and masks when we are asked to move covid positive patients between departments. I believe this is because wearing masks and gloves that have been in contact infectious patients must be thrown away immediately. If we touch doors, clean mattresses or equipment with dirty gloves or aprons, then that only helps to spread the disease around the rest of the hospital. This is being reviewed everyday but it’s believed that for now, this is the safest option and it makes complete sense to me.

Contrary to what the news is saying, from what I can see, the hospital staff are coping unbelievably well. There is enough PPE and ventilators to go around and everyone has been trained to use them. They are all exhausted and overworked but I haven’t heard anyone complain. The porters are all smiling and seem to take so much pride in their work. My hands are sore and dry from all the washing and my legs are tired from walking 16,000 steps per shift. But this is by far the most fulfilling job I have ever done. The nurses, doctors and carers are so brave and so determined and it puts the life I’m used to into perspective.

Of course I cannot predict what is to come and it is very sad to see an extra mortuary being built when I look out of the window. What I can say is that everyone is fully committed to defeating this virus and this will not last forever.

Stay at home please and keep smiling!

Message from 57th Street:

Carnegie Hall today announced its decision to cancel the remainder of its 2019-2020 season, including all events in its three performance venues through July 2020, as part of ongoing efforts to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

However:

While Carnegie Hall will be closed throughout the summer, plans currently continue toward convening the Hall’s three national youth ensembles—the National Youth Orchestra of the USA, NYO2, and NYO Jazz—beginning July 1, but with significant program alterations. Given current complications with international travel, all touring for these three groups has been cancelled for summer 2020, including NYO Jazz’s previously announced tour to South Africa. The three ensembles will instead share their music-making with local audiences through activities centered around their residency at Purchase College, State University of New York. Carnegie Hall continues to monitor public health conditions and will share further updates on this program later in spring 2020.

A message from the trumpet star:

My daddy passed away last night. We now join the worldwide family who are mourning grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers— kinfolk, friends, neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances and others.

What can one possibly say about loss in a time when there are many people losing folks that mean so much to them? One of my friends lost both her mother AND father just last week. We all grieve and experience things differently, and I’m sure each of my five brothers are feeling and dealing in their own way.

My daddy was a humble man with a lyrical sound that captured the spirit of place–New Orleans, the Crescent City, The Big Easy, the Curve. He was a stone-cold believer without extravagant tastes. Like many parents, he sacrificed for us and made so much possible. Not only material things, but things of substance and beauty like the ability to hear complicated music and to read books; to see and to contemplate art; to be philosophical and kind, but to also understand that a time and place may require a pugilistic-minded expression of ignorance.

His example for all of us who were his students (a big extended family from everywhere), showed us to be patient and to want to learn and to respect teaching and thinking and to embrace the joy of seriousness. He taught us that you could be conscious and stand your ground with an opinion rooted ‘in something’ even if it was overwhelmingly unfashionable. And that if it mattered to someone, it mattered.

I haven’t cried because the pain is so deep….it doesn’t even hurt. He was absolutely my man. He knew how much I loved him, and I knew he loved me (though he was not given to any type of demonstrative expression of it). As a boy, I followed him on so many underpopulated gigs in unglamorous places, and there, in the passing years, learned what it meant to believe in the substance of a fundamental idea whose only verification was your belief.

I only ever wanted to do better things to impress HIM. He was my North Star and the only opinion that really deep down mattered to me was his because I grew up seeing how much he struggled and sacrificed to represent and teach vital human values that floated far above the stifling segregation and prejudice that defined his youth but, strangely enough, also imbued his art with an even more pungent and biting accuracy.

But for all of that, I guess he was like all of us; he did the best he could, did great things, had blind spots and made mistakes, fought with his spouse, had problems paying bills, worried about his kids and other people’s, rooted for losing teams, loved gumbo and red beans, and my momma’s pecan pie. But unlike a healthy portion of us, he really didn’t complain about stuff. No matter how bad it was.

A most fair-minded, large-spirited, generous, philanthropic (with whatever he had), open-minded person is gone. Ironically, when we spoke just 5 or 6 days ago about this precarious moment in the world and the many warnings he received ‘to be careful, because it wasn’t his time to pass from COVID’, he told me,” Man, I don’t determine the time. A lot of people are losing loved ones. Yours will be no more painful or significant than anybody else’s”. That was him, “in a nutshell”, (as he would say before talking for another 15 minutes without pause).

In that conversation, we didn’t know that we were prophesying. But he went out soon after as he lived—-without complaint or complication. The nurse asked him, “Are you breathing ok?” as the oxygen was being steadily increased from 3 to 8, to too late, he replied, ”Yeah. I’m fine.”

For me, there is no sorrow only joy. He went on down the Good Kings Highway as was his way, a jazz man, “with grace and gratitude.”
And I am grateful to have known him.

– Wynton

In an interview to roll out the Staatsoper’s next season, he shares a discovery that the best sleep is when he goes back to bed after breakfast.

On the general situation, he advises ‘cautious optimism’.

He’s preparing to play the Mozart double concerto with Martha Argerich on her 80th birthday next year.

An email to an agent at AskonasHolt today drew this auto-response:

Following the introduction of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Askonas Holt has placed a number of staff – myself included – on a temporary leave of absence from 1 April until 31 May 2020.

Whilst I am away, colleagues will be handling enquiries related to my artists.

We hear that just over half of AH staff have been put on furlough, and that similar measures are being taken at Columbia Artists in New York. At Askonas they are on full paid leave.

We’re not so sure about Columbia.

A message on the AH website reads:

Our priority right now is to support our artists and their loved ones as they face the arduous months ahead, and to safeguard and support the entire Askonas Holt family into the future.

UPDATE: We’ve seen the letter that AH sent out to agents and artists a couple of days ago. Here goes:

Dear friends, 

I hope that you are keeping safe and well in these extraordinary times. Thank you for all your messages of support and kindness these past weeks. 

I’m writing to let you know that Askonas Holt has taken advantage of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and we are therefore placing a significant number of our colleagues on a paid leave of absence (called furloughing) for a temporary period, initially for two months. Our predicament – and you will understand this all too well – is that our income streams have all but dried up, and we have to do what we can to save on costs. 

This scheme will allow us to access government funds, and help our company to navigate through these turbulent waters. Furloughed staff are not allowed to work for Askonas Holt during their temporary absence. We may extend this scheme in parallel with any UK Government extension, and we will inform you accordingly. 

With few performances happening due to worldwide restrictions on public gatherings, it makes sense for us to reduce our capacity for a temporary period. Therefore, in addition to the furloughing scheme, the staff at Askonas Holt have volunteered to move to an 80% working week, with colleagues working four days per week.

While temporarily you may not have your usual team working for you, please be assured that you will continue to receive the ‘Askonas Holt service’, and we will work even harder to ensure that you have the full functionality of the company at your disposal. We will be in touch with you individually to confirm your day-to-day contacts and we are here to answer any queries which you may have. 

In the meantime, I wish you, your families and friends all the strength and health required to rise to the challenges that face us in the months to come. We remain optimistic about the future, assured by the heightened relevance of the arts in these uncertain times. 

Sincerely, 
Donagh

Chief Executive, Askonas Holt
on behalf of the Board and Staff at Askonas Holt 

The plague has claimed the life of Willy Burmann, New York teacher of Julio Bocca, Alessandra Ferri, Isabel Guerin, Wendy Whelan and Maria Kowroski among other stars. Willy was 80.

The cause of death was renal failure, complicated by Covid-19.

More here.

The ultimate deterent, from comedian Rainer Hersch:

Scattered around the northern lands, the Kremerata Baltica have been revisiting a Soviet children’s cartoon ‘Boniface’s Holiday’.

Just so happens, the music is by … Gidon’s passion and mine, Mieczysław Weinberg.

So Andrei Pushkarev rearranged the score for string orchestra and solo violin and everyone started playing it at home.

Here’s the short version:

And here’s the Soviet original:

The BBC’s music plans for the Coronavirus lockdown serve only to expose the derelicition of classical music on TV and the loss of imagination on Radio 3. Very little in the plans announced yesterday is original, exciting or in any way unexpected.

– A European radio moment with Max Richter’s Sleep – an eight hour ‘lullaby for a frenetic world’ . Literally, a yawn

– The virtual choir – BBC Four to broadcast the first ever TV concert where none of the participants will meet. This is going on all over social media, possibly with higher production standards.
– Home Sessions – Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Andreas Scholl, Mahan Esfahani, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Ksenija Sidorova, Craig Ogden, Olivia Chaney, and others will bring home performances to Radio 3 audiences. Most are doing so already on their social media.
– Postcards From Composers – contemporary composers to write musical messages to listeners at home on BBC Radio 3. Ahem
– BBC Young Musician returns – one of the oldest musical talent competitions is to return to BBC Four and BBC Radio 3 celebrating the best of British talent with full broadcasts of the category finals of this world famous young talent competition. These are the category finals that the BBC has failed to broadcast live in recent years. This particular set was recorded just before the lockdown and is still unseen.
– Classical Companion – a collection of online gems from the archive including mixes, collections, quizzes, essential daily symphonies and podcasts. So what’s new?
– BBC Orchestras and Choirs to record ensemble and solo works remotely for Afternoon Concert. As above.

No new documentaries. No treasures from the archives. No interaction with users. That’s how far BBCTV and Radio3 have fallen.

Now spare a thought for the Controllers who are having to decide, practically from one day to the next, whether the Proms will go ahead and, if (as seems likely) not, what to do with the BBC orchestras and choruses for the duration of plague time.

I am not privy to these discussions and will not speculate on the outcome. I am a lifelong supporter of public service broadcasting and believe the BBC needs all the help it can get at the moment.

However, what we have here is an institutional collapse of emergency planning, leadership and creativity.

The BBC has failed the nation on the classical music front.

Karita Mattila has gone viral after passers-by photographed a note on her self-isolated door reading (in Finnish):

‘Noise?’ tweeted one of the neighbours. ‘We’re grateful for the free concert.’