Out of the ruins of crashed HazardChase, Camilla Wehmeyer and two staff have pulled together a new outfit with a dozen singers and a new website – all in 11 days.
Sumi Jo is the best known client.
Website here.
Message from outgoing president Jesse Rosen, who won’t be able to take leave of the organisation he has headed for 12 years:
Thank you for your support and involvement in our 2020 Conference planning. As you might expect, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our in-person Conference scheduled for June 10-12, 2020. Instead, we will be holding Global Stages, Local Stories, an extended online conference in May and June.
Over the course of two months, the League will provide an array of online resources, webinars, and virtual gatherings designed to deliver the information orchestras need to navigate the global pandemic and its aftermath; to continue advancing the imperatives of equity, relevance, innovation, and creativity; and to unite and inspire the orchestra community. The already-planned Conference sessions will be evaluated for this new format, and we will be in touch with speakers individually about our plans.
Global Stages, Local Stories will be offered without charge as a benefit of membership to all League members. In addition, multiple exposure points and sponsorable opportunities will be available to League business partners throughout the extended online event.
I hope you’ll join me in thanking the host orchestras of the original Conference, the Minnesota Orchestra and The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. They put a great deal of effort into the planning of the Conference; and we thank them for their insight and dedication.
Sincerely,
Jesse Rosen
President and CEO
Hours after the Austrian chancellor ordered no public performances before mid-June, Cecilia Bartoli published this statement:
Dear Friends,
I am so terribly sorry that, due to the current situation, we are obliged to cancel this year’s Whitsun Festival in Salzburg!
I was so much looking forward to starting the rehearsals together with the fantastic Salzburg team, with my artist colleagues and to meeting our faithful public and friends who come to Salzburg every year or those who wanted to be there for the first time this year!
This decision breaks my heart, but one thing is evident – health comes first! There is no question that we, our whole society, must pull together and protect ourselves and our loved ones. These are difficult times for all of us but I am sure that the power of music will help us get through this.
Together with the Directorate of the Salzburg Festival we are already working on the exciting future, and I look forward to seeing you all as soon as possible! Until then, take good care of yourself, stay healthy and strong!
Yours, Cecilia Bartoli
We have been informed of the death of Douglas Schwalbe, founder of the agency that bore his name and one of the first to import early-music revolutionaries from Europe to the US.
Among them were the Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington’s Beethoven Experience, Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert, The Consort of Music, and many more.
He was particularly close to the soprano Emma Kirkby and the conductor Nicholas McGegan.
Doug retired in 2014.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has just announced a series of phased measures to resume normality.
Small shops will be allowed to reopen from April 14.
Hairdressers may resume from May 1.
Restaurants and cafés are being scheduled for mid-May.
Kurz, who has been praised for keeping Covid-19 cases down to 12,000 cases by rigid isolation, is now under pressure from the hospitality industry to save their summer peak.
He’s taking a calculated, phased risk.
Rafael Todes, his wife Helena Newman and their two children Isabella and Max took quartet practice to the front of the house on Sunday.
Starting with Beethoven’s opus 18/4, they drew a rapt street crowd of 30 neighbours – all observing safe distance.
Lovely sound, very well recorded.
Rafael Todes is a member of the Allegri String Quartet.
The Frenchman Pierre Bleuse will succeed Alexander Vedernikov as chief conductor of the Odense Symphony Orchestra, starting 2021.
Bleuse is joint music director of the new-music Lemanic Modern Ensemble.
The online auction house Tarisio is giving away its commissions at the next auction to ‘musicians around the world who have been affected by COVID-19’.
We are dedicating our May auction as a special benefit sale. The total commissions earned will be donated and divided into grants in the amount of $600 each. We expect to distribute a total of approximately $100,000 in grants. Any musician, anywhere in the world is welcome to apply. Grants will be awarded on a lottery basis.
The auction will be unique in that it will feature 10–20 exceptional instruments by known, collectible makers. Already committed to the sale are instruments by Fagnola, Bisiach and Capicchioni. We will be announcing highlights leading up to the sale going live and if you would like to participate or contribute, please contact us.
Apply for a grant via our online form.
Unable to perform in person, semi-finalists in the Irving M. Klein International String Competition will compete on June 6 – 7, 2020 on the contest’s YouTube channel.
The jury – of Richard Aaron, Christopher Costanza, Glenn Dicterow, Karen Dreyfus, Robert Gibson, Ian Swensen and Barbara Day Turner – will confer remotely.
This could be a new model for clean competitions.
The eight semifinalists are:
· KEONI BOLDING, viola; age 21, from Philadelphia PA; attends Juilliard School; student of Hsin-Yun Huang and Cynthia Phelps.
· GABRIELLE DESPRÉS, violin; age 19, from Alberta Canada; attends Juilliard School; student of Masao Kawasaki and Joseph Lin.
· CAROLINE DURHAM, violin; age 19, from Holladay UT; attends Columbia University/ Juilliard School joint program; student of Masao Kawasaki.
· MASHA LAKISOVA, violin; age 18, from Vernon Hills IL; studies at Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division; student of Li Lin and Itzhak Perlman.
· ENRIQUE RODRIGUES, violin; age 18, From Fairlawn, Canada; studies at Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division; student of I-Hao Lee.
· DONGYOUNG (JAKE) SHIM, violin; age 18, from Gyeonggi-do, South Korea; attends New England Conservatory; student of Donald Weilerstein.
· JIAXUN (CAROLINE) YAO, cello; age 18, from Qingdao, China; attends Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division; student of Richard Aaron and Sieun Lin.
· DAVIS YOU, cello; age 18, from Palo Alto CA; attends Palo Alto High School; student of Jonathan Koh. (ages as of June 6, 2020)
The Irving M. Klein International String Competition, produced by the California Music Center, is open to musicians between ages 15 and 23.
The pianist is about to release the 5 Beethoven concertos on Hyperion, with Hannu Lintu and the Finnish radio orchestra.
He’s donating his royalties to needy musicians, here
The London Philharmonic has picked the American Karina Canellakis as principal guest conductor.
Canellakis, 38, is principal conductor of the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal guest of Berlin’s radio orchestra.
She will start in September at the LPO alongside the incoming music director Edward Gardiner.
