Kaija Saariaho was awaiting the premiere of her fifth opera, ‘Innocence’ this summer when the Aix-en-Provence Festival was cancelled under Covid-19 rules. The closure will have a knock-on effect on further performances in Helsinki, London, San Francisco and Amsterdam. There is no immediate indication of when its premiere might take place.

‘Innocence’ is set in a multinational wedding in Helsinki, with a Finnish groom, Romanian bride and French mother-in-law.

Sounds like a script for a Covid hot-spot.

This was the intended cast:
Waitress Magdalena Kožená
Mother-in-Law Sandrine Piau
Father-in-Law Tuomas Pursio
Bride Anna Prohaska
Groom Markus Nykänen
Priest Jukka Rasilainen

 

The conductor Boris Brott is asking for prayers for his brother Dennis, who is seriously ill in Montreal with Covid-19.

Denis Brott, 69, began showing symptoms after he returned from engagements in the Netherlands.

‘He’s intubated,’ says his brother. ‘He’s in the intensive care unit and they’re doing the best they can to save his life.’

Denis Brott is founder and artistic director of the Montreal Chamber Music Festival.

The hugely endowed Paul Sacher Foundation in Basle has acquired some 3,000 items from the Schott Music publishing archive.

They include manuscripts of two Hans Werner Henze operas, a handwritten piano score of Stravinsky’s violin concerto and György Ligeti’s Lontano and Chamber Concerto. Most of the acquisition is made up of correspondence between composers and the ublisher.

The Sacher foundation is the world’s largest resource of 20th century music manuscripts, funded by Big Pharma.

 

The Canadian keyboard artist and scholar Kenneth Gilbert has died at 88.

He performed on harpischord, clavecin, organ and diverse other instruments and was best known for his Bach recordings on DG’s Archiv label.

He had been suffering from Alzheimers for some years.