Meet Joy Lisney in her whites.

Actually, joy just contacted us with another matter: Barber’s Adagio for solo cello x 6.

Enjoy.

Aram Demirjian, music director of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, has won the 2020 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award.

It’s worth $30,000, the biggest of its kind in America, and it is limited to US conducotrs under the age of 38.

We’ve been notified of the death of William (Bill) Noce, a popular baritone in the BBC Chorus who was also a Kodaly method teacher.

An IREX scholarship student at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet, he went on to study voice at the Liszt Academy with Sylvia Sass and Yevgeni Nesterenko, and later privately with John Shirley-Quirk. In Budapest he gave the first Hungarian performances American art-songs by Aaron Kernis and Harrison Boyle among others.
Though his teaching career included inner city schools in Philadelphia and London, he also held posts at the  American International schools in Budapest, Athens, and for the last dozen years of his life, at London/Surbiton, where he also sang with the BBC Chorus. 

The glitzy German chanteuse has joined Harold Clarkson at the Hanover branch of IMG for global management.

She says: ‘I have been touring the world for more than 35 years now and am so grateful to have built solid artistic friendships and audiences in so many different countries, yet it feels I have only just begun this journey. With IMG Artists representing me, I hope for many new opportunities to refine this forever moving mosaic of artistic adventures, new collaborations and international concert tours.’

 

The DG-backed Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the American Andrew Norman head the list of livinf composers whose work woll be played by the Berlin Philharmonic in the coming season, announced today.

 

The orchestra will also stage a weekend of music by the Berlin-based British composer Rebecca Saunders.

Rolling out the next Berlin Philharmonic season,the incoming chief conductor has placed particular emphasis in under-performed orchestral works from the past century. Of the greatest personal importance, he says, is the Symphony in F-sharp by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the composer’s only symphonic work, premiered in Vienna in 1954 to universal deprecation.

The symphony is built around themes from the 1939 Hollywood theme The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn.

Watch Petrenko here.

The German-Russian pianist has been chosen to play at this year’s Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm on December 8.

The Frenchman Stéphane Denève will conduct the Royal Stocholm Philharmonic.

Levit, 33, originally from Nizhny Novgorod, is a Beethoven specialist who has recorded the 32 sonatas for Sony. He is a combative, left-spinning user of social media.

We described earlier how violinist Lena Yokoyama, a Warner Classics artist, played an ode from the roof of Cremona’s Coronavirus hospital. She has been criticised by a number of viewers for jeopardising safety – her own and the security of the hospital.

Lena has issued this explanation (translated from Japanese):

It seems that there are people who are worried about the whole thing, so I’m going to answer the questions I’ve seen before. I wore a mask properly except during the performance. The Mask was removed after other staff (minimal number of people) went away.

I was making a promotional video to raise money for the hospital around Cremona. It’s safe outdoors. Playing with a red dress was a request from the hospital. Red is a symbol of love and passion.

I used only sterilized, unmanned corridors while moving inside the hospital.

It seems that all the coronavirus infections were in the outdoor temporary hospital. I was in the hospital for about 2 hours, in which time only two ambulances arrived.

I had a direct request from the University of Cremona and played only for the hospital and patients. I used a speaker to deliver the sound from the roof to the ground. After playing, I left without meeting people who listened to it below.

 

German musical celebrities have signed a letter to the federal cultural minister, calling for better security for lesser-known artists.

We, known and unknown artists, remember how often we have been asked over the years, for example after the financial crisis, to accept lower fees, to make a contribution to the diversity of the cultural landscape, and in most cases have done so.

In return we expect you to at least work for adequate default fees through the state-subsidized institutions… For all who work outside of subsidised culture, it is imperative to set them up in such a way that they are able to continue to make their valuable contribution to culture.

The signatories are led by:

Lisa Batiashvili, violinist

Matthias Goerne, singer

Thomas Hengelbrock, conductor

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violinist

René Pape, singer

Christian Thielemann, conductor 

The birthplace of great violins is also the heartland of Coronavirus sickness.

Violinist Lena Yokoyama, who works at the Museo del violino, scaled the heights to perform Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone. In the car park below, you can see makeshift tents – emergency wards for isolated Coronavirus patients.

This may be one of the enduring musical images of the 2020 plague year.

UPDATE: How fiddler got onto hospital roof

The 2020 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition, due in August, has been put off to next year.

China may be getting back to normal, but judges and contestants may be unable to travel from around the world.

The competition says it will not accept new applicants, but though those who have already applied will be given extra time to submit their video uploads.