Brazil’s great contribution to civilisation.

Desafinado actually means ‘out of tune’.

This was the composer’s cut:

 

The Italian percussionist Simone Rubino, 27, stuck indoors like everyone else, turned to his friend, the composer Lamberto Curtoni, for a lockdown topical song cycle.

 

Somerset-born Alexandra Scott, 36, has been appointed professor of doublebass at the  Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, the only such post in the whole of Germany. She starts in October.

Educated at the Menuhin School, Scott has been co-principal doublebass of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007.


 

 

David Leonard has a collector’s pash for composers who only wrote one great tune in their lives.

Here’s his set:

1 Rubinstein’s Melody in F

2 Paderewski’s Minuet

3 Dohnanyi Rhapsody op 11/3

4 Suk – Fantasticke Scherzo Op. 25

To which I would add:

5 Litolff’s Scherzo

6 Eric Coates’s Sleepy Lagoon

7 Alfven’s Swedish Rhapsody

8 Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez: Adagio

Your thoughts?

Some wonderful further suggestions.

9 Leonard Slatkin volunteers Reznicek’s Donna Diana overture

10 Julius Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators

11 Pachelbel’s Canon

12 Albinoni’s Adagio

13 Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw concerto

14 Jacob Gade Tango Jalousie

15 Mikhail Glinka, Ruslan and Lyudmila overture

16 Hamish MacCunn The Land of the Mountain and the Flood

17 Amilcare Ponchielli – Dance of the Hours

18 Allegri Miserere

19 Thomas Arne, Rule Britannia!

20 Jaromir Weinberger, Schwanda the bagpiper polka and fugue

Keep ’em coming

Press release:

The Glimmerglass Festival, the central New York opera and music theater festival, will not host any live performances in summer 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

There will be some video activity.

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The cancellation of the August-September opera festival has just been announced by artistic director  Cecilia Gasdia.

The financial loss is in the region of 20 million Euros.

The blow to opera morale is incalculable.

There will, however, be carefully distanced concerts from a redesigned stage by singers including Marcelo Álvarez Marco Armiliato Roberto Aronica Daniela Barcelona Ezio Bosso Plácido Domingo Yusif Eyvazov Vittorio Grigolo Francesco Meli Anna Netrebko Leo Nucci Daniel Oren Lisette Oropesa Michele Pertusi Saimir Pirgu Anna Pirozzi Marina Rebeka Luca Salsi Fabio Sartori Ekaterina Semenchuk María José Siri and Sonya Yoncheva.

The audience capacity has been cut from 13,500 to 3,000.

 

Malmo Opera has secured premiere rights to the next Glass opera, ‘Circus Days and Nights’.

It is based on circus poems by Robert Lax.

 

Carriageworks, Australia’s largest contemporary arts centre, has called in administrators in a huge blow to the national arts scene.

Carriageworks generated 75% of its own revenue from such events as Sydney Writers’ Festival, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, and the design event Semi Permanent.

Following the earlier loss of shifts for casual staff, in early-April we stood down almost half of our core staff and asked those remaining to move to a three-day week. Focussing on essential work only we have been striving to find a way through the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown,” Carriageworks CEO Blair French said today.

“Since opening in 2007, Carriageworks has enjoyed the support of both the NSW and Federal Governments, and the generosity of its many partners and donors. During this time it has become a Sydney institution attracting one million visitors a year to the site in Redfern and up to 5000 people every Saturday to the Carriageworks Farmers Market. But with restrictions on social gatherings likely to remain in place for some time to come, the Board determined that it had no alternative but to place the company into Voluntary Administration.”

 

Glyndebourne opera festival has bowed to the inevitable.

With a very heavy heart, we have taken the decision to cancel all remaining Festival 2020 performances. It was our hope to open on 14 July, but the persistence of the COVID-19 global pandemic has made it impossible for us to guarantee the safety of Company members and audiences. We have launched the Glyndebourne Emergency COVID-19 Appeal to help our artists and seasonal staff – two thirds of our workforce – who face a devastating loss of income from this closure, and to help ensure Glyndebourne’s continuity so we can be here for everyone in the future. Full details about this appeal and ticket refunds can be found on glyndebourne.com

We are determined that Glyndebourne will share music this summer, however, and so we are delighted to announce that our first ever virtual festival, Glyndebourne Open House, will open on Sunday 24 May. We will be bringing the Glyndebourne Festival experience direct to people’s homes by streaming a full-length opera, for free, on Glyndebourne’s YouTube channel at 5pm every Sunday, and helping the public to recreate an afternoon at the Festival in their own homes.

 

The death is reported of the legendary Lorne Munroe, principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1951 to 1964 and of the New York Philharmonic from 1964 to 1996. He was a featured soloist more than 150 times with the New York Phil. He also taught at Juilliard.

Canadian by origin and a student of Piatigorsky (whom he faintly resembled), Lorne married violist Janée Munroe in 1945 and had 10 sons and a daughter.

His death, aged 95, was reported by a grandson.

 

The ever-diplomatic Avi Shoshani of the Israel Philharmonic has said in an interview that his next season is ready to be announced.

‘We have programmes with the best artists from all over the world. Of course, if flights are not possible we will find a way to put on (the concerts) with Israeli artists who live here,’ he said.

Blunt maybe, but many other managers are thinking along these lines.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has just rolled out its 2020-21 seaso, the 15th and last under music director Vasily Petrenko.

Highlights:
Vasily Petrenko curated ‘Signature Series’ celebrating his 15 years as Chief Conductor
Three new Artists in Residence – Baritone Roderick Williams, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and Welsh harpist Catrin Finch with Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita
World premieres including works by Dani Howard, Athanasia Kontou, Julian Joseph, Grace-Evangeline Mason and Robert Laidlow
A focus on major works by Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, Zemlinsky, and Piazzola

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 180th season, and Vasily Petrenko’s final season as Chief Conductor, before assuming the role of Conductor Laureate, features a compelling programme across a wide variety of repertoire.

Vasily Petrenko’s ‘Signature Series’ concerts feature works by Elgar, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and others, that he and the Orchestra are well-known for from concerts, recordings and tours. The series culminates in the final concert of the season (10 July) featuring a new composition by Grace Evangeline-Mason and the return of pianist Simon Trpčeski.

We celebrate significant composer birthdays in 2021. Marking 100 years since tango composer, Piazzolla’s birth, we feature the World Premiere of the orchestration of his Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite for Orchestra in a concert which also includes pianist Pablo Ziegler who collaborated with Piazzolla during the last decade of his life (6 February).

Vasily Petrenko champions the music of Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky 150 years since his birth in 1871 with performances of The Burial of Spring (Frühlingsbegräbnis) (8 July) and Four Orchestral Pieces (12 November).

50 years after his death, we celebrate the genius of Stravinsky with performances of Firebird (8/11 April), his Violin Concerto (1 May) and Rite of Spring (8 July) and other works.

Two concerts mark 40 years to the day since John Lennon’s death (8/9 December), with a revival of the John Lennon Songbook, telling the story of his life through his music.

Also included are performances of Mahler’s 5th, 6th and 9th Symphonies (5 November / 3 December/ 11 March / 13 March) and Mahler’s Symphony No 8 performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall (18 October).