A piano masterpiece by Leos Janacek played by the never-knowlingly overstated Ivan Moravec. Will make your day.
We have received reports of the death of John Currie, at the age of 85.
Chorus master of the Scottish National Orchestra Chorus from 1966, Currie succeeded Arthur Oldham as director of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus. He formed the John Currie Singers and in 1985 became conductor of the Los Angeles Master Chorale for several years.
His son Justin is a singer and songwriter, co-founder of the band Del Amitri.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center joined the shutdowns today, ending summer residencies for New York City Ballet, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
“So much thought, care, heart and soul go into crafting and preparing for our summer season that we truly think of it as a love letter to our community. To find it necessary to cancel what would have been one of the most ambitious and artistically inspiring seasons to date is just gut-wrenching and inconceivable” said Elizabeth Sobol, SPAC’s President and CEO. “But the indisputable truth is that even with our park setting and our 5200 seats, it would be simply impossible to find a way to keep the artists and the community safe.”
The doyen of Italian conductors has agreed to preside over two performances of Aida in the great Arena, it was announced today.
It will mark the 150th anniversary of Aida’s premiere in Cairo and it will take place next summer: 19 and 22 June, 2021.
It’s also Muti’s 80th birthday year.
Cast:
The King – Roberto Tagliavini
Amneris – Anita Rachvelishvili
Aida – Sonya Yoncheva
Radames – Francesco Meli
Ramfis – Riccardo Zanellato
Amonasro – Luca Salsi
A messenger – Riccardo Rados
Priestess – Benedetta Torre
Don’t all rush at once, but a popular UK Channel 4 dating show tomorrow features ‘Jonathan, a slightly eccentric music professor, who reveals he’s looking for magic in a relationship’.
Wonder if he’s tried string quartets.
The Italian Government published its Phase 2 reopening plan last night.
The basic requirements are:
– one metre distance between spectators, also between artists;
– 200 people maximum for indoor shows, 1,000 for outdoors;
– masks are complusoty for all;
– body temperature to be taken on entry.
It doesn’t sound much like fun.
More here.
The South Korean football club employed sex dolls to maintain distance between fans in its terraces.
It makes sense for concert halls to do the same.
Might reduce the average age of attenders by as much as half.
More here.
The Philharmonia Orchestra has appointed Ben Larpent of the South Bank Centre to be its director of artistic planning.
The orchestra has a new chief executive, Alexander Van Ingen, and music drector, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Why they should need an extra programmer is unclear.
Larpent, for the past ten years has been head of classical music at the Southbank Centre, where the profile of classical music has been in precipitate decline. If he fought for the artform, he lost.
The Salzburger Nachrichten has announced the death from Covid-19 of Derek Weber, its long-standing music critic, verteran of innumerable festivals. He was 72 or 73.
Aside from music, he was a distinguished economic historian and head of the Creditanstalt archive.
An Italophile, he got on well with Riccardo Muti.
Instead of sinking into me-me-me misery these past two months, the young Warner pianist Martin James Bartlett has been engaging with new-gen composers.
Like Mahlon Berv, who composed this during lockdown.
