Bohuslav Martinu wrote this Nonet in his final months of life. It is one of the most joyous pieces of chamber music that I know.
The last time Rafael Todes’s family gave a concert for their street, someone called the cops.
Yesterday, all was cool.
I’ve seldom read a better way to leave a building with all its windows smashed the way Bari Weiss has done with her I-quit letter today.
Sample quote:
Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.
My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.
There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.
I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public. And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery…
Dr Steven Thomas, music director of the Arcadia Chorale, in Scranton (Penn.), has died at 49 following treatment for leukaemia.
He was on leave from Wilkes University, where he was Professor of Music and chair of the Division of Performing Arts.
The conductor Larry Loh writes: Really tragically sad news about my friend Steven Thomas – our lives seemed to interweave – we first met as aspen as classmates, then fellow Yalies, then met again in northeastern Pa where we collaborated on big choral concerts with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic notably on Carmina Burana, Brahms requiem as well as Beethoven 9 (2x). He was a gentle and loving human being with a supreme intellect and attention to detail. I’ll miss him greatly as so many will.
Chi-chi Nwanoku, founder of the Chineke! orchestra, is among the sponsors of a campaign to have Thomas Arne’s song ‘Rule, Britannia’ removed from the Last Night of the Proms because it was ‘written in 1740 at the height of British slavery, (and) is offensive in today’s society.’
Quite right.
The BBC should also remove ‘Jerusalem’ out of solidarity with BDS and the Henry Wood Sea-songs because they promote naval aggression.
Happily, the petition so far has gained fewer than 200 signatures.
Although Helga Rabl-Stadler has been extended as president of the Salzburg Festival for a further year, Austrian media outlets are busy speculating about her successor.
Two names have come to the fore. One is Salzburg resident Stephan Gehmacher, currently head of the Luxembourg Philharmonic. The other is Maria Grossbauer, former chief of the Vienna Opera ball who is married to a former chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic. She is pictured here with the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Place your bets now.
The former Munich Academy chief Siegfried Mauser who has managed to stay out of jail on a sex conviction for the past six months, has changed lawyers in his latest legal stratagem.
His new advocate is the Hamburg lawyer Johann Schwenn, who has represented the current suspect in the murder of the British child Madeleine McCann.
Mauser, 66, has been ordered to present himself for detention in Puch-Urstein, near Hallein, before the month is out.
An American saxophonist Matthew Allen Harkins, 26, has pleaded guilty to a count of indecent assault, after two rape charges were dropped.
Harkins has been told he faces up to eight years jail.
photo: ABC
Guillermo Mireles has dug out a 2001 radio conversation between two cello legends. Slava had flown to Indiana to celebrate Janos’s 75th birthday. The English language somehow survived the dual assault, but the content is rivetting.
Listen here.
The Guardian reports 50 percent staff cuts at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and Town Hall.
Official statement: ‘It is with great sadness that Town Hall and Symphony Hall have entered a period of redundancy consultation. The future of these two iconic concert halls looks very different from the plans we began the year with. This period of closure has already resulted in huge losses and it is still unclear when it may be possible to reopen.’
The international South African soprano Pumeza Matshikiza is being discharged from hospital today after a week’s treatment for Covid-19.
She writes: ‘Can’t wait to take walks, sing, practise, learn to skate, eat home cooked food and feel like a human being again.I just need to be careful and take things slowly as I’ll need some time to fully recover.’
Edward L. Alley, who succeeded Henry Fogel as orchestra manager of the New York Philharmonic in 1981, has died in Sarasota where he was a trustee of the Sarasota Opera.
Other career highlights were as associate director of the Opera Center at Juilliard and director of the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program.
