An irresistibly historic recording.

A somewhat insensitive Covid perspective in the LA Times by Professor Inna Faliks, perhaps unaware that not all artists have the financial security of being professors.

Extract:

… I am walking from my piano to the iPad to monitor the livestream of my weekly living room concert, Corona Fridays. I press “stop video,” and the virtual applause appears in the form of small red hearts and blue thumbs up, floating on the screen. The sound of a live audience has turned into a silent cartoon.

For musicians, the move from actual concert hall to virtual concert hall signifies a change in our emotional relationship with music. One of the most narcissistic elements of modern society — streaming on social media — is allowing musicians to commune with their art form on an entirely different, intimate level.

One of my teachers, the great American pianist Leon Fleisher, who died on Aug. 2, is likely to have enjoyed the irony of this. Fleisher taught his students about playing music for music’s sake. He would ask us to shelve our virtuoso training and forget about filling large halls with the huge, sparkling sound we had been honing for years….

Here’s the notice that went out this morning:

Today the application portal opened for Government’s £500 million Culture Recovery Fund: Grants. This fund is for cultural organisations affected by the Covid-19 crisis. If you’re at risk of no longer trading viably by the end of this financial year, then we could help you.

Round one is open from now, until 12pm (midday) Friday 21 August. Round two is open from Friday 21 August, until 12 (midday) Friday 4 September. 

Apply here.

Russian sources are reporting an outbreak of the virus at the St Petersburg company, with most ballet classes cancelled and many artists placed in quarantine.

The company is supposed to resume touring this month.

Five members of Lithuania’s Kaunas State Choir have been diagnosed with Covid-19.

All activities have been suspended.

Two concerts this week by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will be dedicated to the Lebanese people and the victims of the Beirut explosion. Daniel Barenboim will conduct works by Beethoven, Wagner, Schoenberg and Boulez on Thursday and Friday in Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Hall.

Only 150 people will be permitted to attend.

An Italian naval officer is under official investigation after substituting the Jerusalema dance hit for the national anthem at a passing out parade.

The unnamed officer maintained her dance, in sash and sword, enhanced the navy’s image. Judging by the cadets’ ragged response, the dance was unrehearsed.

This video has gone viral down the leg-shaped country.

This is the original.

The world’s most influential conducting teacher, 90 today, is at work  in the town of Fiskars.

First pupil of the day is Pekka Kuusisto.

Hiding behind a pillar is the latest prodigy Tarmo Peltokoski.

photos Helsingin Sanomat

The latest protective requirement.

Photo: asahi.com

As Nagano steps down at the Montreal Symphony after 14 years, Arthur Kapitainis has a pretty positive assessment of his overall contribution.

It would be easy to assemble a long list of public-spirited projects either agreed to or invented by this media-savvy maestro since his ascent to the music directorship in 2006: Mahler’s First Symphony at midnight in a riverfront Molson warehouse; Concerto for Radio Host and Orchestra, featuring Radio-Canada broadcaster René Homier-Roy as spoken-voice soloist; the Concert à l’aveugle, featuring the Electric Candlelight Concerto of John Anthony Lennon. Sixties clothing was recommended for that party.

Sometimes the music was bundled with social awareness. In Nagano’s first season, we heard The General, an oratorio interweaving theatrical music by Beethoven with words based on the Rwanda memoirs of Roméo Dallaire. Later came post-tragedy outreach concerts in Montreal North and Lac-Mégantic….

Ten years later, to open what would be his last full season, Nagano chose Chaakapesh, the Trickster’s Quest, an opera on a First Nations subject by Tomson Highway (words) and Matthew Ricketts (music). This also went to the Far North. With, of course, a camera crew.

Not that media trimmings are needed to produce a worthwhile experience. All the hype would be worthless in the absence of something musical to say….

Workers unions in Austria, together with the social democrats, are calling for a statutory break on wearing masks every two hours. They are concerned especially for people working in the hospitality sector and are demanding that they be given a 15-minute mask break at a two-hour interval through the working day.