Toupé, or not toupé.
The former University of Michigan professor Stephen Shipps was arrested today at his home in Ann Arbor on two charges of transporting a minor girl across state lines for the purpose of sexual activity.
Shipps, 67, is accused that he ‘knowingly transported a young girl, who was under 18 years old, across state lines, and Shipps intended to engage in sexual activity with her.’ If convicted, he could face 15 years.
He retired from the university 18 mnoths ago amid accusations of sexual misconduct.
Here’s the court page with fuller details.
And this is is official bio as teacher, player and concertmaster:
He studied with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, receiving a B.M., M.M. and Performer’s Certificate in Violin Performance. He also studied with Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School and with Franco Gulli at the Academia Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis, Dallas, Omaha, Seattle and Ann Arbor, as well as the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra and the Madeira Bach Festival. He began his career as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony and Concertmaster of the Dallas Opera, Concertmaster and Associate Conductor of the Omaha Symphony and the Nebraska Sinfonia. Mr. Shipps performed for three decades as violinist of the Amadeus and Meadowmount Piano Trios. Mr. Shipps has recorded for American Gramophone, Bay Cities, NPR, RIAS Berlin, Hessiche Rundfunk, Melodiya/Russian Disc and Moscow Radio. His solo work on the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Albums yielded a dozen gold and eight platinum records and a Grammy nomination. Mr. Shipps has served on the faculties of Indiana University, the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Banff Centre in Canada. He is regularly invited to give master classes at the major Conservatories of the Czech Republic and Germany and gives annual master classes at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. In summer seasons, Mr. Shipps teaches and performs at the Innsbrook Institute and Center Stage Strings and is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Cambridge International String Academy at Trinity College, Cambridge in the United Kingdom, now in its sixth season.
Press release:
Manhattan School of Music (MSM) today unveiled an inaugural roster of Artist Scholars, an accomplished and influential list of Black performers, educators, activists, directors, choreographers, and administrators that includes Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis, acclaimed classical pianist Lara Downes (pictured), chamber musicians, Imani Winds, and novelist Tayari Jones.
Full list:
Gary Bartz: legendary saxophonist
LaSaundra Booth: Founder, Wake Forest Community Youth Orchestra, SphinxLEAD
Terri Lyne Carrington, drummer; composer; producer; 2020 NEA Jazz Master; Founder and Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice
Katie Brown and Dalanie Harris: Hosts, The Classically Black Podcast
Anthony Davis: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (The Central Park Five, Amistad, X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X)
Bill Doggett: guest lecturer, historian
Lara Downes: pianist, activist
Tia Fuller: saxophonist; composer; band leader
Jarvis Antonio Green: actor; director; Producer, JAG Productions
Imani Winds: Grammy-nominated wind quintet (Mark Dover [MM ’12], Monica Ellis [PS ’98], Brandon Patrick George [MM ’10], Jeff Scott (BM ’90), Toyin Spellman Diaz [MM ’97, PS ’98])
Tayari Jones: author; winner, 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction for An American Marriage
Tesia Kwarteng (MM ’13): mezzo-soprano
Alex Laing (MM ’98): Principal Clarinet, Phoenix Symphony; educator
M Lamar: composer, performer
Erich McMillan-McCall: actor; producer; and advocate
Charles Chip McNeal: Director of Diversity, Equity, and Community, San Francisco Opera
Garrett McQueen: bassoonist; TRILLOQUY podcast
Malcolm J. Merriweather (DMA ’15): conductor, baritone
Jasmine Muhammad (MM ’12): soprano
Jannina Norpoth (BM ’03): violinist, PUBLIQuartet; SphinxLEAD
Kristal Pacific: Director of Social Equity and Grantmaking, Opera America; SphinxLEAD
Ken Roberson: choreographer
Britton Smith: actor; Artistic Director, The Broadway Advocacy Coalition
Adina Williams: Director of Community Engagement and Education, Camille A. Brown
We have been informed of the death of Scott Bergeson, a former stalwart of New York City Opera who was found dead at his home in Jay, Vermont, on October 28th. He was 69 and, as of this time, no cause is known.
Bergeson was a resident conductor for many years at New York City Opera under Beverly Sills (whom he called ‘Mom’), conducting over 300 performances. He became an assistant conductor at the Met, where he conducted Karita Mattila in Salome and Jonas Kaufmann in Magin Flute, in addition to performances of La Traviata, Idomeneo, and The Rake’s Progress. He conducted at several other opera companies across the US. Robert Commanday, foundwr of San Francisco Classical Voice, called him a conductor of ‘skill, experience and vital, incisive style.’
The authorities in Catalonia have ordered theatres and culture spaces to close for 15 days.
The extraordinary accordion and bandoneon virtuoso Stéphane Chapuis has lost his life to a malignant illness.
He performed across a large range of music, from classical to jazz, to tango, to klezmer, and above all to roots music. He was engaged by many orchestras and taught at the Tibor Varga Music Academy in Sion.
May he rest in peace.
They said it could never happen.
You see it here first.
He plays the piano. She seems happy, and a bit higher than mezzo.
photo: Luca Rossetti
We hear of senior figures who are leaving AskonasHolt as part of the shrinkage we broke last month.
Heading for the door are Tim Menah, an Associate Director, who joined the company in 1994. He looked after Zubin Mehta and some leading singers, and he’s taking early retirement.
Also leaving are artist managers Sophie Dand, Etta Morgan, Susie Murray and Jonathan Turnbull.
Watch the space for further developments in the coming days.
This week’s admission that the Concertgebouw will not see a new chief conductor for at least three years is just the latest in a catalogue of arrogance and incompetence that goes all the way back to the 1980s when a bumptious manager forced Bernard Haitink to leave.
Haitink had an international career, but the Dutch have an aversion to tall tulips so Haitink had to go, and in a blaze of bile.
His successor Riccardo Chailly went to the trouble of mastering the Dutch language, only to realise that he would never understand how they think in Holland, so he took himself off abruptly to Leipzig.
Chailly was followed by Maris Jansons, a lovely man and marvellous musician who decided after a while that, if he had to ration his small repertoire between Amsterdam and his other orchestra in Munich, he preferred the Bavarian orchestra to the Dutch. And without delay.
The next chief was Daniele Gatti, who was ousted over American media allegations of sexual misconduct. The manager who fired him was himself soon relieved of his position.
For the past two years, the Concertgebouworkest has lacked artistic direction, and for the next three years it will have none.
It appears they nurtured vain hopes that Andris Nelsons might be tempted, but he is nailed down to Boston and Leipzig until the late 20s so the Dutch were clearly fooling themselves. Right now, they are lost without leadership. Even the management is interim. And all they can be getting along with right now is delivering another snub to Haitink, just because he still walks tall.
This orchestra likes to be counted among the world’s best. On current form, it’s a long way from the champions league.
The latest Covid graph from Vienna (search ‘Vienna Covid’) shows exactly the same infection spike in the past week as the one that prompted Chancellor Merkel to switch off the lights on Germany’s arts.
How long can Vienna keep its opera open? Does the city still regard itself as a special case?
The latest accounting on the renovation the shabby Cologne Opera building comes to 841 million Euros (=$).
The estimate approved in 2012 was 253 million. By the time they are finished the amount of public money spent will exceed one billion.
The kind of inflation usually kicks in with cultural building projects in Germany, which is why Munich is now having second thoughts about going ahead with the new concert hall it promised to the late Mariss Jansons. Judging by the political climate right now, the Munich concert hall won’t be happening any time soon.
The East German conductor Peter Fanger has succumbed to a brief illness.
Music director of the Riesa Symphony Orchestra, now known as the Elbland Philharmonie, he was professor at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy in Dresden and leder of the choirs at the Frauenkirche and Lukaskirche.
From his Dresden obituary: The conductor Peter Fanger was not the podium star with droves of disciples. But he was still known and highly valued by a great many people. An artist who has worked with continuity, ability, reliability and vision where it is a matter of bringing music to people, steering ensembles through difficult times and thereby helping the audience…. The Saxon musical landscape owes a lot to Peter Fanger.