The fast-rising Mexican musician Iván López Reynoso, 30, has been named music director of the Orchestra of Teatro Bellas Artes, one of Latin America’s leading opera houses.

A protégé of Eduardo Mata, Lopez Reynos made his house debut eight years ago.

Aside from conducting, he also sings counter-tenor.

Extremely well.

Beat that.

This is the Israeli pianist Dorel Golan playing the socks off a piece by Nikolai Kapustin for an audience in Azerbaijan.

Anyone known what it’s called?

The founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition died early today at a great age.

Fanny was a force of fire in piano playing, attracting the best pianists to her jury and some of the most promising as competitors. She founded the event in 1963 with her husband, the Leeds physician, Geoffrey de Keyser and with Marion Thorpe,then the Countess of Harewood.

Fanny she remained chairman and artistic director until 2015.

 

Winners of the Leeds included Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Sunwook Kim and latterly Federico Colli and Eric Lu. András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Lars Vogt and Denis Kozhukhin were among the runners-up.

Her book series Piano Lessons with Fanny Waterman/Marion Harewood sold more than three million copies.

In 2005 Fanny was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was always on the ball, dominating a room, a bundle of energy that never flagged to the end. The city of Leeds will not be the same without her.

She is survived by two sons.

 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has urged the vulnerable and the elderly to give church a miss this Christmas.

For those who do go, he urged greatest care with self-distancing, telling them to stay away from the choir and their friends.

‘Wave happily to people and go home,’ he said.

England today recorded its highest level of new Covid infections since the pandemic began.

The German pianist Stefan Mickisch has been fired from the Bayreuth Festival and denied access to its archives after making an ugly analogy between the anti-Hitler resistance and his own views on Coronavirus.

He posted this quote by the wartime martyr Hans Scholl: ′Nothing is unworthier of a cultural people than to let themselves be ruled without resistance by the dark instincts of an unaccountable clique.’ Mickisch then reposted this sentence unaltered as his own Covid stance.

Mickish, 58, has previously referred to ‘Corona fascism’ and called for resistance to police enforcement of Covid rules.

Mikisch took charge in 1998 of the introductory piano recitals to Bayreuth’s opera programme. In 2010 he made his first TV appearance as a Wagner expert on Stephen Fry’s BBC documentary, ‘Wagner and Me’.

He has been accused in some quarters of whitewashing Wagner’s anti-semitism.

The engaging broadcaster Rob Cowan is about to make his last appearance on Classic FM this Saturday.

Rob’s 3-year contract has come to an end and has not been renewed.

He knows more about records than anyone presently on air – maybe too much for Classic FM, which constantly respins the same old hits.

Having quit the suffocating BBC, he’s too male, pale, stale to be welcomed back.

It’s a bleak day for music broadasting.

 

Rob says: Come Boxing Day and I deliver my last edition of Cowan’s Classics @ClassicFM. Throughout this very happy stint (my third with the Station) listeners have responded positively via email and on a weekly basis to the menus that I’ve concocted for them, their varieties of style, genre, tone, tempo, mood and recorded vintage, the familiar played alongside the unfamiliar, and so forth, which leads me to sincerely hope that by reaching out I’ve facilitated some valuable discoveries. Aside from the odd birthday or anniversary my agenda has always been simple: quality, more quality and yet more quality still, with brief, lightly delivered commentaries. I love sharing and although I’ll continue to listen with joy (often related to my critical work as Contributing Editor for Gramophone and on my blog Rob’s Retro Classical at robccowan.com) I’ll miss the opportunity of programming the best of what I hear for responsive listeners. So to those of you who have listened, thank you – and thank you too to the lovely CFM team.

The Irish conductor Brendan Townsend died suddenly in Houston on Friday at the age of 52.

He was music director of the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra and assistant professor at Texas A&M International University since 2003.

The sad news was broken by university president Pablo Arenaz: ‘We are saddened to hear of the passing of longtime faculty member Brendan Townsend. His artistry and teaching made a profound impact on TAMIU students and our community. His leadership and advocacy for the performing arts on and off campus helped elevate TAMIU’s music and performing arts program and our community’s quality of life. As music director and conductor of the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra, he embraced our border culture and eagerly explored new horizons in developing the LPO’s various concert seasons. His enthusiastic support of TAMIU and Our Laredo was unmatched, and we will miss his jovial presence on campus, in our classrooms, on stage and in our community.’

Just when we thought she’d gone totally off the radar, the pianist has a new time-keeping accessory to show off.

It’s a highlight of her Covid year, she says.