The international virtuoso set the seal on her performing career this week by finalising the private sale of her 1757 Guadagnini.

No further details are being made public.

Tasmin, 55, is moving into bradcasting with three hourlong programmes for BBC Radio 3 and other plans in the pipeline.

She’ll do well.

Written in hope, in Holland’s darkest hour.

It’s your vote.

Or:

Washington DC’s arts center, closed by Covid, has put together a pre-recorded program for Inauguration Day. Most artists recorded at home.

Early today, Renee sang at the private mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral for President-Elect Biden, Vice President-Elect Harris, and congressional leaders from both parties. She sang Schubert’s Ave Maria and America the Beautiful.

Full performing cast:
Renée Fleming
J’Nai Bridges
Lawrence Brownlee
Soloman Howard
Ryan McKinny
Eric Owens
and WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists

Trump’s head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Mary Anne Carter, has resigned with immediate effect.

The former political flak was complicit in Trump’s plan to roll back state funding for the arts.

Let’s see who Biden’s got in mind.

Germany’s ‘advisory commission on Nazi-looted property’, known as the Limbach Commission, has issued a sharp reminder to a Nuremburg foundation to pay up over a Guarnerius violin in its possession.

Five years ago the commission ordered the Franz Hofmann and Sophie Hagemann Foundation to pay 100,000 Euros to the heirs of  Felix Hildesheimer, whose violin was forcibly taken from him in 1939.

The foundation agreed to the Commission’s ruling in 2016. But it has not yet paid a penny to the heirs.

Read on here.

The Mannheim music director Boian Videnoff has founded a sheet music app called Enote.

What does it do?

Videnoff: Quick navigation by movements or bars, personalising the music size and notation style, quick jumps to Repeats, D.S., D.C. and Coda, transposing in other keys, looking up passages in the full score, automated annotations by rules – even having the device listen to your playing and turn the page in the right moment for you – all of these features come only with native digital scores. Enote gives you access to our digital sheet music library, and you can search it with filters and discover new repertoire….

More here.

Musical theatre is looking up.

The irrepressible Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will make her debut with the Basel Symphony Orchestra tomorrow in a streamed concert.

She’s replacing Sir Mark Elder who is unable to leave Covid-lockdown England.

Simon Rattle and Elton John lead a pack of 100 musicians calling on the Government, via a letter to the Times, to renegotiate free movement for British musicians in the European Union.

These are the signatories:

Roger Waters; Sir Simon Rattle; Dame Sarah Connolly; Sir George Benjamin; Sir Harrison Birtwistle; Nicola Benedetti; Steven Isserlis; Stephen Hough; Sir András Schiff; Judith Weir; Roderick Williams; Amanda Roocroft; Amelia Freedman; Nash Ensemble; Anna Meredith; Anna Patalong; Benjamin Baker; Bond Quartet; Brindley Sherratt; Professor Catherine Martin; Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Catriona Price; Chi-chi Nwanoku; Chris Stark, Christian Curnyn; Claudia Huckle; Dr Mark Taylor; Elizabeth Wallfisch; Gabriella Swallow; Gina McCormack; Gregory Walmsley; Harry Bicket; Hilary Summers; Jeremy Huw Williams; Jess Gillam; Joseph Middleton; Kate Royal; Lauma Skride; Levon Chilingirian; Mahaliah Edwards; Martyn Brabbins; Michael Chance; Miloš Karadaglić; Nicholas Collon; Nicky Spence; Paul Cassidy; Peter Robinson; Prof Nicholas Daniel; Professor Julian Anderson; Professor Julian Lloyd Webber; Professor Peter Fribbins; Rakhvinder Singh; Raphael Wallfisch; Rosa Mannion; Ruth Rogers; Sean Shibe; Sheku Kanneh-Mason; Tasmin Little; the Kanneh-Mason family; Sir Elton John; Ed Sheeran; Roger Daltrey; Bob Geldof; Midge Ure; Sting; Robert Plant; Peter Gabriel; Rag’n’Bone Man; Nick Mason; Aitch; Alex Kapranos; Beabadoobee; Bicep; Brett Anderson; Brian Eno; Brian May; Bryan Adams; Captain Sensible; Charlie Burchill; Chris Difford; Danny McNamara; Dave Stewart; Fryars; Gary Kemp; Gary Numan; Glass Animals; Grace Carter; Hayden Thorpe; Hot Chip; Hugh Cornwell; Iron Maiden; Jayda G; Jim Kerr; Joss Stone; Jungle; Kasai; Kero Kero Bonito; Kim Wilde; King Krule; LA Priest; Liam Gallagher; Mark King; Mick Hucknell; Nik Kershaw; Priya Ragu & Japhna Gold; Radiohead; Rick Wakeman; Roger Taylor; Ross From Friends; Rusty Egan Visage; Sex Pistols; SG Lewis; Simian Mobile Disco; SK Shlomo; Steve Norman; Superorganism; Terry Britten; The 1975; The Darkness; Will Young; Dame Evelyn Glennie; Julia Haferkorn; David Francis; Karine Polwart; Peewee Ellis; John J. Williamson; Sam Leak; Michael Eavis; Emily Eavis; John Gilhooly; Paul Mandry; Fielding Hope, James Clutton; Deborah Annetts; James Ainscough; Alasdair Tait; Annabella Coldrick; Ashutosh Khandekar; Atlas Management; Barbara Osborne; Carol Main; Carole Tongue; Claire Owen; Daniel Miller; Danny Keir; David Martin; David Taylor; Donagh Collins; Dr Aoife Monks; Felix Howard; Graham Sheffield; Howard Goodall; James McAulay; John Gidding; Keith Harris; Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp; Lucy Heyman; Mary-Alice Stack; Patrick Woodroffe; Professor Chris Collins; Rod Smallwood; Sandra Schembri; Sir David Bell; Tom Travis; Vick Bain

The letter is much shorter:

Sir, British musicians, dancers, actors and their support staff have been shamefully failed by their government. The deal done with the EU has a gaping hole where the promised free movement for musicians should be: everyone on a European music tour will now need costly work permits and a mountain of paperwork for their equipment. The extra costs will make many tours unviable, especially for young emerging musicians who are already struggling to keep their heads above water owing to the Covid ban on live music. This negotiating failure will tip many performers over the edge.

We urge the government to do what it said it would do and negotiate paperwork-free travel in Europe for British artists and their equipment. For the sake of British fans wanting to see European performers in the UK and British venues wishing to host them, the deal should be reciprocal.

Rattle is on his way to  new job in Munich.

Two versions of Aaron Copland’s White House commission.

And this one’s for the composer.