We hear that Tabby Rhee has won an audition to join the NY Philharmonic viola section.

She is not due to graduate from Juilliard for another two months.

Tabby is from Brookfield, Wisconsin.

UPDATE: We’re advised by the NY Phil that Tabitha is scheduled for trial weeks in the final phase of the audition process. She is completing a Masters degree at Juilliard this May. She already has a Bachelor of Music degree, also from Juilliard.

Yuja Wang has been playing the concertos in Zurich this week with conductor Paavo Jarvi.

found by one of our readers on a collectors’ site.

Here’s what it sounds like.

IMG Artists has woken from winter to sign Elias Grandy, formerly with Maestro Arts. Grandy has been GMD in Heidelbberg since 2015.

Julio G. Vico, a winner of the LSO’s conducting competition, has joined rump-cami-music in New York.

The Finnish conductor Eva Ollikainen has signed for worldwide general management with Intermusica in London. She has been choef of the Iceland Symphony since 2020.

And Maestro Arts in London have reeled in two young baton wavers: Pablo Rus Broseta, music director of Jove Orquestra de la Generalitat Valenciana, and Robert Houssart, Resident Conductor at Royal Danish Opera.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Given her decade-long success and her emergence as the first woman to clutch a Metropolitan Opera commission, it is vaguely surprising to find that Missy Mazzoli’s only recordings until now have been on a non-export hometown label…

Read on here.

And here.

En  francais ici.

We’ve just heard that the New York Philharmonic will perform at Apple Fifth Avenue at 6pm tonight to launch Apple’s classical music app.

The orchestra is one of six world leading ensembles to contribute streaming to the new app.

The event, which is already full, will include performances of Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, bit of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and Duke Ellington’s Clarinet Lament.

A reader reminnds us:

On November 9, 2016, the Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov posted a joint photo with Donald Trump on his Instagram feed. Ildar had just enjoyed a round of golf with Trump at Trump Golf Links Ferry Point.

He concluded the post: ‘Congratulations, Mr. President!’

The bass is now safely back home in Putin’s embrace.

Browsing the BBC’s new Annual Plan 2023/24, I am struggling to find any frontline role for classical music . The report’s claim to entertain the nation makes no mention of the Proms. The section on radio omits Radio 3.

The only classical statement I have found is this hastily rewritten, semi-apologetic paragraph:

We will strengthen the BBC’s public purpose for classical music, delivering the best music to a wider audience. Although we are reducing our total spend on performing groups due to significant funding pressures across the BBC, we are committed to doubling our investment in music education. The plan for classical music includes creating agile ensembles to work even more flexibly and creatively, working with a greater number of musicians and broadcasting from more venues around the UK. We also plan to invest more widely in the future of choral singing across the UK and are exploring new funding models for the BBC Singers. We also aim to create stronger partnerships to develop future musical talent.

Read this blether any way you like but it does not look like classical music is a BBC priority.

More of the report is written in neo-Orwellian Corp-speak:

We have continued to transform how the BBC works, ensuring we are effective and efficient. In March for example, we brought together our teams working in a wide variety of technology, operational and marketing & audiences roles across the BBC. Bringing together professionals across the BBC into these teams will mean we can better manage and prioritise our resources; create greater opportunity for development and progression; and better share best practice and expertise.

Blessed is the BBC when it spouts utter bollocks.

The orchestra today hitched its in-house  record label to Apple’s new classical music app (of which more soon).

Here’s the press relesase:

From 28 March, the entire catalogue of Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s in-house label, is available on the new app, developed especially for classical music and now available in the App Store ­
­
Berlin (31 March 2023) – Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings today announces a partnership with Apple Music Classical. All of the label’s recordings to date are available on the new app, developed especially for classical music and now available in the App Store. The entire label catalogue can be accessed in the highest available sound quality (Hi-Res Lossless with a maximum resolution of up to 192 kHz/24 bit) and is supplemented by detailed background information and the complete metadata. This includes Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings’ latest release: Symphonies 8–10 by Dmitri Shostakovich performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko. This recording will be available for streaming in Spatial Audio exclusively on Apple Music Classical.

More Spatial Audio albums of the Orchestra and Kirill Petrenko, recorded natively in Atmos in the Philharmonie Berlin, will be made available exclusively on Apple Music Classical in the coming months. Fans will find these recordings in a space dedicated to the Berliner Philharmoniker on Apple Music.

Olaf Maninger (Principal Cello, Media Board and Managing Director of Berlin Phil Media): “We are delighted to be a partner in the launch of the eagerly awaited Apple Music Classical app with the recordings of our label Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings. For almost 15 years, we have been bringing our music to a worldwide audience in the Digital Concert Hall. Our goal is to always do this at the highest possible audiovisual quality level, which is equally true for the recordings of our label. Now being able to enjoy them streamed on Apple Music Classical in Hi-Res and spatial audio is another step in this direction and a very good sign for the classical music market.”

The Paris National Opera has just popped a new streaming platform, Paris Opera Play, known as Pop.

It has a back catalogue of 80 opera films and will open with a live transmission Friday 7 at 7:30pm of Gustav Dudamel conducting: Nixon in China, a topical opera about a US president who is indicted for crimes.

Unfortunately, the press kit crashed on takeoff this morning.

Good luck with the stream. You can register for free but each opera costs 14.90 Euros.

The wildly over-committed Yannick Nézet-Séguin has suffered his seasonal bout of sickness on the eve of a loudly-hailed world premiere.

Last night’s first performance of John Luther Adams’ Vespers of the Blessed Earth in Verizon Hall was taken over by Donald Nally (pictured), leader of the accompanying Crossing choir.

In the second half of the concert – Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring – the Philadelphia Orchestra was conducted by Marin Alsop.

The same pair will take over  this weekend at Carnegie Hall but, for the return performance in Philly, Conducting Fellow Austin Chanu will conduct the Stravinsky.

In the Yannick of time,  as it were.