The conductor will miss the first three weeks of the Cleveland Orchestra season, having returned unwell from its European tour.

His replacements will be Osmo Vänskä, Elim Chan and associate conductor Daniel Reith.

The deceptively youthful Franz Welser-Möst, 64, underwent treatment for a cancerous tumour a year ago. He will step down as Cleveland music director in 2027 after a record 25 years in charge.

The Belgian newspaper De Standaard has some additional details of why the early-music group Anima Eterna this week fired its ‘aggressive’ founder Jos Van Immerseel.

The ensemble, it appears, was in transition from Van Immerseel’s leadership to a triumvirate of successors, Pablo Heras-Casado, Midori Seiler and Bart Van Reyn.

Van Immerseel ‘became increasingly critical of the guest conductors and the artistic vision that they developed together with the orchestra. And he expressed that in a less than constructive way.’

A player added that he ‘contacted people internally in an aggressive manner, made disparaging remarks about conductors, board members and people from the permanent staff, and used threatening language. It is a shame. He will be 80 next year. We wanted to congratulate him and wave him goodbye in style. But he himself has made that impossible.’

Van Immerseel denies it: ‘This dismissal has hit me like a bombshell. It is also theft of my livelihood, I no longer have an income. The board has sent a letter to all members of the orchestra. That is two hundred musicians from all over Europe. It is inhumane. That I would have ignored the values of the orchestra is nonsense. I founded Anima Eterna myself and invested my own money in it to keep it afloat. I formally protest against the content and form of this press release. This is abuse of power and intimidation, a murder of my life’s work. It could only have been written by people who were poorly informed or misled.’

His lawyer adds: ‘The allegations are slanderous and false. In view of these slanderous allegations, we will take necessary legal steps.’

Strenuous efforts to produce a gender-balanced outcome at the Leeds Piano Competition have apparently paid off.

The five finalists, announced last night, are:
Kai-Min Chang (Taiwan)
Junyan Chen (China)
Jaeden Izik-Dzurko (Canada)
Khanh Nhi Luong (Vietnam)
Julian Trevelyan (United Kingdom)

The BBC has just announced an average 96 percent ticket sale for Royal Albert Hall evening concerts in the Proms season just ended.

That’s up from 93 percent last year.

One-third of attenders are said to be first-timers.

Other stats:

Proms 2024 season has reached over 10.6 million people on TV so far
4.6 million streams of BBC Proms 2024 content on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds
A peak audience of 3.3 million people watched the Last Night of the Proms on BBC One
During the final week of the BBC Proms season, Radio 3 had 264K Sounds accounts, up more than 10% on its previous record, and up by over 20% compared to the final week of Proms 2023
Almost 300K enjoyed the Proms live at the Royal Albert Hall, and a further 14K at concerts across the UK
Over two thirds of Proms at the Royal Albert Hall have been total sell-outs.
 

Remember this?

 

If you can’t decipher it, the caption says: B&H can supply you with the new model.

NO the Euphonium. Not the Girl.

What were they thinking?

Wakefield is sinking ever deeper into a mire of its own making. Six months after promising a full investigation into instances of bullying and various forms of abuse, it has just issued this explanation to worried parishioners:

Dear […],

I am writing in response to your complaints regarding Wakefield Cathedral. I am aware it has been some time since communication regarding this has been made. And that is because a thorough investigation has been conducted.

I am sure you will understand it is not appropriate to share the detail around specific individuals or any outcomes or actions specific to those individuals. That said, I wanted to offer you assurances that a detailed and fair investigation has taken place, and I am satisfied with an appropriate outcome.

Best wishes,

Juliette Mclellan
Head of Safeguarding

 

Insiders have offered us this alarming summary of the present state of affairs:

  • The Dean has now ruined a third music department.
    • Tom Moore forced into resignation (former Slipped Disc article)
    • Ed Jones sacked for not getting on with a bullying precentor (former Slipped Disc article)
    • James Bowstead now given opportunity to remove trebles from the choir.
  • Seven choristers are now in the choir, others have been sacked, and others have left.
  • They have now cut the chorister payment by 75%, promising a bumper payment at the end of year nine. In real terms, they are going to pay them 25% now, then find reasons to sack them before they reach Year 9.
  • They have spent an £80,000 legacy promised “For the choristers” on salaries and Lay Clerk fees.
  • Funding has been refused for a second year running from the Cathedral Music Trust. Funding tends to be given out every other year.
  • Adults are now being paid seven times what they were previously paid.
  • Female Adult Sopranos are also being paid £35 a service to bulk out the children’s choir when required.
  • The Cathedral talk about “and all cathedrals are finding it more and more difficult to get choristers to commit to the timetables which until quite recently were not a problem”.
    • By way of comparison…
      • Ripon Cathedral in the same diocese has sixty trebles in their two separate children’s choirs.
      • Bradford Cathedral also in the same diocese has over 30 choristers over two treble lines.
      • Wakefield had over 35 choristers a year and a half ago over two treble lines. 
      • In fact, there are few cathedrals struggling with recruiting…
  • Adult Sopranos are now singing more services than the trebles. 
  • The ongoing safeguarding investigations about the cathedral’s failings are continuing, and may be the reason for the depleting involvement of children in the choir.
  • Wakefield could become the first Church of England cathedral to remove children permanently from their musical tradition. 

The London-based agency Inntermusica, which yesterday lost Yuja Wang, has just seen Marin Alsop walk through the door.

She’s joining AskonasHolt in Europe, consolidating her main relationship with its partner Opus3.

All this before breakfast on the first Tuesday back at work.

The Romanian soprano made a fuss over an encore sung by a Korean tenor. The public had the final say.

First video of the incident has just reached Bucharest, where it’s leading the news.

 

 

Cellist Frances Borowsky offered to entertain bored passengers. She tells slippedisc.com:

‘Navigating the tight spaces with my bow and instrument was no small feat! Even sitting diagonally into the throughway required that I tilt the instrument left or right according to the strings I was playing on, so as not to hit the bow into either wall.’

Anyone else tried it?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Frances Borowsky (@gracefulcellist)

Members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus voted unanimously last night to authorize a strike. The vote polled 98.1% of eligible members. The first strike is likely to hit Verdi’s Requiem on Thursday.

The orchestra management wants to cut chorus fees by 65%.

The only question is whether the choristers start their strike before the musicians vote on action of their own.

We hear that Sir John Eliot Gardiner has been summoned by the Orchestra Mozart to stand in for Daniele Gatti, who has fallen sick.

He will conduct Beethoven’s 8th and 9th symphonies on Thursday in Ferrara, Friday in Bologna and Saturday in Milan.

The change has yet to be posted on the orchestra’s sites.

The orchestra, founded in 2004 by Claudio Abbado, brings together established principals with very young players.

The approach to JEG was apparently initiated by the current OM timpanist, an English Baroque Soloists principal.

A misconduct panel has imposed an indefinite teaching ban on Dale Wills, a former music teacher at Marlborough College.

It found that Wills, 42, ‘made inappropriate comments and failed to maintain professional boundaries’. He exchanged 7,000 Microsoft Teams messages with two pupils and ‘ingrained himself’ into their lives.

A spokesman for Wills said he lacked sufficient support and guidance in his job.