The death has been announced of Jürgen Ahrend, a German craftsman famed for restoring damaged organs in Dutch and German churches.
His most important work can be heard in the Martinikerk in Groningen and St. Jacobi in Hamburg.
His son, Hendrik, continues the workshop.
Press release:
Last night, the legendary American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis made a surprise debut performance at the Edinburgh International Festival, leading an Up Late concert at the Hub, home of the International Festival. The Brazilian bandolim virtuoso Hamilton de Holanda also joined Marsalis on stage as a special guest.
The concert launches the Up Late series, a selection of special nights in the Hub where celebrated unannounced guest curators and international artists keep audiences up late and entertained into the night. This concert was filmed for Sky Arts and will be broadcast 1st October at 10pm, alongside another of Edinburgh International Festival’s Up Late concerts, broadcast on 24th September.
Wynton Marsalis is one of the world’s most renowned jazz musicians, whose performances and compositions have earned him nine Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
press photo: Maxime Ragni/Edinburgh Festival
Rising tenor Jonathann Tetelman adopts the pose.
If you search slippedisc.com for ‘Oregon’ you will find a catalogue of musical incompetence unmatched in a ny other US uinversity. Things have gone a bit quiet since they fired the excellent Matthew Halls as Artistic Director of the Oregon Bach Festival. So it’s reassuring to report that the hopeless Oregonians have just struck again.
A local mole informs us:
It seems the university has struck again by somehow forcing out a prominent musician and broadcaster, Peter Van de Graff. In 2016, when Van de Graff came from WFMT to KWAX, which operates under a license owned by the university, the local classical audience was charmed by his enthusiasm for the community and grateful for his professional and artistic contributions to the local classical music scene. KWAX is a community supported station but, as I understand it, the funds are administered by the university. During Van de Graff’s tenure as Music Director, the fund drives were shortened from weeks to just one or two days due his enthusiasm and to timely and generous giving. Many pledges came from internet listeners, some even from abroad.
One day in mid July, Van de Graff announced that it was his last day on the air—no explanation given. The local free paper that does some arts reporting noted the departure along with the cryptic quote from Van de Graff that “some of his reasons were not fit for publication”. The blunt force of the university immediately came to mind.
Van De Graaff hosts the Beethoven Satellite Network (BSN), an overnight classical music service, which is carried over approximately 150 radio stations across the USA</d
The career of Georges Pretre – who would have turned 100 this week – was unconventional, to say the least.
He won his greatest respect and affection in Vienna, where he conducted the symphony orchestra and impressed with an unfailing elegance and insouciance. In France, he was music director of the two Paris opera houses in the 1970s but he was passed over for modernist and foreign candidates when it came to building the Bastille.
Elsewhere, although he conducted numerous times at Covent Garden and the Met, he is remembered, if at all, for his recordings with Maria Callas who trusted him as she trusted few men with sticks.
Pretre’s other achievement was his involvement with Francis Poulenc, whose music he upheld for two generations when it was going badly out of fashion.
Gorgeous Georges Pretre died aged 92 in January 2017.
The Royal Opera House has a new series exclusive dedicated to insights into the lives and careers of Royal Ballet Principal dancers, with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes rehearsal footage, and clips from a range of performances.
Episodes of Spotlight On… are released every fortnight with episodes dedicated to Royal Ballet Principals. Alexander Campbell and Akane Takada
are already available. Future episodes include Principals Steven McRae, Laura Morera, Marcelino Sambé, and Sarah Lamb.
From family favourites and modern masterpieces to heart-breaking arias and passionate pas-de-deux, Royal Opera House Stream offers it all.
You’ll need to subscribe but £9.99 a month or £99 annually does give you access to a stunning catalogue of over 60 works from The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera’s archives, alongside exclusive behind-the-scenes features, trailers, talks and Insights. Two full-length Royal Opera House performances and exclusive additional content is added every month.
Dear Alma,
A close and trusted friend who is a professional musician invited me to write a short chamber piece for his ensemble. I agreed to write it for no fee if the concert was not subsidised. I wrote the piece and sent it in, it was received, but I have since heard nothing. The day of the concert came and went, with no information. My 2 attempts at communicating with my friend went unanswered. My best guess is that the concert never went ahead, my friend forgot to inform me, and that, it being the summer holidays, my friend is halfway up a mountain with no internet access. But I do feel let down. I am owed an explanation. What should I do?
Yours sincerely,
Frustrated Composer
Dear Frustrated Composer,
Frustration. A never-ending part of being a musician. Allowing it to overtake us can thwart our ambitions, but channeling it can help us achieve new levels of achievement.
Webster Dictionary:
Frustration –
a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs
What is your ultimate goal in this project? To have your piece performed? To foster a long-term musical collaboration? To have this moment lead to more collaborations? For me, I try to have every opportunity lead to three new opportunities. This opens my mind, gives me some perspective, and cools any hot emotions.
Having been on the opposite side of your predicament, I can offer some perspective. One member of an ensemble, in good faith, can begin a project without consensus from the group. Projects run by an external organization can be delayed, changed or cancelled. A group can disagree about the perform-ability of the score received.
From your query, I can assume that this group doesn’t have a manager or a director to contact, and that the group doesn’t have a website where you can check their concert schedule. This makes it more difficult to assertion the situation.
Frustrated Composer, you would like to keep your relationship with your friend, and yet would like to have your piece performed. I agree with your assumption that the piece was not performed. Keeping this in mind, don’t worry about the timeline. Let the summer take its course, and in the fall, contact your friend one more time, with a friendly subject like “catching up” or “hope you had a great summer”. Be friendly, and say how you enjoyed the process of writing the piece. Ask for any feedback on the score, without adding pressure of details of a performance. You want to reach out without giving pressure or guilt to your friend.
If he does write back, then you can follow up with offering to make any changes they might want, or meeting with them to workshop the piece. Things like this.
Clearly this project did not go as you planned, but that does not mean that it is dead in the water. Take a step back, cool your heels, and think of the future and what can come of the hard work you have put in.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
Marcus Brigstocke is best known for his stand-up comedy and as a regular performer and writer on BBC Radio 4 so it’s somewhat surprising to find that he has written this bittersweet drama of family and addiction. The Red grew out of his own family experience and is a touching story of father and son, a screen adaptation of a radio play.
Benedict’s dad loved wine. He loved collecting it, drinking it and found sharing it with friends and family was an act of love. Benedict was a teenage alcoholic. He’s been sober now for 25 years. On the day of his father’s funeral, Benedict receives an unsettling final bequest: a bottle of exceptionally fine red wine. Will he drink one final toast to his father?
The Red is written and directed by Marcus Brigstocke, and stars real-life father and son actors Bruce Alexander and Sam Alexander.
The film, directed by Charlotte Peters, has been critically praised.
Brigstocke says of this film,: “The Red is a deeply personal piece of work for me. It is in large part my story. I am so proud that it has been such a success and hugely excited that it will be seen by even more people now! Sam and Bruce are just excellent in these roles and the fact that they are father and son brings a very special dimension to it all.”
Watch this from the current Verbier season.
She’s Swiss, 19 years old, from Lausanne.
The University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music has awarded Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music to Seth Parker Woods. He writes:
This honor comes as a total surprise when I got the call, but I love my school, department and colleagues and so excited to see where we continue going and the changes we make for the future. I first met the late Bobby Mann (founding violinist of the Juilliard Quartet and long time Juilliard faculty member) many moons ago when I was a high school student and was forever in awe of his musicianship and the way he could pull musical lines out of budding musicians. Thank you to Dean King and the USC Provost for this honor. Onward!
Conductor Oksana Lyniv welcomes her Youth Orchestra of Ukraine:
Every coming together is so precious for us!
Here is the moment then the bus finally arrived from Lviv, Ukraine making 55 hours trip.
Many of members started their journey already days before, coming from the different Ukrainian cities to catch the bus and to cross the border.
And now the next few weeks we can spend together, starting from the beautiful residence in the Nordkolleg Rendsburg at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and share the great musical moments.
Alon Ohel, 23, has been held by Hamas and its allies for more than 300 days since being kidnapped on October 7.
His family are sharing his music.
