The master-minimalist, 87, is spending August in Nova Scotia, according to online feeds.
No sign of his inseparable cat.
Seattle Opera has named James Robinson, artistic director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as its next general and artistic director.
Robinson, 61, is best known for directing Terence Blanchard’s opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones at the Metropolitan Opera, the company’s biggest contemporary box-office hit this century.
Previously, he won a Grammy for directing Porgy and Bess at the Met.
Taking over in Seattle next month, he succeeds Christina Scheppelmann, who is going to La Monnaie in Brussels.
The young German conductor Dominik Beykirch has handed in his notice at the German National Theatre and Staatskapelle Weimar.
Beykirch, now 32, was promoted to chief in the early months of Covid, having worked in the theatre as second conductor since 2015.
Now, he’s keen to see more of the world.
Ahmed Mater- Chronicles
Ahmed Mater, an artist from Saudi Arabia whose art encompasses painting, photography, sculpture, land art, and all manner of expression, talks movingly about his work which is currently on exhibition at Christies in London.
There is much to learn here about a place and a man who loves it. Formerly a doctor, this artist came to art through using what he knew as a physician to explain his world and his place in it.
The exhibition is at Christies until August 22nd and I have enjoyed learning about it through Ahmed Mater’s passionate descriptions of what inspires his art.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has just announced Dr. Mariko Silver — ‘a leader in the fields of philanthropy, education, government, and the arts’ — as its next President and Chief Executive Officer.
The arts, you see, come last.
Silver, in her previous job at the Henry Luce Foundation, ‘oversaw the creation of new initiatives supporting Democracy, Ethics, and Public Trust and Asian American Voices, prioritized funding exhibitions of and by American artists of color in art museums across the country, and more than doubled the foundation’s funding commitment to Indigenous communities’ – according to the press release.
All priorities lined up in a row.
The Royal Northern Sinfonia has conveyed the death of viola player Malcolm Critten, who stepped down recently after 37 years.
A fabulous musician, an incredibly kind human being, and a passionate cyclist, Malcolm will be terribly missed by all of us at Royal Northern Sinfonia.
The budget label made its critical breakthrough in the late 1990s with a cycle of Bruckner symphonies conducted by the little-known Canada-based conductor Georg Tintner. A Hitler exile from Vienna, Tintner brought idiomatic assurance to the works, cutting through their sometimes rambling argumentation.
But time stands still for no label.
Next month Naxos release its second Bruckner cycle, this one conducted by Markus Poschner with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF radio symphony orchestra.
Its other leading release features works by Tony Banks of the Genesis rock group.
In our exclusive list of long-serving orchestral players, Frances Darger came in at #2 for playing 70 years in the violins of the Utah Symphony.
On retirement, twelve years ago, she found a new hobby watching operas from the Met.
Frances died on July 30, aged 99. She is survived by three children, twelve grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren.
The Budapest Festival Orchestra will give a free concert on August 31 on Heroes’ Square with musicians from both sides of two conflicts.
JS Bach’s concerto for two violins will feature Diana Tishchenko from Ukrainian Crimea with Moscow-born Alexander Sitkovetsky. The Israeli Idan Raichel will perform three of his compositions, accompanied by the Palestinian oud-player Taiseer Elias (who is an Israeli citizen, teaching at Haifa University).
In the second half, Fischer will conduct the finale of Mahler’s 3rd symphony.
Message from Andreas Schrager:
Leider muss ich aufgrund einer Infektion der oberen Atemwege die heutige Vorstellung „Parsifal“ absagen. Ich möchte mich bei allen, die sich meinetwegen Karten dafür gekauft hatten, aufrichtig entschuldigen.
Diese Entzündung machte mir auch gestern wärend der Tristan Vorstellung, mein Sängerleben schwer und so musste ich im 3. Akt leider vorzeitig die Segel streichen.
Ich bedanke mich herzlich bei meinen Kollegen Tilman Unger, der mir für den Rest des Aktes seine Stimme geliehen hat, sowie bei Klaus Florian Vogt, der für mich die heutige Vorstellung Parsifal übernehmen wird.
Mein herzliches Dankeschön gilt auch den Bayreuther Festspielen, namentlich Katharina Wagner, für die elegante, rasche und zielführende Hilfe.
Nach gründlicher Untersuchung durch den HNO Arzt der Festspiele gebe ich vorsichtige Entwarnung für die kommenden Vorstellungen.
Roughly translated:
Unfortunately, due to an upper respiratory infection, I have to cancel tonight’s performance of “Parsifal”. I would like to sincerely apologise to anyone who bought tickets for this because of me.
This inflammation also made it difficult for me to sing Tristan yesterday, so I had to strike sail in the 3rd act. I would like to thank my colleague Tilman Unger, who lent me his voice for the rest of the act, as well as Klaus Florian Vogt, who will take over today’s performance of Parsifal for me.
My heartfelt thanks also go to the Bayreuther Festspielen, notably Katharina Wagner, for the elegant, quick and end-oriented help.
To mark its 25th anniversary, the Dresden Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by a robot in a new work at the Hellerau Festival Hall in October.
According to the orchestra, the rhythmic subtlety and cross-tempos of “#kreuzknoten” by Wieland Reissmann cannot be conducted by a human. It requires three arms to achieve the more complex passages.
From an article by Emily O’Sullivan in The Left Berlin journal:
I was hired some months ago by the Münchener Bach Orchester to lead the viola section during a performance of Mendelssohn’s monumental Elias. … The only thing I could do at this point was to reattach my Socialist Worker’s Party “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” button to my handbag.
The location for the rehearsals could not have been more surreal. The gaping, humid mouth of the cathedral that we rehearsed in, the painfully Catholic St. Jakob am Anger, is located in the vicinity of both the Jewish Museum and the Ohel Jakob Synagogue, the latter donned with two proud and imposing Israeli flags on either side of the entrance. I innocently sat next to the Sinai-Ganztagiges-Grundschule playground during a break to escape the pelting rays of the sun and set my keffiyeh on the back of a bench, only taking in the full breadth of the vicinity after I spotted Restaurant Einstein a few feet away. My resolve to wear my keffiyeh to the workplace in the name of “never again for anyone” had never felt more urgent, particularly during one of the most brutal and indescribably dehumanizing weeks for Palestinians. …
As Mendelssohn’s Biblical references to Israel carried on during our rehearsals, the physical weight of the viola hung heavily on my arm. My decision to wrap my keffiyeh around my neck during the dress rehearsal felt like a massive mistake as buckets of sweat poured onto my instrument inside of the steamy cathedral, but its resistance offered me strength…
Our buses for the concert in Ottobeuren left aptly from HMTM München (pictured), Hitler’s old headquarters that have been converted into the central building of the Munich Music Conservatory. It’s the building from which I received a master’s degree in historical performance practice as well as a sponsor of the Münchener Bach Orchester.
Read on here.