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?
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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.
We hear that the Belgian early-music orchestra Anima Eterna has sacked its founder Jos Van Immerseel for ‘persistent aggressive behavior’.
Immerseel, 78, is one of the leaders of the period-instrument movement. He founded the orchestra in 1987 and was regarded, along with John Eliot Gardiner and one or two others as one of the more charismatic figures in a scholarly field. Today, however, the board of his orchestra in Bruges issued a statement that ‘Jos van Immerseel has repeatedly ignored the values he has shared with Anima Eterna for years.’
The statement continues: ‘After numerous fruitless attempts to enable Jos van Immerseel to continue his story with the orchestra and to pass on his knowledge and know-how in a spirit of respect, the board of directors unfortunately sees no other way out than to terminate the working relationship due to persistent aggressive behavior and regular breaches of contractual obligations.’
There has been no immediate response from the conductor.
Gardiner, 81, is presently trying to put together an ensemble that will compete with his former group.
Remember this headline: Beethoven Competition is won by chairman’s pupil?
Well, Pavel Gililov has done it again.
The winner of the Hummel Piano Competition, Russia’s Anastasiia Kliuchereva, studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Gililov. So does one of the two runners-up.
The Hummel Competition takes place in Slovakia, one of the more corrupt members of the EU, so nobody’s really bothered. But the presiding body is the International Federation of Music Competitions, and they really ought to pay more attention. Slippedisc has been tracking this so-called impartial judge for 11 years.
The peripatetic pianist, presently on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra, has erased her global management Intermusica from her website.
Intermusica, who have yet to remove her from their artists list, are not responding to inquiries.
Yuja, on the whole, never stays more than 2-3 years with any management.
At Intermusica she seemed to be happy with day-to-day management by Kirsten Mackay, but Kirsten left two months ago and Yuja, insiders say, has not been satisfied since.
Before Intermusica she was with Dudamel’s management Fidelio Arts and before them with Earl Blackburn at his boutique, called Kanzen.
When its founders retired last year it looked like Dots Music Camden would be lost forever. Dots is one of about five music shops in London that sell a full range of instruments and sheet music.
Today, Lindsay and Ian Douglas stepped forward as the new owners.
They say: ‘London can’t lose a music shop as iconic and important to Camden’s musical heritage as Dots Music. This shop is loved right down to South London because general music shops are so rare.
‘Dots’ expert musicians, luthiers and brass repairers, that give so much essential help to the public, are all happily staying on as part of the team. Dots staff are so friendly and non judgmental. You will never be patronised, for example, for knowing almost nothing about your kid’s school instruments. It’s a safe place to come as a learner and be respected as much as any professional.”
‘Music shops are needed because you can’t get expertise and friendly help from mass importers. Even a violin of the same brand will sound better if you buy it here. Dots’ luthier improves the hand-made violins to create better instruments that are completely unique to Dots. You can’t sound like this by ordering on Amazon.’
HarrisonParrott has just announced the acquisition of Paris boutique agency Solea Management.
Solea’s founder Romain Blondel and his team will move immediately to the HarrisonParrott Paris office.
The artists affected are:
Jonathan Fournel
Lucie Horsch
Simone Lamsma
Olivier Latry (pictured)
Eric Lu
Liya Petrova
Beatrice Rana
Lucienne Renaudin Vary
Justin Taylor
Shaken up by the departure of Mark Messenger as head of strings, the Royal College of Music has revamped its violin teaching for the new school year.
Soloist Jennifer Pike has joined as full professor, alongside Peter Manning, former leader of the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Also collecting new mortarboards are violinists Mathilde Milwidsky and Alexander Gilman.
And Richard Harwood, lately principal cellist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, has been appointed cello professor. James Williams, incoming Director of the Royal College of Music, was CEO of the RPO where Harwood played.
