The Met soprano Ailyn Perez has jooined Askonas Holt for worldwide general management.
She was previously with Gianluca Macheda’s boutique.
Perez, 44, is one of the busiest international opera singers.
Earlier this season she sang the title role in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, followed by a run of Carmens as Micaela.
We have learned of the death of Milton Scheuermann, founder in 1966 of New Orleans Musica da Camera, now the oldest surviving early music organization in the US. He also co-hosted Continuum, America’s longest-running early music radio program.
Milton taught at the Tulane School of Architecture for 56 years, retiring as adjunct professor in 2015.
From Varsity:
The Governing Body of St John’s College has rejected a motion requesting a re-evaluation of the decision to disband St John’s Voices choir.
This comes after the College Master, Heather Hancock, emailed all choir members in March informing them that the College would no longer be funding the choir, and that it would be disbanded at the end of Easter term.
…choir members have been campaigning to overturn the decision, seeking a re-evaluation. The formal motion was “heavily defeated” by College Fellows…
More here.
The British conductor today admitted a third charge of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. Two other charges had already been admitted.
The judge at Southwark Crown Court ordered him to return next Tuesday for sentencing, saying ‘this requires careful consideration.’
Latham-Koenig, 70, was allowed to remain on bail on condition he remains at his sister’s address in Hampstead and surrenders his passport to police.
He had been arrested at Victoria Station after arranging to meet a person he believed to be a 14-year-old boy.
The Kremlin newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is bragging that ‘the best opera singers in the world – from Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Armenia and Russia – will be heard in the heart of St. Petersburg’ on May 31.
Those taking part in the state event include the Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, Armenian soprano Juliana Grigoryan, Pumeza Matshikiza from South Africa, the bass Mateus Franz (Switzerland) and the Israeli mezzo-soprano Maya Gour, who is a soloist at Cologne Opera.
Grigolo was banned at Covent Garden and other western companies after claims of misconduct.
The American conductor Matthew Straw has been appointed Assistant Conductor at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, France.
Straw, 26, is presently Assistant Conductor of the Utah Sumphony, working with Thierry Fischer and David Robertson.
He’s from Columbia, Ohio, and is managed by Maestro Arts in London.
Cracks are widening at Welsh National Opera.
Two technical directors resigned this weekend. They were preceded by the head of HR who once said ‘I’ve never been to an opera and have no intention of going.’
A new director of artistic administration Kate Baylis, recruited from the AskonasHolt agency, has appointed a head of casting with three assistants for the purpose of programming four operas a year, at most. The is also a Head of Artistic Planning. Musicians and chorus members are checking their eligibility for state benefits on a pitifully low WNO wage.
Demoralisation is directly attributed to cuts in funding by the Arts Councils of England and Wales.
The English National Opera board has appointed Jenny Mollica as Chief Executive of ENO and the London Coliseum. She has been Interim CEO for the past nine months.
No surprises there.
Mollica was previously Director of Strategy and Engagement for three years.
Her unenviable job will be to rent out the Coliseum while the reduced ENO company plays Manchester and elsewhere.
The Chinese-US pianist Yuja Wang is returning for six more immersive concerts at the David Hockney exhibition in London this September.
She says: ‘The concerts last year at Lightroom were completely different to any other performance and I cannot wait to return. It was intimate and extremely special to be surrounded by the audience and for us all to be enveloped by David’s visuals. His art deeply inspired my musical choices, fusing art and music in such a unique and meaningful way, which I’m excited to recreate.’
The previous concerts were unreviewed (with one exception) and were still the talk of the town.
Book here.
Munich’s new production of Puccini’s shocker is set in 1975 in Rome where Pier Paolo Pasolini is filming ‘The 120 Days of Sodom’.
The Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó opens his interpretation with fascist soldiers leading naked victims onto the stage.
Eleonora Buratto sings the title role, Charles Castronovo is Cavaradossi, Ludovic Tézier steals the show as Scarpia.
images: BSO/ Wilfried Hösl
Music in the Midnight Sun – Toronto Symphony
For many of us, the Arctic exists only as a fantasy of snow and polar bears and endangered icebergs. Ignorant as ever, I didn’t realise that people actually live in the Arctic, in towns and villages, with fully developed cultures and civilizations but, although they make their own indigenous music, the classical and orchestral music world was just something to watch on television or listen to on recordings.
That all changed in the fall of 1987 when the Toronto Symphony embarked on its most ambitious tour ever. Over one hundred musicians travelled to the Canadian Arctic – further north than any major orchestra had ever been before.
This delightful documentary, Music in the Midnight Sun, is a record of that voyage of discovery and the shared pleasure it engendered, for the citizens of the Far North, for the musicians of the orchestra, and for us.
After five years with the biggest vacancy in the orchestral world, the Boston Symphony today presented Nathan Cole as its new concertmaster.
He is presently first associate concertmaster with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he has played since 2011. Before that, he was in the Chicago Symphony.
Cole, originally from Lexington, Kentucky, succeeds Malcolm Lowe, who retired in 2019 after 35 years in the seat. Cole becomes only the fourth BSO concertmaster in 104 years. His grandfather played in the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. Both of his parents are flute players.
His compatibility with Boston will have been vouched for by the orchestra’s CEO Chad Smith, his former colleague at the LA Phil.
Nathan will take up the position this summer at Tanglewood.
Main photo: Todd Rosenberg
