The Telegraph

La Scala opera house stars take 10pc pay cut amid Italian austerity

It may not quiet make it The Beggar’s Opera, but Italy’s famed La Scala is to cut the salaries of its top directors, in line with the rest of the country’s straitened economic circumstances.

Classical Music Magazine

Myerscough report recommends cuts of 10% at BBC performing groups

The independent report, commissioned by the BBC’s director of audio and music, Tim Davie, was written by academic John Myerscough, a former special advisor on the arts to the House of Commons.

LA Times

Receipt signed by Chopin when he sold compositions is up for sale

A one-page document signed by Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin is on the auction block through Wednesday and has proved more popular with bidders than expected.

Drama afoot as L.A. Opera feels heat of rival works

The L.A. Opera is on challenging ground as local groups like the L.A. Phil., The Industry and Jacaranda stage inventive productions of opera and opera-like music theatre.

NY Times

Tanglewood Revisits Its Past, for All to Hear

Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Lenox, Mass., is celebrating its 75th anniversary this summer in several big ways.

Gramophone

Las Vegas Philharmonic launches search for new music director

David Itkin will not extend his contract beyong June 2013.

LPO to perform outside the Royal Academy of Arts

Courtyard concert coincides with French Impressionism exhibition.

Spoiler Alert

Could operatic surtitles replace the programme plot synopsis to deliver real surprises?

Re-thinking Nielsen’s centennial symphony

As Nielsen’s unusual and brilliant Third Symphony turns 100, it’s about time we respect his notes as we would Mahler’s.

Jessica Duchen

Heat and light

Kicking off the Olympic cultural festivities in style, The Dude and his Simon Bolivár Orchestra of Venezuela are back in Britain. Dudamel & co are taking over the Royal Festival Hall this weekend

The Guardian

Gustavo Dudamel and London: a special relationship

The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra conductor loves London, and London loves him back.

(Written on June 20, 2012 )

Telegraph

Composer threatens to withdraw tax after latest opera rejected

Michael Nyman, who has worked as a film composer for 30 years, complained he had proposed to stage a work in Covent Garden but had been rejected.

Classical Music Magazine

RPS Awards announced, with Abbado and Pollini winning

Two Italians in London, Claudio Abbado and Maurizio Pollini have won major awards at the Royal Philharmonic Society awards held at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 8th May.

Sound and Music appoints new chief executive

Susanna Eastburn, currently music director at Arts Council England, is to be the new chief executive of Sound and Music.

LA Times

L.A. Philharmonic extends jazz contract with Herbie Hancock 

The L.A. jazz scene will continue to be led by a legend as the L.A. Philharmonic announced a one-year extension to Herbie Hancock’s contract as the Creative Chair for Jazz.

The New York Times

Don’t sing with your mouth full

Opera, of all the art forms, is singularly associated with food, whether because of the appetites of well-girthed singers or the sensual pleasures celebrated in its rich ragout of music, emotion and stagecraft.

Financial Times

Peak performances

Conductor Stephen Barlow talks about his musical career and his new challenge of putting the Buxton Festival on the map.

Gramophone

Yo-Yo Ma and Paul Simon named 2012 Polar Music Price laureates

This year’s Polar Music Prize has been awarded to cellist Yo-Yo Ma and singer-songwriter Paul Simon. Each laureate receives one million Swedish krona and will be presented with his prize by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Evening Standard

Get with the Proms programme 

Bookings opens on Saturday for the classical music extravaganza of the year – from Barenboim on the podium to a stage full of 600 singers.

The Guardian

Riccardo Muti to conduct Vatican concert in front of Pope Benedikt XVI

Italian maestro will lead Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera orchestra in playing Vivaldi and Verdi to mark pope’s seventh anniversary.

(Written on May 9, 2012 )

NY Times 

What Happens in Vegas Will Also Happen at the Met Next Season

Look for Vegas flash at the Metropolitan Opera next season.

Kay Davis, Coloratura, Soared in Wordless Songs, Dies at 91

“She was a classically trained coloratura,” Phil Schaap.

Kurt Masur Withdraws From Performances With Boston Symphony Orchestra

The conductor Kurt Masur, 84 and increasingly frail, has withdrawn from performances of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

JDCMB

Cats and mermaids take over Covent Garden

Jessica Duchen went to have a sneak peek behind the scenes at the Royal Opera House the other week, where they were rehearsing Rusalka 

The Guardian

Why Oramo is great news for the BBCSO

Conductor Sakari Oramo will raise the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s game and put a smile on their faces, writes Fiona Maddocks.

BBC Music Magazine 

Colin Murray

The TV and radio sports presenter gets ready to make his conducting debut with the BBC Philharmonic.

LA Times 

Lorin Levee, principal clarinetist with L.A. Phil, dies at 61

Lorin Levee, the principal clarinetist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has died at age 61, the orchestra announced Thursday.

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/02/lorin-levee-principal-clarinetist-with-la-philharmonic-dies-at-62.html

(Written on February 24, 2012 )

LA Times

Grammy Awards 2012: Gustavo Dudamel, L.A. Philharmonic win

The first Grammy win in Dudamel’s career

L.A Philharmonic heads to Venezuela with hopes, fears

The orchestra’s outreach and Mahler performance trip to Gustavo Dudamel’s native country has great potential, but some worry about Caracas’ crime.

Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil start things in Caracas

The orchestra is in Venezuela for the final leg of Dudamel’s Mahler Project, the recent cycle of the composer’s complete symphonies with the L.A. Phil and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Los Angeles now being repeated in Caracas.

NY Times

New Kind of Online Dating: Classical Competitions

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the violinist Hilary Hahn and the composer David Lang have started online competitions in classical music.

The Guardian

Purcell and a pint – welcome to a new kind of classical concert

I and my fellow musicians from the OAE are currently on a pub crawl. And it’s changing the way we play and audiences listen.

FT Magazine 

The Inventory: Iván Fischer

‘People without talent don’t know what the talented are talking about,’ says the award-winning orchestra conductor

The Telegraph

Raymond Gubbay: I’m shutting up shop for the Olympics

The impresario whose “popera” upsets the purists says he is only giving the people they want. But he’s the first West End promoter to say he won’t put on a show during the Games.

Composer completes Schubert’s 200- year- old musical puzzle

An unfinished symphony by Franz Schubert is to be completed and performed live for the first time since the Austrian composer abandoned it nearly 200 years ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/9075388/Composer-completes-Schuberts-200-year-old-musical-puzzle.html

(Written on February 13, 2012 )