The Guardian

Paraguayan landfill orchestra makes sweet music from rubbish

Children of recyclers at Cateura landfill form band playing instruments fashioned out of discarded oven trays and oil barrels.

The Telegraph

Proms 2013: Most exuberant of all classical music festivals

Proms 2013 will feature some eye-catching ‘firsts’, as for the first time ever, the Last Night is conducted by a woman, Marin Alsop.

Gramophone

Borletti-Buitoni Trust celebrates 10th anniversary with live debate

Mitsuko Uchida will open ‘Is Talent Enough?’ at Southbank Centre with a video discussion – watch in advance on the Gramophone Player!

Classical Music Magazine

Warner/Parlophone deal set to strip EMI and Virgin Classics brand names from their catalogues

Artists who have recorded for EMI and Virgin Classics will find their releases appearing under a new brand.

Planet Hugill

Really rather rare – Verdi’s Alzira

(Written on April 29, 2013 )

The Guardian

Tom Service on catchy contemporary opera

Anyone want to hear me hum Nixon in China?

The Observer

Don’t mourn HMV: there are far better places to browse for music now

Fan sites and online stores still provide the thrill of a voyage of discovery that the high street lost long ago

The Telegraph

Britten: the composer who had the last laugh

In the centenary year of Benjamin Britten, the reputation of the ‘difficult’ composer may be about to change, says Rupert Christiansen.

How we fell out of tune with the piano

Thousands of pianos are being sent to the scrap-heap despite having the ability to still tug at our heartstrings, Paul Kendall discovers.

Classic FM

Lang Lang sells out Royal Albert Hall in 48 hours

The pianist is performing an extra solo recital on November 17 2013 after selling 5000 tickets to his concert in two days.

BBC News

Les Miserables soundtrack tops UK album chart

The soundtrack to Tom Hooper’s Oscar-nominated Les Miserables has become the first cast recording to top the UK and Ireland album chart in 16 years.

Slipped Disc

European churches pay homage to John Tavener

The British composer, 68, has been announced as the 2013 winner of the Prize for European Church Music.

Music Week

PRS for Music Foundation to run new music talent development fund

The PRS For Music Foundation is to run a new Music Industry Talent Development Fund being launched by Arts Council England.

Generator

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Copyright

The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), and the Music Managers’ Forum (MMF), have responded with disappointment to Government proposals on copyright extensions, referring to them as a “massive windfall” for large labels but a “mixed bag” for artists.

The Telegraph

(Written on January 21, 2013 )

Classic FM

Lang Lang performs with John Legend for Dom Perignon event

Classical pianist Lang Lang and R&B singer-songwriter John Legend have collaborated in performance at a special event in New York hosted by Dom Perignon.

The Guardian

‘Opera virgins’ lured by scheme for first-timers at Coliseum

English National Opera launches effort to attract new audience with production of Don Giovanni

The Telegraph

The Queen’s concert is hit by discordant note

The Queen’s Medal for Music gala concert is due to provide a fitting send-off to the Diamond Jubilee, but one of its stars will be missing.

András Schiff: climbing two Himalayan peaks one after the other

Virtuoso pianist András Schiff is tackling Beethoven and Bach cycles in the toughest challenge of his career, says Ivan Hewett.

Classical Music Magazine

Glasgow’s Sistema Scotland outpost gets £1.325m boost  

Sistema Scotland’s new project in one of Glasgow’s most deprived areas has been awarded £1.325m from the Scottish government.

Slipped Disc

Breaking: Palestinian music school is bombed to rubble

The photograph that you see below has been sent to Slipped Disc by Neil van der Linden,  a Dutch colleague who helped organise a music school in, or very close to, these premises six years ago. The building collapsed after repeated shelling.

The Independent

Nicola Benedetti: The ‘classical babe’ with a cause

The violinist wants to share her music with more than an elite crowd

The Guardian

(Written on November 19, 2012 )

Classic FM

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring centenary editions announced

The score of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is to be reissued in 2013 to celebrate work’s centenary with a host of extras, including accompanying essays and facsimiles.

The lark descending? Worry on Vaughan Williams’ birthday

The beautiful skylark, inspiration for Vaughan Williams’ violin piece, is continually threatened by new farming methods.

The Guardian, Music Blog

(Written on October 15, 2012 )

Gramophone

‘Elgar in Performance’ scheme helps stage rarely performed works 

Funds now being allocated for 2013 and beyond

Classic FM

Lang Lang to play at Glenn Gould’s birthday 

A host of performers, speakers, poets and Glenn Gould experts will gather this weekend to celebrate what would have been the pianist’s 80th birthday.

Violin dealer Machold admits embezzlement

Stradivarius dealer Dietmar Machold has admitted embezzlement as his trial for fraud begins in Austria.

Andrew Skeet on turning video game music into symphonic scores

With the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s help, Andrew Skeet has turned video game music into symphonic masterpieces. Classic FM’s Lucy Coward chatted to him about how he did it.

BBC Music Magazine

Musical molecules

Music created from movements of tiny particles

Classical Music Magazine

RFH organ a stage closer to completion

The central section of the Royal Festival Hall’s organ has been reinstalled after renovation as part of a long-term project to return the instrument to its full size

The Wall Street Journal (found on Musical Chairs)

Yundi Li Cancels Japan Tour Over China-Japan Row

The China-Japan territorial dispute has struck a sad chord for Japan’s classical music lovers.

Limelight Magazine

Daniel de Borah wins Australian National Piano Award

Daniel de Borah has won the Australian National Piano Award in Shepparton, with second place going to 21-year-old Nicholas Young and South Australian Michael Ierace coming third.

LA Times 

Itzhak Perlman joins Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central

Violinst Itzhak Perlman took a break from his performance schedule this week to put in a guest appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

LA Times

(Written on September 21, 2012 )

The Washington Post

A countertenor’s journey from busking on the Metro to Carnegie Hall

In the register of both woman and 10-year-old boy, Hisham Breedlove, 29, sings opera in Metro stations. A trained countertenor, he’s been practicing and honing his craft for almost a decade underground. Now, he makes Court House his primary stage. “It has the best acoustics,” says the man who’s tested many a station.

Gramophone

BBC launches Piano Season

Six-week series of television and radio programmes exploring the instrument.

Classic FM

E.L. James: “I used to be in a gospel choir!”

Fifty Shades Of Grey author E.L. James has revealed that she used to be in a gospel choir at an East London launch for the tie-in classical music album.

Voting now open for MIA Awards 2012

The MIA Awards 2012 are now open, ceremony announced for Thursday 22nd November at The Emirates Stadium.

Steve Reich’s Radiohead Inspiration

Composer Steve Reich has told Classic FM how an encounter with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has inspired his latest composition.

Arts Journal: Overgrown Path

Research identifies Classical music’s unique selling point

Our results help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A yearlong Debussy tribute: Same flute solo every day

Flautist Mimi Stillman will record, on video, Debussy’s elusively melodic flute solo Syrinx every day (or close to it) for a year for Debussy’s 150^th birthday.

Classical Music

National Youth Orchestras of Scotland overhauled by new chief exec

The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland has revealed changes to its orchestral structures and age limits that will lead to a greater number of young people being involved in a larger number of courses from the 2013 season.

Lang Lang for BBC’s piano season, Gramophone (BBC/Steve Brown)

(Written on September 6, 2012 )

Telegraph

Paralympics Opening Ceremony playlist

The LSO, Britten, and new commissions at the Paralympics opening ceremony.

Classic FM

David Garrett, Lang Lang, and Lady Gaga?

The classical music stars reveal their penchant for pop after attending Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball concert in Vienna.

Piano tuning changes brain structure

You don’t need tuning forks or perfect pitch to tune a piano – in fact, listening to minute differences between notes can improve your brain structure, according to a new study

Kent Nagano appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

He adds his name to a host of master-conductors, including composers Sibelius and Nielsen, as well as Herbert von Karajan, Neeme Järvi and Gustavo Dudamel.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Top conservatory leader drops out without a whimper

We have just been informed that the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester replaced its director last month.

NPR Music

Barenboim’s Beethoven: A Soloist And Conductor In Complete Agreement

Conductor, pianist and peace advocate Daniel Barenboim first recorded all five of Beethoven’s piano concertos in 1967. Barenboim, a brash and fantastically smart 24-year-old, was paired with an elder statesman, conductor Otto Klemperer. There was real magic in that collaboration, yielding recordings that still set a benchmark.

Playbill Arts

The London Symphony Orchestra Returns

Fresh from its starring role in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, the London Symphony Orchestra returns to Lincoln Center next month for its annual New York residency

Lang Lang and Garrett at a Lady Gaga concert – Classic FM

(Written on August 30, 2012 )

Classic FM 

Hoffman, Walken for String Quartet Movie

Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken star in ‘A Late Quartet,’ a new film about a string quartet.

Big Ben chimes in Olympic Composition 

Turner Prize-winning artist and musician, Martin Creed aims to break the record for the greatest number of bells being rung at any time.

Nazi tattoo opera star ban not final? 

Yevgeny Nikitin might not be permanently excluded from performing at the Bayreuth Festival.

Lang Lang given prestigious German award 

Lang Lang will receive the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his services to music.

Arts Journal- Slipped Disc 

Has star-struck Verbier taken heed of Kremer’s outcry? 

It seems as if the Verbier Festival is still stuck in its ways.

Watch out! The Candid conductor is back 

Conductor Mikel Toms returns with a piece entitled ‘The Slutcracker.’

BBC Music Magazine – Blog  

BBC National Orchestra of Wales goes to China 

A first hand account of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’ trip to the East.

Gramophone 

Jessica Cottis named Sydney Symphony assistant conductor 

Jessica Cottis, 35, succeeds Nicholas Carter as The Sydney Symphony’s assistant conductor.

(Written on July 27, 2012 )

Arts Journal- Slipped Disc

New Zealand to chop national orchestra?

New Zealand government has published a discussion paper on the future of New Zealand’s five orchestras….

Sad loss: orchestra player dies in English Channel swim 

Paraic Casey, a viola player in the Cork Symphony Orchestra dies in the bid to raise money for a Cork hospice.

‘From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall’ pianist has died  

Marian Filar, who survived seven Nazi concentration camps dies at the age of 94.

The Independent 

Sound of Versailles comes to the Proms

Kate Youde talks to the students recreating Louis XIII’s orchestra

Classic FM 

Lang Lang carries London 2012 Olympic torch

Lang Lang takes part in the Olympic torch relay on Sunday.

HJ Lim takes on her musical monsters 

Pianist HJ Lim talks to Classic FM about stage fright and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Jamie Crick.

Anne Dudley’s Owl and the Pussycat   

Composer Anne Dudley talks to Classic FM about her floating opera

The Telegraph 

Russian Opera Singer withdraws from Bayreuth festival over Swastika tattoo 

Russian Bass-Baritone Evgeny Nikitin is forced to pull out of German festival because of Nazi tattoos on his chest.

(Written on July 23, 2012 )

The Telegraph

BBC to broadcast Last Night of the Proms in 3D

A ‘summer of 3D’ will include the The Last Night of the Proms, Planet Dinosaurs and Wimbledon, the BBC has revealed.

The Guardian

Melvyn Tan turns guinea pig: are musicians like athletes?

Do concert pianists need Olympian level of fitness to cope with the strains of performance? Science is using Melvyn Tan to find out.

LA Times

Who stole the teeth of Brahms and Strauss?

In a story that sounds ripped from an underwhelming, dental-centric thriller, Austrian officials are pursuing leads in an investigation of who broke into the graves of 19th century composers Johan Strauss Jr. and Johannes Brahms and stole their teeth.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Hot young conductor gets label deal

Acclaimed young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is now recording for harmonia mundi.

Gramophone

Parry’s Jerusalem recorded as originally conceived

First verse written for solo voice rather than full chorus.

Lang Lang gears up for the Latitude Festival

The pianist talks to Gramophone about his debut at the multi-arts event.

(Written on July 4, 2012 )