The Guardian

Olivier awards 2013 – full nominations

The complete list of nominees for this year’s Olivier awards, celebrating the best of British theatre, dance and opera

The Telegraph

Alfie Boe interview: “Why make everything a fairy tale? Life’s not like that”

Alfie Boe’s bare-knuckle approach to opera has won him many powerful friends and enemies. Is he too vocal for his own good? He talks to Craig McLean

Classical Music Magazine

Setting the stage for northern opera | Young Opera Venture

‘Opera in the north of England goes underappreciated,’ says soprano and singing teacher Jane Anthony – providing the motivation for her to launch her own opera company, Young Opera Venture (YOV).

Gramophone

Tenor Bryan Hymel receives Beverly Sills Artist Award

Annual Metropolitan Opera grant for American singers is worth $50,000

Digital Journal

The Audience Prize — The new classical music performance and original works competition where the audience votes the winners

Digital Journalist Vlad Bourceanu has launched The Audience Prize – the online classical music performance YouTube video competition where the audience is jury and votes the winner.

Music Week

BBC, PPL and PRS among 12 companies set to offer services to Copyright Hub

Twelve organisations have already signed up to offer services to the Copyright Hub, which received £150,000-worth of initial Government funding earlier today.

Music Industry News Network

Mezmurizing Moon Entertainment Presents MusicBizDocs.com

Signing that major deal can take away your creative control.

The Guardian

(Written on March 27, 2013 )

Classic FM

Mozart Effect to stop crime in New Zealand?

New Zealand shop-owners have found a novel way of deterring crime – the music of Mozart

Gramophone

The Met: Live in HD announces 2013-14 season

Ten live Metropolitan Opera transmissions, including four new productions, will take place in 64 countries

BBC (via musicalchairs.info)

Bulgaria violin ‘may be Stradivarius stolen in London’

A violin recovered following a police operation in Bulgaria could be a Stradivarius made in 1696 which was stolen from a central London station

Courier Journal (via musicalchairs.info)

Louisville Orchestra and musicians reach 3-year contract

Three-year agreement calls for freezing wages for two years

Classical Source

New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow To Join Music Academy Of The West Faculty

Violinist Glenn Dicterow, the longest-serving concertmaster in the history of the New York Philharmonic, will join the celebrated string faculty at the Music Academy of the West for the Academy’s 2014 Summer School and Festival, campus officials have announced

Classical Source

Ava June Dies Aged 81

The English (London-born) soprano Ava June (Ava June Cooper, by marriage) has died at the age of 81

Classic FM

(Written on March 6, 2013 )

The Guardian

Van Cliburn, US classical pianist and cold war sensation, dies at 78

After triumph at 1958 competition in Moscow, Cliburn was the first classical musician to receive a New York ticker tape parade

The Guardian

Brighton festival 2013 takes off, with Michael Rosen at helm

Programme for May’s three-week arts celebration – released today – will feature Emil and the Detectives, Judith Kerr and Michael Rosen’s orchestral work for kids, The Great Enormo

Classic FM

Doctors’ Orchestra set for charity concert

The Doctors’ Orchestra will give a concert at London’s Cadogan Hall on March 4th in support of human rights charity Freedom From Torture.

BBC

Music groups enjoy share of BBC performing arts fund

Cheltenham Music Festival is among 19 music organisations that are celebrating after winning a grant from the BBC Performing Arts Fund.

Gramophone

Sing Handel anthems – and raise money for The Michael Oliver Trust

Join conductor Laurence Cummings at London’s Grosvenor Chapel on March 16

Huffington Post (via musicalchairs.info)

Metropolitan Opera Cuts Ticket Prices Following Box Office Slump

The Metropolitan Opera is cutting ticket prices by an average of about 10 percent next season, when music director James Levine returns from a spine injury that led to a two-year absence.

BBC

Composer Michael Berkeley to become Lord

The composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley is to be made a non-party political peer in the House of Lords.

Forbes

(Written on February 28, 2013 )

Gramophone

São Paulo Symphony Orchestra to record complete Villa-Lobos Symphonies

Naxos project will use entirely re-edited versions of the scores

Classic FM

Lindsey Stirling embraces video game music in Assassin’s Creed video

The latest high-concept video from violinist Lindsey Stirling celebrates music from the Assassin’s Creed video games.

Jeff Wayne re-imagines War Of The Worlds with Gary Barlow and Liam Neeson

Classic FM speaks to Jeff Wayne about the latest incarnation of his musical version of H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds, featuring Gary Barlow and Liam Neeson.

Classical stars light up Regent Street

Tine Ting Helseth and Noah Stewart will join Classic FM presenters John Suchet and Jamie Crick at the iconic Regent Street Christmas lights switch-on on Tuesday 13 November

Slipped Disc

Breakthrough! Orchestra to play off digital music stands

The Brussels Philharmonic has become the world’s first orchestra to abandon paper scores and play from a digital screen.

Deceptive Cadence

‘A Late Quartet’: Melodrama With A Pounding Musical Heart

After a quarter century together as one of the world’s top chamber music ensembles, the Fugue String Quartet is falling apart at the seams. A generation older than his colleagues, cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) is experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson’s, and with his sudden retirement, a morass of long-buried resentments and pain come spewing out of his three younger partners: first violinist Daniel (Mark Ivanir), second violinist Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and violist Juliette (Catherine Keener).

The Guardian

Toby Spence: ‘I’ll never take my voice for granted again’

Back on stage in the Metropolitan Opera’s Tempest, Toby Spence tells Tom Service about his recovery from cancer and surviving the storm

Boston.com

Holocaust opera to premiere in Austrian parliament

An opera focusing on Nazi atrocities against children will premiere next year at an unusual venue — Austria’s parliament.

Opera Now

Picasso inspires new Dublin Carmen 

International Leisure and Arts, Ireland’s foremost producer of international ballet, have announced their move into opera with a new production of Carmen by the Moscow State Opera – coming to Dublin in March 2013.

RTL.de (via Slipped Disc)

(Written on November 9, 2012 )

Gramophone

(Written on October 30, 2012 )

Classic FM

Fungus makes violins sound ‘like Stradivarius’

The tone of a Stradivarius violin can be achieved on new violins by treating the wood with a particular fungus, a study has shown.

Paul Mealor: composers can do “anything they want”

The Classic BRIT-nominated composer says composers are no longer pigeonholed by the music industry.

The Guardian

The Proms audience: where do they go?

Some 6,000 people fill London’s Albert Hall for each of the Proms. But where does that audience go for the rest of the year?

The Telegraph

Why bandstands are making a noise again

Bandstand Marathon will be the biggest community event of the London 2012 Festival closing celebration.

The Arts Desk

3D: A First for the Last Night

How a British broadcasting institution acquired an extra dimension.

The New York Times

A Rare Breed: New Operas at the Met

ON Oct. 23 the Metropolitan Opera will offer a new production of an opera by a living composer.

BBC news Scotland

Scottish teaching union EIS critical of music fees

Scottish councils are making “profits” of almost £3m from fees charged to school pupils for instrumental music tuition, a teaching union has claimed.

Nicola Benedetti at The Last Night of the Proms, The Arts Desk.

(Written on September 10, 2012 )

Check out our Pinterest board for our September concert recommendations. Some of our highlights this month include Metropolitan Opera’s production of L’Elisir d’Amore with Anna Netrebko, Cameron Carpenter’s performance at the BBC Proms, English National Opera’s new production of Martinu’s Julietta. There’s also a performance by ”Britain’s best klezmer and Balkan music band”, She’koyokh at The Forge and King Lear at the Almeida Theatre.

(Written on August 28, 2012 )

Guardian

Tom Service on the Royal Albert Hall

‘My love affair with classical music’s moshpit’

Classic FM

Lang Lang to be Global Ambassador for Leeds Comp

The Leeds International Piano Competition, led by Dame Fanny Waterman, has selected Lang Lang as its Global Ambassador.

Deaf man hears Mozart for first time with new hearing aid

A deaf young filmmaker has heard music for the first time in his life, including Mozart’s Requiem.

Arts Journal: Limelight

Hahn-Bin no more: violinist changes name to Amadeus Leopold

Classical music’s most extreme hipster reinvents himself with a striking new stage name.

Los Angeles Times

Oh, those string players are so full of themselves

Yes, but what about the louts in the brass section? Orchestra members, so unified when on stage, enjoy poking fun at one another when off.

New York Times

Met Opera to Preserve Rush Tickets

When Agnes Varis, a Metropolitan Opera board member and benefactor, died a year ago, the company lost the person who paid for its heavily discounted rush ticket program.

Arts Journal: Slipped Disc

Breaking: Vienna’s Konzerthaus loses its chief

Bernhard Kerres has decided to quit after the coming centenary season. No obvious reason.

The Australian

Fate of opera season hangs in the balance

First it was the writers, then the visual artists, now the performing arts look likely to take a hit from Queensland Premier Campbell Newman as he attempts to control his state’s multi-billion-dollar debt. The fate of Opera Australia’s 2013 season in Brisbane remains undecided just a few days before the company’s season launch, causing artistic director Lyndon Terracini to tell The Australian he is “extremely worried”.

Classic FM

(Written on August 28, 2012 )

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc 

Breaking: America loses one its last classics-only stores 

Music Millennium will shut down their long time classical music store, Classical Millennium in September.

The one-armed pianist who’s playing the Olympics 

The Paralympic team welcome ceremony features The British Paraorchestra.

Kate Wagner wants to open archives, but the family won’t let her

Katharina Wagner wants to come clean over Bayreuth’s Nazi past.

BBC News 

Thousands attend Three Choirs Festival 

Organizers of the Three Choirs Festival report that up to 30,000 people attended this year’s festival.

Classic FM 

Nikitin to appear in Met Opera’s Parsifal  

Opera star Yevgeny Nikitin returns to stage in the Metropolitan Opera’s forthcoming performance of Wagner’s Parsifal.

Opera’s brightest starts at Covent Garden 

Seven opera singers including Joseph Calleja, Joyce DiDonato and Plácido Domingo all take to the stage at the Royal Opera House.

China’s ‘Three Tenors’ give Olympic performance

China’s answer to the Three Tenors have performed a special concert fusing Western and Chinese classical music.

Classical Music Features in Olympic ceremony 

The world’s best classical artists descended upon Stratford for the Olympic ceremony.

(Written on July 30, 2012 )

The Telegraph

BBC Proms 2012: the Proms has it all

Ivan Hewett chooses the events he’s most looking forward to at the Proms 2012 this year.

50 Shades of Grey prompts classical music piece to climb the charts

The Tallis Scholar’s recording of ‘Spem in alium’ has been climbing the charts after being featured in El James’s erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey.

NY Times

Symphony Space Plans a Series Inspired by John Cage

Symphony Space has announced that its next season of events, which begins on Sept. 24, will includes a new series, John Cage’s “How to Get Started”.

Calvin Marsh, Baritone and Met Stalwart, Dies at 91

Calvin Marsh, a lyric baritone who sang more than 900 performances with the Metropolitan Opera before forsaking the stage for a life in religious music, died on June 18 in Dallas. He was 91.

Gramophone

Paavo Järvi appointed NHK Symphony chief conductor

Plus Kryzsztof Urbański named principal guest conductor of Tokyo Symphony.

Jessica Duchen

Le nozze di Chico?

It’s perhaps one of the strengths of Glyndebourne’s much-vaunted new production of Le nozze di Figaro, directed by Michael Grandage, that through a series of apparently zany juxtapositions it makes clear the archetypal, timeless nature of its drama.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Gustavo Dudamel as you’ve never heard him before

The new Lebrecht Interview series opens next Monday on the BBC with the longest, deepest conversation that Gustavo Dudamel has ever offered on public media.

The Times

São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra debuts at the Proms

Plentiful tropical fruit aside, the Shostakovich had a maverick quality: the Fifth Symphony, which usually expresses everything horrendous about Stalinist Russia, sounded practically buoyant once the two grimmest movements had been excised to make an al-fresco taster programme.

(Written on July 11, 2012 )