The Guardian

Staging of Stockhausen’s helicopter string quartet scores key prize

Royal Philharmonic Society praises rare performance of Mittwoch aus Licht by Birmingham Opera Company

The Telegraph

Singing in English: It’s harder than you think

Rupert Christiansen visits The Association of English Singers and Speakers to explore the many difficulties of singing in English.

The Times

Rossini’s opera, La donna del lago heads a tartan takover at ROH

Not many opera directors would admit that their latest production had been inspired by Mel Gibson’s Braveheart or the preposterous sci-fi fantasy Highlander

The Times of India (via Musical Chairs)

Letter found from Britain’s greatest opera composer’s drawer shows his love for Ravi Shankar

Curators sifting through thousands of objects belonging to Britain’s musical geniuses composer Benjamin Britten and opera singer Peter Pears have stumbled upon an ink written page in their private diaries where the duo recalls their experience of having heard Pandit Ravi Shankar perform live.

BBC News

How does the oldest grand piano sound?

The oldest-surviving English grand piano, one of the first ever made, was built by the piano maker Americus Backers in London in 1772 and has now been returned by English Heritage to the home of its former owner, the Duke of Wellington.

Classical Source

Barbican Launches Beyond Barbican With A Summer Of World-Class Arts Across East London

The Barbican today launches Beyond Barbican with a summer of arts events outside the walls of the Barbican Centre featuring pop-up performances, commissions and collaborations across east London.

Limelight Magazine

Arts proven to combat Alzheimers

New British study proves the benefits of the Arts in treating patients with debilitating mental disease.

Gramophone

Dame Janet Baker hosts the 2013 RPS Awards

Awards for Karabits, Philharmonia and the Heath Quartet

The Telegraph

(Written on May 15, 2013 )

The Telegraph

The organ: The king of instruments restored

Rupert Christiansen finds listening to the organ suffocating and depressing, but, he says, he must be missing out on something.

The New York Times (via Arts Journal)

Digital Music, the African Way

The music business recently celebrated a milestone in the form of its first annual revenue growth since 1999, but one region, Africa, was unable to join the party.

WQXR (via Arts Journal)

Does Bach Need ‘Rescuing’ from Period Instruments?

In recent months, symphony orchestras have returned to the music of J.S. Bach with a vengeance.

LA Times

He was transformed by Mozart

The composer’s choral piece ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ becomes a part of Times pop music writer Randy Lewis’ life and leads him to a performance of a lifetime with the Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale.

The Economist

Serenading the future

It might sound like a tagline for an upmarket tattoo studio but “Written on Skin” is in fact the title of a new British opera composed by George Benjamin and written by Martin Crimp.

Classic FM

Model aeroplane ‘dances’ to Strauss waltz

A model aeroplane aviator has been filmed using Johann Strass II’s ‘Voices of Spring’ and ‘Tritsch-Tratsch Polka’ and ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’ as musical accompaniment for an indoor display.

Oregon Live (via Arts Journal)

Oregon Symphony musicians perform free concerts where you can tweet, text

Week after week the musicians of the Oregon Symphony play in formal wear on a stage in front of thousands of people. Distant and unapproachable, they perform behind an invisible barrier that prevents audiences from getting to know them.

The Economist

(Written on March 26, 2013 )

The Telegraph

Opera singers need to be sensitive

Royal Opera House director of music Antonio Pappano is wrong to moan about stars who cancel shows, says Rupert Christiansen.

The Times

Royal Opera’s Nabucco conductor: Verdi represents the Italian people

To paraphrase the great football sage Bill Shankly, for the conductor Nicola Luisotti the music of Giuseppe Verdi isn’t a matter of life and death.

Classical Music Magazine

Ticciati renews contract with SCO until 2018, as 2013/14 season announced

Scottish Chamber Orchestra principal conductor Robin Ticciati is to renew his contract with the orchestra until 2018, it was revealed today as part of the announcement of the orchestra’s 40th anniversary season in 2013-14.

New Music Box

Reports of the Death of Opera Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Two worthy and penetrating studies of opera take as their premise the idea that the form is dead.

Huffington Post

‘Play Me I’m Yours’: The Global Public Piano Project Scatters Keys Across Monterey For All To Play

If you find yourself walking the streets of Monterey, California, and pass by a piano curiously stationed in your path, there’s no need to scratch your head.

The Guardian

BitTorrent goes straight in effort to end association with piracy

Company best known for enabling illegal file-sharing attempts to find a solution to music industry’s downloading problem

Music Week

ACM launches new fast-track courses

ACM (The Academy of Contemporary Music) is to offer all new performance and production students an Accelerated Learning Programme, to enable them to graduate with a degree aged 19.

Huffington Post

(Written on March 15, 2013 )

Classic FM

Jonny Greenwood rehearses with ACO in Sydney, quashes apocalypse rumours

Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood has posted online from his rehearsals with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, contrary to reports from Sao Paulo saying that he had fled to Brazil to await the Mayan apocalypse.

English Symphony Orchestra appoints new Artistic Director

The English Symphony Orchestra has named their new Artistic Director, who replaces the late Vernon Handley.

The Telegraph

Royal Philharmonic Society: ‘the conscience of the classical music industry’

Celebrating its bicentenary next year, the Royal Philharmonic Society brings together classical music lovers and professionals, writes Rupert Christiansen.

CNET (found on Arts Journal)

Sydney Opera House and YouTube to live stream events

The Sydney Opera House will live stream 20 performances over a two-year period straight to YouTube, thanks to a new partnership.

Slipped Disc

It’s catching on! Now Chicago has an airport pianist

After yesterday’s discovery of a homeless piano player inside London’s Eurostar terminal, a young man, identity uknown, has taken up resieence beside the check-ins at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport.

Universal restructures its German classical chief out of a job

Christian Kellermann, head of Universal Classics and Jazz in Germany, will be leaving the company next April.

Just in: Boulez cancels his Christmas concerts

Pierre Boulez has been praying that his troubled eyes would recover sufficiently to allow him to resume conducting beforee the year is out

The Independent

Britten’s got talent: The celebrations for the centenary of Benjamin Britten will span the globe

(Written on December 18, 2012 )

Gramophone

Covent Garden withdraws soprano three days before starring debut

Jennifer Rowley replaced by Patrizia Ciofi in Royal Opera’s new Robert le diable

Classic FM

Tine Thing Helseth announces new smartphone app

A new smartphone app from Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth has been announced, with Helseth playing a launch concert in New York.

The Guardian

Handel and me

Louis de Bernières on how finding a wooden flute in a car boot sale led to his new play about the composer’s life and works

Slipped Disc

Exclusive: top maestro warns of Asianisation and tabloidisation of classical music

Franz Welser-Möst, music director of the Vienna Opera and the Cleveland Orchestra, used the bicentennary of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde to deliver a reasoned, well-rounded and altogether scathing analysis of the state of classical music in 2012.

Franz Welser-Möst part 2: We must shun cultural ‘superiority’

Here’s the second part of FW-M’s keynote on the state of classical music 2012.

Classical Music Magazine

British Composer Awards announced

The British Composer Awards 2012 ceremony was held at the Goldsmith’s Hall in the City of London last night, with some familiar and some new names in among the winners.

Andrew Dixon stands down from Creative Scotland

Creative Scotland today announces that Andrew Dixon has taken the decision to stand down from the post of Chief Executive at Creative Scotland and make way for a new Chief Executive to lead the organisation through an important period of change.

The Telegraph

Dress up for the theatre – it’s a matter of good manners

Rupert Christiansen explains why he is broadly on Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani’s side over the question of Britain’s poorly-dressed theatre audiences.

LA Times

Carrie Underwood will play Maria in NBC’s ‘Sound of Music’ remake

If you’ve been wondering how Carrie Underwood looks in a nun’s habit, you’ll find out soon enough

The Guardian

(Written on December 4, 2012 )

The Telegraph

Just how English is English National Opera meant to be?

The English National Opera’s 2012-13 season is exciting and fresh but Rupert Christiansen questions how much actually showcases the best of home music.

Can the English National Opera justify the claims it’s making for this new production of a Pilgrim’s Progress?

When is a full, professional staging not a full, professional staging?

Stephen Hough in St. Louis

Playing ‘artificial and gushing tunes’.

Gramophone

Louis Langrée named Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director

Four-year term begins from 2013-14 season.

Leonidas Kavakos signs to Decca

First Decca disc to be complete set of the Beethoven sonatas.

The Tokyo Quartet is to disband after next season

Slipped Disc

Kurt Masur falls off podium

Conductor unable to resume concert.

Guardian 

4 star review for Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

One work was pre-eminent in this rewarding programme of Bach arias and orchestral pieces spiritedly performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment directed by Steven Devine.

Tenor Toby Spence recovering from thyroid cancer

The singer hopes to return to the stage in June.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/26/tenor-toby-spence-recovering-from-cancer

(Written on April 27, 2012 )

BBC Music Magazine

Alexander Vedernikov

The Russian conductor who dramatically left the Bolshoi Theatre in 2009 talks about Rachmaninov, Scriabin and the difference between Russian and English orchestras

A new work by Sally Beamish and Melanie Reid proves moving and thought provoking

Elizabeth Davis hears one of the compositions commissioned as part of the Cultural Olympiad

Magnificent Mahler from the Philharmonia Orchestra

Download a free track from Mahler’s Sixth Symphony

Gramophone 

Championing the ‘backroom’ people for the Hall of Fame

Producers, A&R directors and label founders

Student wins chance to record on 300-year-old Stradivarius

ABRSM competition winner also receives masterclass with Nicola Benedetti.

NY Times 

Elizabeth Connell, Opera Singer, Dies at 65

Elizabeth Connell, a South African-born opera singer who won acclaim internationally in roles by Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven and others, died on Saturday in London.

The Telegraph

The Swan who danced herself to death

Rupert Christiansen salutes the magical Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova as a new performance honours her memory.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/9093012/The-Swan-who-danced-herself-to-death.html

(Written on February 21, 2012 )

Gramophone

A Composer’s conduct 

Should a conductor follow a composer’s manuscript or his recordings when interpreting a work?

BBC Radio 3 presents eight-day Schubert marathon

Station to broadcast 200 hours of music to mark the composer’s 215th birthday

LA Times 

Even Dudamel is wowed by huge Mahler Eighth rehearsal in Caracas

This is going to be big.

NY Times 

Fighting Poverty, Armed With Violins

“From the time they start playing and performing for others, they feel they are proud of what they are doing,” Mr. Méndez said.

The Telegraph 

Erwin Schrott on ‘Don Giovanni’: electrifying Don prepares to switch off 

Erwin Schrott talks to Rupert Christiansen about his return to Covent Garden and his pin-up image .

The Guardian 

Thelma: an opera world premiere

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Thelma is getting its very belated premiere this week. In 2012, the centenary of his death, will Croydon’s most famous musical son finally get the recognition that has so long been denied him?

Musical lives cut short isn’t just a rock’n'roll phenomenon

The pop world is this week mourning Whitney Houston’s early death, but talented musicians have long lived too fast and died too young

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2012/feb/15/musical-life-cut-short-phenomenon

(Written on February 16, 2012 )

Every day the WildKat team scan the newspapers and blogs online to bring you a digested list of the day’s classical music news.

LA Times

Cultural Exchange: The diplomatic view of classical music

US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks offer sometimes-vivid glimpses into cultural diplomacy involving musical performances abroad. By Marcia Adair.

Gramophone

The conductor Kurt Sanderling has died

Born September 19, 1912; September 17, 2011

BBC Proms celebrates ticket sales success

More than two-thirds of events sold out.

The Telegraph

Berlin Staatskapelle/Barenboim, Lucerne Festival, review

On its final weekend the Lucerne festival made an extravagant flourish with three concerts by Daniel Barenboim and his Berlin Staatskapelle orchestra. Ivan Hewett Reports.

Don Giovanni, WNO, Wales Millenium Centre, review

John Caird’s new production for Welsh National Opera seems devoid of any thoughtfulness at all, says Rupert Christiansen.

The Arts Desk

Faust, Royal Opera House

Simple but stunning McVicar production achieves a level of profundity that almost had reviewer Igor Toronyi-Lalic in tears.

(Written on September 19, 2011 )

Every day the WildKat team scan the newspapers and blogs online to bring you a digested list of the day’s classical music news.

BBC Music Magazine

Interview: David Aaron Carpenter

The brilliant violinist speaks about his new Paganini-inspired CD.

The Financial Times

Review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

On Sunday, classical music entered the same orbit as the “east meets west” theme that dominates the Edinburgh Festival’s 2011 programme.

The Guardian

Review: BBC Singers/London Sinfonietta/Atherton – Cadogan Hall, London

There’s plenty of contemporary music in the short series of Saturday Proms matinees, and the programme shared by the BBC Singers and London Sinfonietta and conducted by David Atherton, included both UK and world premieres.

The Independent

Lucerne is a classical festival of the first water

If you stand on Lucerne’s covered bridge, blinking out at the ultimate in lake-and-mountains landscape, you’re in good company. This rarified corner of Switzerland has long been a magnet for musical greats.

The Telegraph

Review: Utopia Ltd – Opera House, Buxton 

Rupert Christiansen was delighted to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s penultimate collaboration Utopia Ltd back on stage for the first time since 1975.

(Written on August 23, 2011 )