The Telegraph

Coughing in classical concerts ‘twice as likely’

People are twice as likely to cough during a classical concert as they are during normal life, an academic researching the irritating phenomenon has claimed.

The New York Times

As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle

Like plenty of music fans, Sam Broe jumped at the chance to join Spotify two summers ago, and he hasn’t looked back.

The Arts Desk

Q&A Special: Conductor Sir Simon Rattle

The conductor on his long-running association with period specialists the OAE

Classic FM

Gabriel Prokofiev’s Nonclassical announces electronic music festival

The Nonclassical club night and record label has announced a new festival of electronic music, celebrating composers like Messiaen, Stockhausen and Varèse.

Kasper Holten on Tchaikovsky in cinemas

Falling in love, rejection, growing up – and all to the soundtrack of Tchaikovsky’s beautiful music. Kasper Holten, Director of Opera for the Royal Opera House, explains what we can expect from his latest production of Eugene Onegin, screened live in cinemas on 20 February.

Classical Music Magazine

Analysis: Much ado about Rattle

Sir Simon Rattle’s announcement that he will leave in 2018 has provoked a storm of rumour and gossip, not least that he is leaving thanks to ‘growing strains’ in his relationship with the orchestra ‒ reported by news organisations from Santiago to Sydney.

Music Industry News

StudioTraxx.com Launches Social Network-Based Online Marketing For Artists, Producers, Managers, Songwriters, And Record Labels

StudioTraxx.com, a leading provider of online musician-for-hire collaboration services, is pleased to announce that it is now offering a variety of online marketing packages to artists, producers, managers, songwriters, and record labels.

Music Week

Midem attendance down 7% YoY, organisers remain upbeat about future

Midem attendance was down 7% compared to 2012 with the four-day event reporting around 6,400 attendees travelling to the Palais des Festivals last weekend.

The Telegraph

(Written on January 30, 2013 )

The Independent

Monteverdi gets the Silent Opera treatment

Jessica Duchen visits Trinity Buoy Wharf for the rehearsals for Silent Opera’s L’Orfeo. The article can also be read on Jessica’s blog here.

When a wet tenor wowed Woody Allen

Fabio Armiliato’s recent experience in itself reads almost like a Woody Allen film.

Gramophone

Sir Simon Rattle to step down as Berlin Philharmonic chief conductor in 2018

Conductor announces he will not extend his contract when it expires in five years’ time

Classic FM

Funding for Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 4 reaches halfway

Virtual Choir 4 has reached $50,000 in donations, halfway to its target of $100,000.

Pianist’s classical Pink Floyd is unlikely hit

A young Turkish pianist and graduate of the Royal Academy of Music has become an unlikely sensation after recording a Lisztian interpretation of the works of Pink Floyd.

The Guardian

Royal Opera House reveals new direction on eve of chief executive’s departure

Shows based on Oscar Wilde and Iain Banks works among those announced as Tony Hall gets ready to join BBC

Benjamin Britten at 100 – time for a new appraisal?

A more relaxed attitude may be emerging towards the colossal musical legacy of Britain’s modern titan of the opera

The Telegraph

ENO accounts are ‘shockingly bad’

English National Opera has £2.5million deficit and 2012 audiences were down nine per cent on previous year.

Slipped Disc

Just in: Vienna’s Jews honour the Philharmonic chairman

Just as the orchestra is besieged once more with allegations of sexual and racial discrimination, the Vienna Philharmonic chairman, Clemens Hellsberg, has received a notable award from the city’s Jewish community.

BBC News

Celebrating Doctor Who pioneer Delia Derbyshire

Twelve years after her death, a group of artists and musicians are preparing to celebrate the work of electronic music pioneer, Delia Derbyshire.

Classic FM

(Written on January 14, 2013 )

Classic FM

Choral version of Anne Frank’s diary gets release date

Composer James Whitbourn’s choral setting of The Diary of Anne Frank is to be released on January 22nd.

League table reveals hardest-working in classical music

New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert, Sir Simon Rattle, Arvo Pärt and Handel’s Messiah are the winners in a survey of classical music concerts in 2012.

Gramophone

Obituary: John Carol Case, bass-baritone

The English bass-baritone, singing teacher and carol composer John Carol Case, OBE, has died, aged 89.

Irish Independent (found on Musical Chairs)

Bird ‘more complex than orchestra’

Songbirds possess a musical instrument more complex than anything found in an orchestra, a study has confirmed.

Slipped Disc

David Bowie and Philip Glass talk through their two symphonies

The world awoke [yesterday] to the news that David Bowie, on his 66th birthday, has broken ten years of creative silence with a seminal new single, Where Are We Now?

British composer misses Carnegie Hall deadline

Oliver Knussen has failed to deliver a new work to the Philadelphia Orchestra in time for a Carnegie Hall premiere next month.

The Independent

Why clapping ruins concerts

Intrusive applause can spoil a classical concert, leading conductors tell Simon O’Hagan

Deceptive Cadence, NPR

Leonidas Kavakos: Letting Beethoven Shine

Violinist Leonidas Kavakos is something of a musician’s musician in the classical world.

Irish Independent

(Written on January 9, 2013 )

WildKat PR are thrilled to be working with Daniel Harding, a conductor who belongs in the elite circle of world class conductors: a true leader in his generation.

Daniel’s current positions include Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Music Partner of the New Japan Philharmonic; as well as Artistic Director of the Ohga Hall in Karuizawa, Japan and the lifetime honour of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Daniel began his professional career at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, after assisting the revered Sir Simon Rattle. He then moved on to the Berlin Philharmonic where he assisted Claudio Abbado, before conducting the orchestra at the Berlin Festival.

His upcoming engagements include a new production of Verdi’s Falstaff at La Scala in Milan. Tickets for the performance are available here. 

This is followed by Der fliegende Holländer at the Staatsoper Berlin in April; a wonderful must-see production, with tickets available here.

For more information, visit Daniel’s website here. 

Julian Hargreaves

(Written on November 8, 2012 )

On Sunday 28 October, John Suchet broadcasts a special two hour show dedicated to one of the most recognisable and respected conductors in the world, Sir Simon Rattle.

Slipped Disc

Video just in: How John Williams composed the theme for ET

Ahead of the Blue-Ray release of Stephen Spielberg’s E. T., video has been unearthed of the director and composer working together on the key musical motif for the alien character.

Very good news: Amsterdam restores music lessons to first-year schoolrooms

After a depressing drift towards cultural derelicition, the city of Amsterdam is reversing policy and bringing back music lessons for children in their first year at school.

More opera costumes are coming up for sale… somewhere near you

Scottish Opera is having a clearout auction of old frocks and props.

Deceptive Cadence, NPR

‘Nixon In China’: An American Opera Inches Toward Classic At 25

Twenty-five years ago today, Houston Grand Opera mounted the world premiere of Nixon in China, the first opera by a young composer named John Adams.

Gramophone Blog

Star Tribune (found on Arts Journals)

Music in midst of contract dispute

Locked-out orchestra musicians took their appeal to a sold-out hall.

The Australian

Classical music’s cultural cringe

PIANIST Michael Kieran Harvey has fired a staccato attack on Australian music organisations, with symphony orchestras, opera companies, broadcasters, and competitions among those in his sights.

Limelight

Israeli & Palestinian say harmony = two pianos + two like minds

The young pianists in Duo Amal were brought together by music to spread a message of hope.

Classic FM

(Written on October 23, 2012 )

Gramophone

The Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker forges a new relationship with Sony

Cyber concert-going enters a new era.

The New York Times

Pickup Orchestra of Stars, Made for TV.

A pickup ensemble of musicians — including prominent principal players — from some of the nation’s major classical music orchestras.

Classic FM

Ives supporters unite to purchase composer’s home

Charles Ives’ house, which was previously earmarked for demolition by developers, is the subject of a new fan campaign to preserve it.

Classical Music

Youth Music names 88 new music projects in England

Youth Music has committed more than £4m to 88 new music projects in England, more than doubling the value of its awards made over the last year, but many more groups will have to miss out because of shortage of funds.

The Independent

Darren Henley: The radio boss with a plan to drag classical music into the digital era

Classic FM has much to learn from hip-hop and R&B stations, the former newsreader who rose to become its chief tells Ian Burrell.

The Washington Post

John Cage Centennial Festival: Will it silence critics in Washington?

John Cage — composer, philosopher, visual artist, mushroom enthusiast — would have been 100 years old on Wednesday. To many artists, he was one of the most inspiring figures of the 20th century. To some musicians, he is underrated: branded, unfairly, more important as a thinker than a composer.

Arts journal: Slipped Disc

Pulitzer winner and more attack New York Times for removing music critic

The demotion of Allan Kozinn from classical music critic to culture has attracted widespread condemnation.

Gramophone

(Written on September 4, 2012 )

Telegraph

Simon Rattle, interview: ‘of course the orchestra is stroppy’

Sir Simon Rattle often finds himself caught between German and British culture – but he relishes the challenge, he tells Ivan Hewett, ahead of two Proms.

Guardian

Mittwoch aus Licht – review

Mittwoch aus Licht consists of four scenes, framed by a purely electronic Greeting and Farewell. It’s famous, notorious even, for including as one of those scenes the Helicopter Quartet, first performed in 1995, in which the four members of a string quartet take to the skies with their instruments in four helicopters, and sound and video images of their aerial playing is transmitted to the audience on the ground.

Classic FM

German customs demand €380k for return of violin

Customs at Frankfurt airport have seized an antique violin from a Japanese violinist and are demanding a total of €380k in unpaid duty.

Guitarist Gary Ryan awarded RCM Fellowship

Gary Ryan, composer of Birds Flew Over The Spire, is awarded a fellowship from the Royal College of Music

New York Times

Melodies, Immersive and Vibrant: Mostly Mozart Festival with Stephen Hough and Andrew Manze

There are many reasons to like Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. But one of the best is its subtle yet crucial transformation of the chronically woeful Avery Fisher Hall, the home base of the festival’s orchestra, which played a program of Bach, Mendelssohn and Mozart on Tuesday evening, led by Andrew Manze, making his festival debut.

The Telegraph

(Written on August 23, 2012 )

It is nigh on impossible to be in London this week and avoid the Olympics; whilst the Big Smoke may be quieter than usual in some parts of the town, there still seems to be an Olympic official, a fan or #teamGB T-shirt-wearer in every (nearly deserted) tube carriage.
And so the world of Classical Music has been infiltrated by the Olympics, too. Or rather, Classical Music has infiltrated the Olympics.

Nineteen members of the Canadian Olympic team have this week been revealed to be classical musicians, members of Conservatoires back in Canada but are, this month, just focusing on the sporting side of their talents.

There was no nod to popular music in the selection of Olympic flag bearers of 2012 but it was conductor Daniel Barenboim, who proudly stood as one of the eight great humanitarians, chosen for his services to music and peacekeeping. This was most notably due to his creation of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, bringing together young musicians in his home country of Israel regardless of their political position or origin either side of the Palestine/Israel border.

The Arts Desk

During a celebration of ‘England’s green and pleasant lands’, Parry’s Jerusalem was touchingly sung by 11-year-old Humphrey Keeper, leading The Dockhead Choir. Handel’s Water Music and Elgar’s Nimrod both featured at the dramatic moments of the event, whilst Ode to Joy was a debated contender for the show’s repertoire after David Beckham performed it in a Samsung advert using just his feet, talent and a football; however it never made the bill.

Speaking of Ode to Joy, this week Barenboim proclaimed Beethoven to be a ‘bit of an Olympian’ himself after conducting his medal worthy First to Ninth Symphonies all in eight days at the BBC proms. After the performance of the Ninth last Friday Barenboim was then rushed (most certainly using those Olympic traffic lanes!) to get to the Olympic stadium to carry the all-important flag.

Classical music was also given the chance to show its modern face and its sense of humour, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting whilst Mr. Bean was on the keyboard, contributing to the famous Vangelis music from Chariots of Fire. Whilst Rattle’s role was small, it featured a wonderful combination of classical music from the London Symphony Orchestra with Bean’s electronic input – probably the most crucial part of Vangelis’ wonderful theme tune. And so a famous Maestro and Britain’s famous comedian shared the stage. With even the Queen herself showing a sense of humour in her James Bond sketch, it was great to see Sir Simon Rattle dispersing stereotypes of stuffiness within classical music courtesy of his witty performance with Mr. Bean.

Classical music and its musicians actually feature in the most important moment for every single Olympian out there.  This year the London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded all 205 Olympic countries’ anthems in the legendary Abbey Road Studios with just 12 minutes allocated to record each individual piece. Despite the tight schedule that the anthems were completed in, they sound fantastic and boost every nation’s spirits each time a Gold is won. We just hope to hear ‘God Save the Queen’ a lot more over the next week…

The Daily Mail

(Written on August 3, 2012 )

The Telegraph

Hay Festival 2012: Sir Simon Rattle’s ‘ideal state’

Conductor Simon Rattle gives advise to amateurs and defines his “ideal state”.

Royal College of Music Chamber Choir: ‘Grit and determination kept us singing’

Sodden but unbowed, the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir encapsulated Sunday’s jubilant spirit.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gary Barlow: in perfect harmony for Queen and country

Andrew Lloyd Webber, doyen of musical theatre, reveals how he joined pop star Gary Barlow and TV choirmaster Gareth Malone to honour ‘an extraordinary monarch’.

LA Times

Valley and Soka performing arts centers set for second season

Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge and Soka Performing Arts Center at Soka University in Aliso Viejo have ambitions for sophomore year.

Leif Ove Andsnes warms up for Ojai Music Festival

The pianist, music director for the 66th edition, will perform with Marc-Andre Hamelin.

Classical Music Magazine

Clandeboye’s former young musicians to return to celebrate tenth festival

Booking has opened for the tenth Clandeboye Festival, taking place 13 – 18 August at the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava’s Clandeboye estate near Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.

Camerate Ireland launches Derry-Londonderry as UK City of Culture 2013

Camerata Ireland and its artistic director Barry Douglas launched the musical programme for Derry-Londonderry’s year as the first UK City of Culture with a concert on 30 May in one of the city’s historic churches, Christ Church.

The Guardian

A guide to Oliver Knussen’s music

Oliver Knussen’s music packs as much incident and expression into mere minutes than some composers manage in a lifetime.

Mystery of the maestros: what are conductors for?

How do conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle and Valery Gregiev work?

Alfred Deller: a voice from the past

On the centenary of the great countertenor’s birth his grandson recalls how he came to know and love his music.

Tel Aviv Wagner concert cancelled after wave of protest

University cancels booking, saying performance of works by Hitler’s favourite composer would offend Holocaust survivors.

The Independent

Moved by the tragedy behind Berlioz’s Troy story

David McVicar talks about the huge challenge of staging Les Troyens.

Opening ceremony orchestra is silenced

Musicians in the London Symphony Orchestra will have to mime their performance in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics because a live performance is deemed too risky.

Gramophone

Linn Records teams with Universal Music to distribute Studio Master downloads

Back catalogue masterpieces and current titles made available in high-quality digital format.

Australian string quartet acquire rare set of Guadagnini instruments

Matching instruments worth millions on permanent loan to the ensemble.

Financial Times

Making a noise, in its quiet way

As Scottish Opera turns 50, what does the future hold for the company?

(Written on June 6, 2012 )

WildKat PR are very excited to announce a new collaboration with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. We will be working with the orchestra as they launch their latest innovative marketing campaign featuring unlikely classical music fans.

Check out the orchestra’s blog for teasers of the campaign, which will be unveiled with their new season brochure soon. You can also view the trailer for the launch of the campaign here:

Other 2012 highlights for the OAE include a European tour with Sir Simon Rattle and Pierre-Laurant Aimard in June and their series exploring women in music: ‘Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers’.

For more information, visit the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s website.

(Written on April 23, 2012 )