Classic FM

Nicola Benedetti and Daniel Hope to headline Bristol Proms

A new series of concerts, The Bristol Proms, have been unveiled, and will feature performers including Nicola Benedetti and Daniel Hope.

Around the World In 18 Tunes – the performance

All the performance pictures from the Armonico Consort’s ‘Around The World In 18 Tunes’ concert, featuring 1,200 school children from all over the country, and Russell Watson performing ‘You Raise Me Up’.

The Guardian

Letters and secret files reveal the tormented life of Lina Prokofiev

New book on Soviet composer’s family will show how his wife was abandoned, tortured by Stalin’s police and sent to the gulag

The Telegraph

Clemency Burton-Hill: why Justin Bieber is like Mozart

Some say he represents the very worst of manufactured teenage pop music. Others say his scraps with paparazzi photographers and late arrivals to concerts are brattish.

The Independent

Heads Up: Sunken Garden

It’s a bouquet of 3D film, opera, and electronic music

BBC News

Vienna Philharmonic’s Nazi past detailed

Almost half the musicians in the Vienna Philharmonic during World War II were members of the Nazi party, new research has revealed.

Washington Times

Polish police arrest man in philharmonic killing

A Polish official says a suspect has been arrested in the killing of a young female harpist and a security guard in the building of a philharmonic in western Poland.

Classic FM (Richard Johnson)

(Written on March 11, 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 )

New York Times

Eiko And Koma Talk About ‘Fragile’

A performance of relentless stillness, with live score.

Entartete Musik

Laurel Resting In Vienna.

Gavin Plumley on the Wiener Philharmoniker.

Classical Music Magazine

Edinburgh Festival Programme Announced.

Out of 185 performances in this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, 51 are concerts, almost 3,000 artists are involved and 47 nationalities will be represented on stage.

The Telegraph

New Face: Ross McInroy.

Ross McInroy is the Scottish Opera’s bass chosen for The Rake’s Progress and Tosca.

Another Bad Modern Opera At Covent Garden. Why Is The Royal Opera House Allowed To Throw Money Away?

You know how it is: you wait for one bad opera, then three come along at once, according to Igor Toronyi-Lalic.

Independent

Schubert: A Gloriously Unfinished Celebration.

BBC Radio 3 is devoting an entire week to Schubert. He’s just the composer for these tough times, says Jessica Duchen.

Women In Operas Can’t Resist A Rake.

Nice guys finish last in opera.

Opera Chic

American Ballet Theatre Goes Town And Country.

ABT discusses its sponsorship program in the April 2012 edition of Town & Country and profiles some deep-pocketed philanthropists who sponsor ABT dancers.

Arts Journal: Slipped Disc

Oldest English Song Is Subjected To Post-Punk Revival.

Word is out that the Futureheads, a post-punk band, have recorded a tribute version of the oldest known song in early English, Sumer Is Icumen In.

Guardian

Stephen Sondheim: Our Greatest Composer?

No one today has better mastered the art-form of marrying words and drama to music, and keeping that essentially operatic ideal alive in a broader public consciousness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2012/mar/16/sondheim-sweeney-todd-music-theatre

(Written on March 16, 2012 )