Julia Lezhneva records debut Decca disc

Russian soprano records Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart and Porpora in Barcelona

Classic FM

André Rieu in chart battle with Robbie Williams

Waltzing violinist André Rieu is just behind Robbie Williams in the Official UK Album Charts, in second place.

Classical Music Magazine

Culture industry unites against Gove’s ‘not fit for purpose’ EBacc

Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and violinist Tasmin Little are among a growing number of high-profile musicians, artists and educators who have publicly lent their support to ‘Bacc for the Future’ (www.baccforthefuture.com), a campaign which is urging the government to include creative subjects in the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), set to replace GCSEs from 2017.

Instrument dealer sentenced to six years imprisonment

German instrument dealer Dietmar Machold, whose trial for fraud resumed in Vienna las week, was handed a six-year prison sentence on 9 November.

Albert Hall tightens ‘exclusive let’ criteria

Classical music promoters face new programming rules for so-called exclusive lets at the Royal Albert Hall from 1 January 2013.

LA Times

Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to L.A. with murder in mind

The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s former music director is about to visit with his Philharmonia Orchestra and the opera ‘Wozzeck,’ about a man driven to violence.

Huffington Post

John Williams Comes to London Thanks to RPO

I once went to a concert of film composer Jerry Goldsmith’s music conducted by the man himself. At the beginning of the performance, he turned to the audience and joked that we were welcome to talk through it as much as we want – after all, that’s what happens on-screen.

The Telegraph

Reality Opera about the stock market

‘Open Outcry’ is a musical performance that is created by the ebb and flow of emotion and money on a stock trading floor.

Cecilia Bartoli: ‘I’m going against the diva cliché of being beautiful all the time’

The mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli tells Adam Sweeting why it’s important she looked like a rabid bald-headed priest on the cover of her new album

The Telegraph