BACKSound announces highlights of 2019 festival
Sound has announced highlights of the 2019 festival of new music, which will take place in venues in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire from 23 October – 3 November.
This year’s soundfestival features a focus on the oboe as part of an ongoing commitment to raise the profile of ‘endangered instruments’, with performances by oboists including Christopher Redgate and Nicholas Daniel, the festival’s artists in residence.
Wayne McGregor curates album of composer collaborations
One of today’s leading figures in contemporary dance, McGregor has collaborated with composers including Kaija Saariaho, Max Richter, Nico Muhly, and Sir John Tavener, whose music for McGregor’s ballet Amu receives its world premiere recording on the release. Several of the pieces have been re-recorded and rearranged, in collaboration with McGregor and the original composer. The “Wayne McGregor: Collaboration’ will be released on the Mercury KX label – an imprint of Universal Music Group/Decca Records – on September 6th.
In der Saison 2018/19 konnten Berlins Opern beeindruckende Zuschauerzahlen verbuchen
Es ist an der Zeit, Danke zu sagen. Wenn die Berliner Musiktheater in der gerade zu Ende gegangenen Saison eine so sensationelle Auslastung erreichen konnten – 244 000 Besucher kamen in die Deutsche Oper, 235 000 in die Staatsoper, 225 000 in die Komische Oper, 117 000 zum Staatsballett –, dann ist das auch Klaus Wowereit zu verdanken. Denn der langjährige Regierende Bürgermeister hat in seinem Nebenjob als Kultursenator einst den zermürbenden Spardebatten um die Opernstiftung ein Ende gesetzt. 2008 war das, als er den Zuschuss für die Häuser endlich wieder einmal aufstockte. Weitere Erhöhungen folgten unter seiner Ägide, schließlich fiel sogar die unselige Senatsvorgabe, dass die Bühnen die Tarifsteigerungen ihrer Mitarbeiter stets aus dem eigenen Etat bezahlen müssen.
In the 2018/19 season, Berlin’s operas attracted an impressive number of spectators
It is time to say thank you. If the Berliner Musiktheater could achieve a sensational workload in the season just ended – 244,000 visitors came to the Deutsche Oper, 235,000 to the Staatsoper, 225,000 to the Komische Oper, 117,000 to the Staatsballett – then that’s Klaus too thanks to Wowereit. For many years the Governing Mayor in his part-time job as a cultural senator once put an end to the grueling austerity debate surrounding the opera foundation. This was in 2008, when he finally topped up the subsidy for the houses. Further increases are made under his aegis, and even the unfortunate Senate requirement that the stages must always pay the collective bargaining increases of their employees from their own budget.