“A collection of EH Shepard’s original drawings for the Winnie the Pooh children’s books has fetched £1.26m ($1.92m )at auction, in London.” The auction broke the previous record for a Shepard drawing when one of the artist’s best-loved drawings went for £115,250 ($176,041).
Author: sbergman
Unmasking An Incompetent Conductor
Critics seem to love Gilbert Kaplan, the wealthy businessman-turned conductor who specializes in leading Mahler’s 2nd Symphony (and ONLY Mahler’s 2nd Symphony.) But you can count the New York Philharmonic unimpressed: “The day of the concert, the players demanded a meeting with Zarin Mehta, the orchestra’s president, and complained about Mr. Kaplan’s conducting for an hour.” And one trombonist wrote a blistering blog post blasting Kaplan’s weak skills.
Cuba’s Harold Gramatges, 90
“The outstanding composer and pianist Cuban Harold Gramatges died on Tuesday at the age of 90 in Havana city… Gramatges, an important pillar of contemporary music in Latin America, remained active until the last of his days.”
Forgetting Mendelssohn
“What is it about Felix Mendelssohn that so habitually slips the mind? For most of the 19th century, Mendelssohn was considered the equal of Beethoven and Bach. For much of the 20th, his music was known to at least as many listeners as the Beatles… Yet each season when the concert programmes drop through the door his is the name that gets oddly left off.”
Starting From Scratch
David Handel was an unlikely individual to popularize orchestral music in Bolivia – American-born, classically trained, and possessed of almost no knowledge of the country he arrived in back in 1997. “The National Symphony Orchestra he was hired to remake was a shambles — it had no concert hall, generated little public interest and was barely able to muster seven or eight sparsely attended concerts a year and pay its musicians a few dollars per performance.” Today, it’s a whole different story.
Virginia Symphony Gets A Loan To Stay Afloat
The cash-strapped Virginia Symphony Orchestra is breathing a sigh of relief today, after Norfolk officials agreed to provide the ensemble with a $500,000 lifeline. “The terms include repayment with 6 percent interest over five years,” and the VSO says the loan will enable it to make it to the end of the fiscal year without declaring bankruptcy.
What Happened To No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
“This weekend, dozens of dancers in brilliant costumes will leap across the stage of [Philadelphia’s] Merriam Theater, before digitally projected Chinese landscapes. An orchestra will perform original scores melding Western and Chinese instruments; the violin will befriend the two-string erhu.” A great cross-cultural experience? Not if you’re the Chinese government. China’s Communist Party “has called the production ‘an insult and distortion’ of [its] culture.”
Celebrate Obama’s Inauguration, Maazel Style
“New York Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel and his wife are offering their country estate in Virginia for $50,000 a night during the presidential inauguration. The Rappahannock County estate can accommodate up to 50 guests. The complex includes a spa facility with a large heated swimming pool, a Turkish steam room and a Finnish sauna. Guests also can use a theater room with a commercial-size movie screen, along with a bowling alley and a petting zoo.”
SPCO Posts Surplus, Wipes Out Accumulated Debt
“The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra eliminated a five-year-old accumulated deficit, ending the fiscal year with a surplus of $126,000 on a budget of $12.5 million, it reported Wednesday. The SPCO said it achieved the goal by increasing its subscriber base and the size of its annual fund, and by keeping growth in expenses to just 3.2 percent.”
Even Puppets Hit Hard By Economic Crisis
Minneapolis-based In The Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre, one of America’s leading puppet theatres, has announced a seven-week layoff to begin the day after Chistmas. “In addition, the troupe will cut the wages of contract artists by 17 percent through the end of the fiscal year, Aug. 31, a move intended to shave 20 percent from the troupe’s $1 million annual budget.”