Category: music

Ken Lavigne “invested $200,000 — money raised over months at concerts and fundraisers throughout the Lower Mainland — to get to Carnegie Hall. And the morning after, he’s sure it was worth it.”

The Boys Choir of Kenya signed the deal in the transit lounge at London’s Heathrow Airport as they returned home to Nairobi from Washington DC.

John Villars, in the leading role of Florestan, “stormed off during the opera’s final scene, according to one audience member, moments after German conductor Gregor Buhl loudly sang out a few phrases of the tenor’s part. Several who saw the rehearsal said Villars made a dismissive hand gesture toward the orchestra pit as he left the stage.”

“John Villars walked away from the role during a dress rehearsal performance before an audience at the Four Seasons centre Wednesday night, apparently because he was unable to master it, a COC spokesman said. He walked off stage near the end of the opera as his fellow cast members carried on without him.”

A free Hollywood Bowl concert called “Bienvenido Gustavo” will open Maestro Dudamel’s inaugural season as the Philharmonic’s music director. There will also be a televised gala concert with a John Adams premiere, festivals devoted to California and Latin America, and a May tour across the U.S.

“Adams… will be composing new works for the Los Angeles orchestra in addition to contributing innovative ideas. He will also serve as director of the orchestra’s ‘West Coast: Left Coast’ festival, a three-week multi-genre exploration of the music of California beginning in late November.”

Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero did in fact play Air and Simple Gifts at the inauguration. “But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.” Explanation: the cold made them do it.

Ticket sales and contributions are actually growing at the MSO, but not as quickly as had been budgeted. To make up for a projected $500,000 shortfall, the orchestra’s management has instituted a hiring freeze and cancelled four of five free summer concerts.

That brief piece of violin music by Mozart that was found last year in a Nantes archive has had its first performance in that city.

“The first concerts are being staged to mark the opening of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’ new Cardiff Bay home. BBC Hoddinott Hall at Wales Millennium Centre, named after the late composer Alun Hoddinott, seats some 350 people… [The orchestra] will continue to perform major concerts at St David’s Hall in Cardiff and Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall.”