Category: music

Martinu’s Symphony No. 1 is getting its (belated) Bulgarian premiere this week in Sofia. And who’s conducting? Martin Klepetko, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to Bulgaria and a trained musicologist and conductor.

In abandoning Dallas Opera for the New York City Opera, George Steel didn’t exactly leave throngs of mourners behind. “How great was the loss? Dancing in the streets exaggerates only a bit. In Dallas, any tears shed over his departure would barely fill a thimble.”

The venue continues its series of themed festivals with “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices,” focusing on Chinese music and musicians. Pollini will celebrate the Chopin anniversary; Boulez celebrates his 85th with three different orchestras; Rattle and the Berlin Phil offer a Brahms/Schoenberg cycle; the Kronos Quartet and Louis Andriessen will have residencies.

Next season is 10% smaller than the current one – which has seen its budget revised downward by $4 million. Individual giving is down by 18%, and there’s a hiring freeze. Three orchestras planning to appear at Carnegie next season have withdrawn after losing corporate sponsorship.

South Florida’s biggest presenter of touring classical artists has seen subscriptions and ticket sales plummet for its concerts at the Fort Lauderdale venue. Observers blame a steep increase in ticket prices, changes in CAF’s leadership, scheduling disputes with Broward Center management, and the perception that big-ticket events happen only at the Arsht Center in Miami

With three dynamic young conductors arriving on the scene, a large stable of gifted soloists and generous state subsidy, “Paris will join Berlin, Vienna, London and New York… This cultural quake will be felt most significantly in London, where deep-seated complacencies will be severely shaken.”

The orchestra’s board has decided not to renew the contract of conductor David Commanday, despite being pleased with his work. In fact, the board plans to reconsider whether it wants a resident conductor at all.

The amount “includes more than 3,600 gifts from more than 1,500 donors.” But “[t]he organization must raise another $1.8 million to balance its budget for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.”

John Williams’ inaugural chamber piece, “Air and Simple Gifts,” “was functional, representational music, and it actually did serve a function: It allowed everyone some downtime before the main event of the oath and the new president’s speech,” Anne Midgette writes. “Williams, in the music, was falling over himself to convey messages about patriotism and solemnity and austerity and profundity.”

“[A]lthough grand opera frequently deals with death, it’s unusual to deal with as recent a death as that of Dr David Kelly. The government scientist died in 2003 amid a furore that the government had exaggerated the weapons threat from Iraq. … A play, at London’s Tricyle Theatre, later re-enacted the Hutton inquiry but this is the first time the story has been the subject of an opera.”