It received funding from Arts Council England’s Change Makers initiative to become more accessible and inclusive. Alongside organisational changes like disability awareness training, BSO created a disabled-led ensemble, BSO Resound, and supported a training placement for its Director, conductor James Rose. – Arts Professional
Category: music
Brexiteers Protest Playing Of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony At Choral Festival
“I was told that some people felt it was not an appropriate programming for a concert in an area that voted overwhelmingly for Brexit.” The complainant then promised to call for other people to stay away. – The Guardian
Pianist Radu Lupu To Retire From Performing
“Lupu, now 73, has long frustrated his admirers: he last recorded in the mid-1990s, is absent from social media, and refuses to be interviewed. His health has been in decline; in the last two years he has cancelled appearances with increased frequency. In May, Arcady Volodos replaced him in Paris; earlier this month, Maria João Pires did the same in Berlin, coming out of her own retirement.” – WFMT (Chicago)
Hans Graf Named Chief Conductor Of Singapore Symphony
The 70-year-old Austrian — formerly music director of the Houston Symphony (2001-13), Calgary Philharmonic (1995-2003), and the major orchestras of Bordeaux, San Sebastián, and Salzburg — succeeds Lan Shui, who stepped down in January after 22 years. – The Straits Times (Singapore)
90,000 Estonians Gather For 150th Edition Of Massive Choral Festival
The Estonian Song and Dance Celebration attracted 35,000 singers, more than 1,000 choirs and 700 dance groups to the capital of Tallinn. The event, held every five years, started as a song-only celebration in 1869. – Washington Post (AP)
Maryland Governor Says He Won’t Release Funding For Baltimore Symphony
“With regards to the BSO, they are way out of touch with where they need to be fiscally. The governor had no alternative. He is going to come in and trim and make sure the important stuff gets funded.” – Baltimore Sun
Increasingly, Donald Trump Is Showing Up In Opera Productions
These appearances may seem like acts of protest or provocation, signaling a viewpoint that opera audiences abroad are likely to share, tapping into an easy laugh along the lines of “Saturday Night Live,” which has helped to propagate many features of the Trump iconography. But they also downplay the actual political issues: A singing Trump is a comic Trump and not a very serious Trump. – Washington Post
How Aaron Copland Created An American Sound For Classical Music
“He was a man of the left, though of no political party, gay, but neither closeted nor out, Jewish, but agnostic, unless you count music as a religion. On this July 4th weekend, WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells his story.” (audio and transcript) – WNYC (New York City)
How ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (And A Scheming New York Phil Board Member) Got The Boston Symphony’s Conductor Sent To An Internment Camp
Alex Ross recounts the story of Karl Muck, the elegant former director of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Berlin Court Opera, who came to the BSO in 1906 and was there for an unfortunate decision, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, not to play the American national anthem before a concert. – The New Yorker
Controversial Purchase Of Westminster Choir College By Chinese Company Canceled
“Rider University has dropped a controversial plan to sell Westminster Choir College to a for-profit company based in China and instead is resuscitating efforts to relocate the choir college. The decisions, announced Monday, put Rider back where it was at the end of 2016, when students and alumni fought against the idea of relocating Westminster from its own campus in Princeton, N.J., to Rider’s main campus seven miles away in Lawrenceville, N.J.” – Inside Higher Ed