Category: music

It’s piano competition season. The Chopin International Competition in Warsaw decided to award a prize this year (the last two competitions ended without a winner). “This year’s 23-member jury awarded the first prize to 18-year-old Yundi Li from China, who also shared the prize for the best performance of a polonaise with another Chinese player, Sa Chen, who was placed fourth.” – Irish Times

Five of Carnegie Hall’s top executives have resigned or been dismissed in the past six weeks, and tensions are running so high the board of trustees has hired an outside consultant to talk with the staff privately. Many of the disgruntled cite the autocratic management style of new executive director Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, whose soon-to-be-unveiled five-year plan may instill more ire. – New York Times

“Music has rarely been truly pure in the sense of expressing nothing but itself. Almost always, it has been defined by other components as well: texts, places, purposes and all sorts of other circumstantial conditions.” Now some composers revisit the idea of absolute music. – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has named Andreas Delfs, 41, as its new music director. Delfs is also the music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and will retain that post. – New York Times

Daniel Barenboim began his 10-year contract as head of the Berlin Staatsoper in 1992 with great expectations of leading it back to the ranks of international fame. “But last month, city officials said he would not renew his contract because he no longer wants to continue with the administrative aspects of the job, and just wants to be the musical director instead.” Now entreaties to him to stay. – New Jersey Online (AP)

Raymond Gubbay, the “impresario who has spent the past 30 years putting on opera for the people – opera with red roses for Valentine lovers, opera for kiddies with teddy bears, singalonganopera for those who like to join in” has applied for the top job running the Royal Opera House. The newspapers laughed. The mere notion of a businessman, a barrow boy, running the Opera House! “It would be like asking the Grim Reaper to run an old people’s home,” said one music critic. But when I question the experts closely they are more reluctant to dismiss Gubbay. His business skills speak for themselves, he loves opera, he understands the workings of the Opera House, and actually when it comes down to it there isn’t an obvious candidate.” – The Guardian

Chicago Lyric Opera’s new production transfers the action “to a dark Victorian gaming room, a males-only citadel of stuffed armchairs and stuffed shirts. The inhabitants are even randier and slimier than the Duke of Mantua, the opera’s tenoral anti-hero. Almost all the women who are allowed into this bad ol’ boys club are whores, playthings or sexual hysterics. Poor Gilda, Rigoletto’s virtuous daughter, is doomed the moment she steps into this crypto-orgy pit.” – Chicago Tribune

The most-recent winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition plays a recital in London. “To be fair, the Leeds International Piano Competition has a more creditable record than most. But how many of you can remember the name, let alone the sound, of the last two winners? And how long will Alessio Bax be a name to conjure with? Judging by the number of empty seats at his London concert last week, not many of us really care a great deal anyway.” – The Times (UK)

Pinchas Zukerman recently tried to take his National Arts Center Orchestra to Israel and Palestine. But the fighting canceled much of the tour. “Music seemed impotent in the face of such events, but Pinchas Zukerman is convinced that in other circumstances it can play a vital role in bringing about the sorts of reconciliation the region desperate needs.” – The Independent (UK)

 How many organists do you hear about, let alone someone who has been dead 20 years? Virgil Fox was the Great Popularizer of the organ. “Unlike the ‘purists’ who detested the lush liberties he sometimes took with Bach, Fox was not above forsaking pipes and using an electronic organ to get the music across. He dragged Black Beauty, a booming, blaring Rodgers electronic instrument, along with a light show and smoke and mirrors, to rock-concert halls, hoping to get young 70’s listeners to trip out on the music of Bach.” – New York Times