Category Archives: Classical Music News
Muti on the Mend
HuffPo reports that Leonard Slatkin and Mitsuko Uchida will cover for Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti, who has been hospitalized following a fainting spell during a rehearsal.
The Dude Abides (LA, That Is…)
The LA Times reports that Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel has extended his contract with the orchestra.
DSO Management Offers Players New Contract
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, one of the nation’s best “second tier” orchestras, has been on strike for the last couple of months, but there was a move just over a week ago on the players’ side to move toward a setttlement. Management issued a counteroffer today according to the Detroit Free Press. Here’s hoping they settle, and fast — especially after having just listened to the orchestra’s new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 conducted by music director Leonard Slatkin. It’s a thrilling, brisk performance that eschews sentimentality for high-octane virtuoso playing. It would be a pity — and a blow to Detroit, which has had a hellish enough few decades — to see this orchestra fold.
Margaret Price, 1941-2011
Price made some notable recordings; two of my favorites are a characterful Mozart opera and concert arias album for British RCA and her joyful controbution to the Horenstein/LSO Mahler Fourth originally issues on Classics for Pleasure. Click here for Zachary Woolfe’s NY Times obituary.
Milton Babbitt, 1916-2011
On his Facebook page, composer Paul Lansky reports that prominent American composer Milton Babbitt, an early pioneer of electronic music, has died.
UPDATE, Jan. 30: Allan Kozinn’s NY Times obituary is live online.
Double Sidelining: Ozawa, Levine Cancel Gigs
Seizi continues to recover from surgery, while Jimmy is sidelined by a virus. Danirl Wakin is on both cases at NYTimes.com.
No Cannes Do
I had hoped to blog from MIDEM, the annual international independent music business market at Cannes, but I am so wrapped up with business meetings that I will refer you to Frank Oteri, whose coverage will give you a good idea of what is going on here.
Passings: Raphael Hillyer, 1914-2010
Hillyer was most well known as the Juilliard Quartet’s founding violist. He was a resident of Boston; Jeremy Eichler has written a detailed obituary for the Boston Globe. Allan Kozinn’s NYTimes.com obituary is also worth a read. UPDATE: Correction to the title to reflect correct year of death. Hat tip: Jeremy Bluhm.
Not Quite Delivering What the Title Promises
“Philharmonic Renewed Under a Bold Conductor”, reads the headline of a New York Times article by Steve Smith. The article’s focus, however, is not so much on the orchestra but that section of the repertoire in which their music director, Alan Gilbert, has distinguished himself: music by postwar composers, particularly high-profile performances of music by György Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg, and others.
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