Kent Nagano
Photo: Broede

On the occasion of yesterday’s concert at the Cologne Philharmonie, Concerto Köln appointed American conductor Kent Nagano, 67, as Honorary Conductor. The  ensemble and the conductor have enjoyed a close collaboration since 2011. Currently, the focus of their collaboration lies on academic research and, starting in 2021, on the historically informed performance of Wagner’s The Ring des Nibelungen. Read More →

A legal fight is about to oppose the French National Hospital of Ophthalmology in Paris and the National Opera Bastille, the newspaper Le Parisien reports. The issue is the project to expand the opera house, which could result in the hospital just behind being completely isolated. Envisaged since the conception of the opera house in the 1980s, the construction of workshops on some 3,500 square meters had never been carried out. The Paris Opera relaunched the case at the beginning of the year, causing concern in the neighbouring hospital. Read More →

Rolando Villazon
(c) Wolfgang Lienbacher

Die Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg präsentierte am Freitag die neue Playmobil-Sonderfigur Mozart. Ausgestattet mit Geige und Bogen wird Mozart wirin seiner originalen Kleidung dargestellt, in einem roten Rock – natürlich mit Manschetten – sowie einer dekorativen Weste und einem Jabot, einem der damaligen Zeit entsprechenden modischen Rüschenvolant. Hinzu kommen schwarze Schuhe mit den typischen Goldschnallen. Read More →

Julio Garcia Vico
(c) Laura Cohen

Julio Garcia Vico (*1992, Spain) has won the German Conductors Award 2019 (Deutscher Dirigentenpreis) organised by the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat) in Cologne. Vico was also awarded the Audience Prize. Read More →

JoAnn Falletta
Photo: Mark Dellas

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra announced Saturday that Music Director JoAnn Falletta, 65, signed a five-year contract extension that will keep her in Western New York through the 2025-2026 season. She is in this position since 1999. Read More →

Die Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste hat mit einstimmigen Votum der Anwesenden beschlossen, « umgehend die Abstimmung über die Beantragung des Ausschlussverfahrens für Siegfried Mauser einzuleiten ». Der Komponist, Pianist und Pädagoge Siegfried Mauser wurde bekanntlich wegen sexueller Nötigung in drei Fällen zu einer Freiheitsstrafe von zwei Jahren und neun Monaten verurteilt. Read More →

Marta Kurtag, composer György Kurtag’s life and work companion, died in Budapest at the age of 92. In 1947 she married the composer, taking on a decisive meaning in every field of her life: as a wife, as the mother of their son, György Kurtag Jr (born in 1954), as a pianist and also as the first listener and critic of his compositions in gestation. Their four-handed concerts are famous, in which they mostly performed pieces by Kurtag himself and transcriptions by Bach.

The Opéra de Québec has announced the appointment of Canadian baritone Jean-François Lapointe, 54, as its new Artistic Director starting with the 2020-21 season. His first season will overlap with the current director Grégoire Legendre, who will retire in December 2020. Read More →

Partitur Il Messia
(c) Thomas Ziegler

Das Händel-Haus in Halle (Saale) hat eine als verschollen geglaubte, vollständige Partitur-Handschrift des italienischen Il Messia (um 1770) erworben und sie gestern der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert. Read More →

Elias David Moncado

Elias David Moncado, 18, is the winner of the First prize of the 5th International Karol Lipinski Violin Competition in Poland. Moncado was born in Aachen in 2000 to a family with German, Spanish and Malaysian roots. Since January 2016, he has been a junior student of the Interlaken Classics Akademie in Switzerland under Professor Zakhar Bron. He is currently a student of Professor Pierre Amoyal in Mozarteum Salzburg. He was also a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in the Principality of Liechtenstein.

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