Christian Thielemann
(c) Deutsche Grammophon

Der Dirigent Christian Thielemann, 57, ist gewillt, seinen Vertrag als Chefdirigent der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden zu verlängern. Das sagte er in einem Interview der ‘Dresdner Morgenpost’. Thielemann steht noch bis Mitte 2019 in Dresden unter Vertrag und im Interview widersprach er Pressemeldungen, wonach die Vertragsverhandlungen ins Stocken geraten seien.

Finnish conductor Mikko Franck (*1979) has been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. His contract is signed for three years. It is the first time that the Academy hires a Principal Guest Conductor. Read More →

A removable sailcloth will cover the Arena

The visitors of the Arena di Verona might soon be protected from rain. The city has announced the winners of a contest for the creating of a huge coverage to be built. A group of German companies has won the competition with a project that will cost €13.5 million. Read More →

Jamie Barton

American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, 35, has won the Beverly Sills Artist Award 2017 from the Metropolitan Opera. Barton who receives $50,000 with the award made her Met debut in 2009 and is in rehearsals for the company’s new production of Dvorak’s Rusalka, which premieres tomorrow. Jamie Barton also won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition (both Main and Song Prizes) in June 2013 as well as the Richard Tucker Award. The Pizzicato review of her newest CD is available here.

Benjamin Britten

At the Red House in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, where Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears lived for almost 40 years, a new exhibition, Queer Talk: Homosexuality In Britten’s Britain, is inaugurated today. It will outline the life and work of Benjamin Britten during the period of social change that led to the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality. Read More →

Ben Gernon

The 27-year-old British conductor Ben Gernon has been announced as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. He will take up the position in autumn 2017 and conduct the orchestra in a number of concerts each year, at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and elsewhere. In 2013 Gernon won the  Salzburg Festival Young Conductor’s Award and became a Dudamel Fellow with the LA Philharmonic the same year.

The St. Louis Symphony and the American Federation of Musicians, Local 2-197, announced an agreement on a new five-year labour contract reached more than seven months prior to the expiration of the previous contract. Read More →

Der 23-jährige deutsche Geiger Matthias Well hat den Fanny Mendelssohn-Förderpreis 2017 erhalten. Die Auszeichnung ist mit 10.000 Euro dotiert und soll für Konzeption und Realisierung einer Debüt-Aufnahme genutzt werden, die bei dem Label Genuin erscheint. Matthias Well erhielt seinen ersten Violinunterricht im Alter von vier Jahren. 2009 wurde er Jungstudent an der Münchner Musikhochschule, wo er derzeit bei Prof. Julia Fischer studiert. 2010 wurde er Stipendiat bei ‘Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now’.

The Jury with the General Manager of the Penderecki Centre, Adam Balas (4th from the right) at the bust of Krzysztof Penderecki

The ICMA Jury held their General Assembly 2017 at the European Penderecki Center for Music in Luslawice, Poland. The Jury members decided upon the Special Awards for the coming years, set up the deadlines for the votes for the Awards 2018. One major decision was made for the audio categories. Read More →

French musicologist and biographer of Gustav Mahler, Henry-Louis de La Grange dies last Friday. La Grange was born in Paris in 1924 of an American mother and a French father. He studied the humanities in Paris and New York and literature at Aix-en-Provence University and at the Sorbonne. Read More →