Gustavo Dudamel
Photo: Mathew Imagaing

The American Press praises Gustavo Dudamel for his conducting debut at the White House. The Venezuelan conductor was due to deliver the key note speech when President Obama awarded the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Thursday afternoon. When, during luncheon at the White House, Dudamel heard a performance by the Marine Chamber Orchestra, he could not resist to conduct the band himself, what he did spontaneously, earning much applause.

'Cité de la musique' at Ile Seguin
(c) Shigeru Ban & Jean de Gastines

The new Musical City at Ile Seguin in Boulogne-Billancourt, a Western suburb of Paris, which is supposed to become a tough competitor for the new Philharmonic Hall in the East, has been renamed and is called now La Seine Musicale, acoustically combining the name of the river Seine and the French word scène, stage. It is due to open in 2017. The € 170 million project, designed by Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines will be equipped with a concert hall, an auditorium, rehearsal studios, a music school and shops.

Markus Stenz
(c) Catrin Moritz

After Myung Whun-Chung stepped down in December 2015,  the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra has now announced two major new appointments: Thierry Fischer has been named Principal Guest Conductor and Markus Stenz Conductor-in-Residence, with effect from the start of the 2017 season. Read More →

Seit Mai 2015 besuchen musikinteressierte Internetuser die Online-Opernplattform ‘The Opera Platform‘. Sie basiert auf der Partnerschaft zwischen dem Dachverband für Opernhäuser und -festivals in Europa Opera Europa, dem Kultursender ARTE und 15 europäischen Opernhäusern und wird vom Programm ‘Kreatives Europa’ der EU-Kommission unterstützt. Seit Bestehen der Plattform nutzten 1.092.609 Opernliebhaber das Angebot, die Videos wurden inzwischen 1.601.059 Mal gestreamt. Read More →

French city Le Havre (Normandy) has launched a vast project boosting musical experiences. Baptized ‘Vibrate in Le Havre’, the plan will support practice of music, creation and listening. According to the mayor of the city, Édouard Philippe, Le Havre has a very good musical infrastructure, yet the population does not use it sufficiently. Read More →

Lukasz Krupinski

Twenty-four-year-old Polish pianist Lukasz Krupinski has been awarded First Prize at the San Marino Piano Competition. In addition to the first prize, he received the critics’ prize, the audience prize and a special award from the San Marino Symphony Orchestra. Ukrainian-born Dmytro Choni from Austria, won Second Prize and Meng-Sheng Shen (Taiwan) was third. Thirty pianists took part in the contest.

Chaired by Pierre Amoyal the Jury of the 2016 George Enescu International Violin Competition (Bucharest) has awarded First Prize to 23 year old Gyehee Kim from South Korea. Gyehee Kim is a graduate of the Seoul National University, and she acquired renown as a former prize winner at the Isang Yun International Violin Competition and the Tchaikovsky International Competition for Young Violinists. 2nd and 3rd prizes were awarded to Donghyun Kim, 16, from South Korea and Erzhan Kulibaev, 29, from Kazakhstan.

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg

Am 24. September laden die Orchestermusiker, der Chefdirigent Gustavo Gimeno und das Team des Hauses herzlich dazu ein, einen Blick hinter die Kulissen der Philharmonie zu werfen.Bei freiem Eintritt bietet ‘Orchestramania’ zahlreiche Angebote zum Zuhören und Mitmachen. Große und kleine Konzerte, Musiktheater, Instrumentenworkshops und Führungen geben Jung und Alt einen Einblick in die faszinierende Welt eines symphonischen Orchesters. Mit etwas Glück kann man sogar selbst auf das Dirigentenpodest steigen und vom Chefdirigent persönlich in die Kunst des Dirigierens eingewiesen werden, Das komplette Programm des Tages ist auf der Internetseite der Philharmonie abrufbar.

Salle Pleyel, Paris

Since years, the ex-wife of the former owner of Salle Pleyel in Paris, Carla-Maria Tarditi is fighting against the conversion of the famous hall into a location for non-classical music. Her husband sold the hall to the French state in 2009, and since the management of the new Philharmonic hall in the North-eastern part of the French capital was determined to rule out any possible concurrence, they decided to transform it into an establishment for commercial music. Therefore, the hall has been completely refurbished and acoustically adapted. It is due to open next Saturday. Read More →

Music life in Novosibirsk fails to calm down. The General Director of the Novosibirsk State Philharmonic, Tatiana Lyudmilina, has unexpectedly be dismissed by  the Minister of Culture of the Novosibirsk region, Igor Reshetnikov. According to Lyudmilina, no reason was given fir her dismissal. She was on this post since January 2014.