Four scores by Italian composer Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) have been discovered in the library of the Ursel Castle in Hingene, Belgium. Among them are three long lost operas, Il quadro parlante, Il geloso e l’audace and Le metamorfosi di Pasquale ossia Farsa as well as the cantata L’eccelsa gara. Presumably the music was brought there via the descendants of Spontini’s wife Céleste Erard. Now, a research group from the Royal Antwerp Conservatory will analyze the scores and prepare them for eventual performance and recording.

Fabio Luisi

Italian conductor Fabio Luisi (*1959), who was scheduled to become chief conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony in Copenhagen in 2017, will start his job earlier than planned, on 1 September 2016.

Opéra Bastille, Paris

The employees of the National Opera in Paris are on strike, again and again! The performance of Verdi’s Aida scheduled for today, Tuesday 28 June 2016 at 7:30 pm at the Opera Bastille is cancelled. The management apologises and propose either a ticket exchange for another performance of the same production, or a refund.

First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn Heights, New York hosted the first concert of the Refugee Orchestra Project conceived by conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya. On the dedicated website one can read: « Lidiya Yankovskaya realized in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis that many of her own closest colleague and friends were not aware that she and many others like her had come to the U.S. as refugees to seek asylum from violence and persecution abroad. Due to the traumatic nature of their experience, refugees are often hesitant to speak openly about their history, and it is common for people to be unaware that their neighbors, coworkers, and friends have been taken in by the United States as refugees at a time of crisis. »

Nicolas Mansfield, Manager of the Dutch Touring Opera in Enschede will soon have its own Brexit. The newspaper Turantia reports that the Brit who lives in the Netherlands for 28 years, has applied on Monday morning for the Dutch nationality.

The Department Council of Val-d’Oise (Ile-de-France Region) has voted a budget of €600,000 to support various festivals, including three devoted to classical music.  Among the beneficiariesare the Baroque festival of Pontoise, the Royaumont Festival and the Festival of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich died yesterday at the age of 85. Born in 1931 in Berlin, he studied with Arthur Honegger and Olivier Messiaen. From 1970 to 1976 he was Lecturer in Musical Analysis at the Royal Conservatory in Mons. He worked on numerous radio broadcasts and co-founded the Belgian music magazine Crescendo for which he has been major contributor. He wrote books on Olivier Messiaen, Claude Debussy, Arthur Honegger and Bohuslav Martinu and set up musical catalogues of the works of Honegger and Martinu.

Russell Ger

The Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra (NY) has named Australian conductor Russell Ger Music Director following a two-year search that involved more than 100 candidates. He is succeeding Woomyung Choe, who founded the orchestra in 1995 and led it for 20 years. Ger is currently the Music Director of the Park East Synagogue in New York City.

Gustavo Dudamel
Photo: Mathew Imagaing

Der venezolanische Dirigent Gustavo Dudamel hat seine Villa in Los Angeles in  den Verkauf gegeben, die er im Januar 2015 gekauft hatte. Nach der Trennung von seiner Frau ist ihm das 340 Quadratmeter große Haus zu groß geworden und er will es nun für 3,3 Millionen Dollar verkaufen.

Der aus dem tschechischen Ostrava stammende Dirigent Jaroslav Opela ist im Alter von 81 Jahren gestorben. Opela wurde 1958 Chefdirigent der Staatlichen Philharmonie in Gottwaldov. Doch 1966 flüchtete er nach Deutschland. Sein Mentor Rafael Kubelik holte ihn zum Bayerischen Rundfunk, wo er das Münchner Rundfunkorchester dirigierte. Von 1992 bis 2000 war er dessen Chefdirigent. Read More →