Leonard Slatkin

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra announced today that Leonard Slatkin, 71, has extended his contract as Music Director through the 2017-2018 season, after which he’ll change into a newly created position as music director laureate for at least two more years. Read More →

A rare Ludwig van Beethoven signature will be auctioned by Boston-based, RR Auction, together with items by Wagner and Debussy. Read More →

Ekaterina Gubanova
(c) Bernd Uhlig

The timing of the Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle is a big challenge for opera houses, forced to couple this opera with a second score, or to imagine a conceptual space layout like the attractive choreographic proposal of Pina Bausch in Aix in 1998, for example. In choosing the turbulent stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski, Stéphane Lissner confirms the change of artistic orientation at the Paris Opera, after a long period of lethargy in scenographic options. Read More →

A gift of $250,000 has been made to the Minnesota Orchestra in memory of Lee Henderson. This gift establishes a special artist-led fund, The Bellwether Fund, that will assist in the underwriting of educational and community programming adopted by the Orchestra through the leadership of the Musicians.

Die Bergischen Symphoniker (1995 als Fusion der Remscheider Symphoniker und des Städtischen Orchesters Solingen entstanden) haben den Vertrag von Generalmusikdirektor Peter Kuhn (*1964) bis zum Ende der Saison 2018/19 verlängert. Kuhn ist seit der Saison 2009/10 auf diesem Posten.

Die einzige noch lebende Enkelin von Richard Wagner, Verena Lafferentz-Wagner feiert heute ihren 95. Geburtstag. Sie ist das jüngste Kind von Siegfried und Winifred Wagner. Sie heiratete 1943 den Nazi-Funktionär und SS-Angehörigen Bodo Lafferentz.

Serge Dorny
© Matthias Creutziger

Das Land Sachsen hat dem designierten Intendanten der Semperoper Dresden, Serge Dorny, zu Unrecht gekündigt. Das beschloss die 1. Zivilkammer des Dresdner Landgerichts. Es verlautet, die Kündigung sei « völlig übereilt » und ohne Abmahnung ausgesprochen worden. Ein Pflichtverstoß Dornys sei außerdem nicht zu erkennen. Read More →

Erik Satie

France may have a (rather silent) Erik Satie Foundation and also a website dedicated to the composer, yet one of the best known specialists of Satie’s work, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, together with composer Moritz Eggert and a number of other people, took the initiative to create an International Erik Satie Association based in Königsfeld (Black Forest, Germany). The goal of the association is to organize world-wide events devoted to the works and the memory of Erik Satie.

Xian Zhang
(c) Fred Stucker

Xian Zhang (*1973) has been named Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She will join for three years and conduct around a dozen concerts a year, all over Wales and at the Proms. The Chinese conductor is the first woman to be appointed to lead one of the BBC’s orchestras. Zhang is currently living in Milan, where she is Principal conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. She just has been appointed Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

Jordi Savall
(c) David Ignaszewski

Jordi Savall who had planned to give a concert in the ‘jungle’ migrant camp in Calais, France, from where thousands of migrants hope to reach the United Kingdom, has finally cancelled the concert scheduled for 17 December. The city of Calais invoke security reasons, and Jordi Savall said he had not obtained sufficient guarantees for its safety and that his Hesperion XXI musicians.