American conductor Timothy Myers has been appointed Music Director of Austin Opera (Texas US). The 38-year-old conductor already worked with the Austin Opera as Artistic Advisor since 2018 and Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor since 2020.

British conductor Jan Latham-Koenig is conducting Mahler’s Second Symphony on June 16 at the Novaya Opera Theatre in Moscow, a Pizzicato reader found out,  asking: « If this is true, how can @festivalpuccini hire a conductor with ties with #PutinWarCriminal’s regime? Mayor Giorgio Del Ghingaro, President Luigi Ficacci, are you aware? » That’s the right questions, of course.   Read More →

Yannis Markopoulos, one of Greece’s most important composers, has died at the age of 82. Yannis Markopoulos was born in 1939 in Crete, where he took his first musical lessons in theory and violin, and developed his first influences from the local rhythms. He continued his studies at the Athens Conservatory, In 1963 he was awarded a prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival for his music for the film Little Venuses by Nikos Koundouros and in the same year his ballets Theseus and Hiroshima were performed by new dance companies. Read More →

Fabien Gabel
(c) Maison Simons

Fabien Gabel übernimmt zur Konzertsaison 25–26 die Position des Chefdirigenten beim Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich. Er löst damit Yutaka Sado ab, der seit 2015 an der Spitze des Orchesters steht und ihm auch künftig verbunden bleiben wird. Gabel unterzeichnete heute im Palais Niederösterreich in Wien seinen Vertrag mit einer Laufzeit von zunächst vier Jahren. Read More →

Im Rahmen der bevorstehenden Parlamentswahlen legt L’Alliance Musicale, der Verband der professionellen Musikstrukturen im Großherzogtum Luxemburg, allen politischen Parteien die Sorgen und Wünsche vor, die innerhalb des professionellen Musiksektors festgestellt wurden. Read More →

The 3rd Annual International Stretto Piano Festival will place from July 15-23, 2023 – both online and in-person in New York City at Baruch Performing Arts Center. The festival celebrates the Stretto piano, which has narrower than conventional keys and makes piano playing more equitable, comfortable, and easy for all hand sizes. Read More →

Linus Roth
(c) Kaupo Kikkas

German violinist Linus Roth announced his new project SamBach which, following the live performances and the studio recording in Rio de Janeiro in March, will be released as an album in September. Read More →

Elia Cecino

The Iturbi Prize, organised by the Provincial Council or Diputació of Valencia, has announced the winners of the Valencia International Piano Competition. The Italian pianist Elia Cecino, born in 2001, wins the 2023 Iturbi Prize. The jury awarded the second and third prizes to the Americans Anthony Ratinov and Rachel Breen. Read More →

Sozusagen parallel zu den markigen Worten von Moritz Eggert, dem Präsidenten des Deutschen Komponistenverbandes, zur rückgratlosen Haltung des eng mit Russland verbundenen Teodor Currentzis in Bezug auf den Kriegsherrn Putin leitete letzterer ein Konzert im Wiener Konzerthaus. Uwe Krusch, Pizzicato, hörte die Interpretation der dritten Symphonie von Gustav Mahler, die der griechisch-russische Dirigent mit dem Orchester Utopia, den Damen der Wiener Singakademie, den Wiener Sängerknaben sowie der Altistin Wiebke Lehmkuhl anbot. Read More →

The video of the ICMA Gala Concert played by the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero and featuring many winning artists from the 2023 panel is continuous successful on the YouTube channel of Deutsche Welle. More than 250.000 people saw it since April 21. Enthusiastic comments come from all over the world. Read More →