Krzysztof Urbański
Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbanski, 41, will become the new Artistic Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Polish Radio announced. His five-year contract begins at the start of the 2024/25 season. He will be the successor of Andrzej Boreyko, who began his tenure in 2019. Urbanski will be the youngest conductor at the helm of this orchestra in its post-war history.
Polish contralto Ewa Podles passed away on Friday January 19. She was 71 years old. Born on April 26, 1952 in Warsaw, Ewa Podles came from a musical family. Introduced to singing by her chorister mother, she then enrolled at the Frédéric Chopin Academy in Warsaw, in Alina Bolechowska’s class. Read More →
Anstatt Blumen warf im Münchner Herkulessaal jemand aus dem Publikum einen Büstenhalter in Richtung des Solisten Ray Chen, nachdem dieser das Tchaikovsky-Violinkonzert mit Royal Scottish National Orchestra und dem Dirigenten Thomas Søndergård aufgeführt hatte. Auf dem schwarzen BH war ein handgestickter Violinschlüssel zu sehen. Der Vorfall sorgte für Erheiterung bei Chen, den Orchestermitgliedern und dem Publikum.
Das ‘Josef Hellmesberger Institut für Streichinstrumente, Gitarre und Harfe in der Musikpädagogik’ wurde in ‘Alma Rosé Institut für Streichinstrumente, Gitarre und Harfe in der Musikpädagogik’ umbenannt, teilte die Uni mit. « Es freut mich außerordentlich, dass erstmals in der über 200-jährigen Geschichte der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien ein Institut den Namen zu Ehren einer bedeutenden, weiblichen Künstlerin trägt“, so Rektorin Ulrike Sych. Read More →
Emmanuel Tjeknavorian
Vienna-based Austrian-Armenian violinist and conductor Emmanuel Tjeknavorian (*1995) has been named the new Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Read More →
London Coliseum
(c) Guillaume de Laubier/ENO
Musicians and performers in the English National Opera have voted to strike on 1 February and possibly beyond. The vote took place after ENO management announced plans to make all of the chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant and re-employ them for six months of the year. It was proposed that some musicians in the orchestra would be offered ad hoc freelance work only. Read More →
Die Bach-Medaille der Stadt Leipzig 2024 geht an den Cembalisten und Pianisten Andreas Staier, in dessen Repertoires die Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs immer eine dominierende Rolle spielte. Die Auszeichnung wird im Rahmen des Bachfestes Leipzig 2024 am 14. Juni überreicht.
Unisono, der Berufsverband und die Gewerkschaft der professionellen Musiker in Deutschland, erteilt der aktuellen Forderung des Bayerischen Ministerpräsidenten Markus Söder, die Zahl der Rundfunkklangkörper in Deutschland auf zwölf zu halbieren, eine klare Absage. Read More →
Today the Jury of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) announced the winners of 26 awards for the 2024 edition. Jury President Remy Franck says: «This year’s ICMA awards were chosen from a nomination list comprising 375 carefully selected productions and a wide range of artists and labels. The winner list comprises many renowned as well as lesser-known and young musicians and no less than 15 international labels! We include again the ICMA Classeek Award which is organized in collaboration with the digital platform Classeek and continue our long lasting cooperation with the International Music Academy Liechtenstein, so that together with the Young Artist Award, we are able to promote three young and highly promising talents. Read More →
American composer Peter Schickele died on 16 January at the age of 88. He has written an imaginary biography of P. D. Q. Bach, a fictitious last son of Johann Sebastian Bach, and completed it with a large number of self-composed parodistic pieces of music that he published under this pseudonym. Schickele regularly ‘discovered’ new old works by P. D. Q. Bach, published them and performed them for the first time, especially in his Christmas concerts in Carnegie Hall. 17 CDs with these compositions have been released. Read More →
