André de Ridder appointed as ENO’s Music Director, with his first conducting engagement as Music Director Designate in February 2026.The 2025/26 Season includes 12 productions and concerts across London and Greater Manchester, featuring 5 new […]
Newly installed as chief conductor of Danish National Philharmonic Orchestra, Christian Øland was installed today as GMD in Magdeburg, starting in August. He’s 30, a graduate of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. The post Baton […]
The music director in Freiburg am Breisgau, André de Ridder, was today named music director of English National Opera. He starts in autumn 2027, by which time there may not be much left of the […]
Der Spiegel reports that 36 of the 63 dancers of the Hamburg Ballet have written to the cultural senator complaining about ‘a toxic working environment’. Five of the 11 First Soloists have resigned after falling […]
The Leonie Sonnings Talent Awards are the biggest thing in Danish opera. This year’s winner, announced this morning, is a young soprano at at the Royal Danish Opera who was the subject of a TV […]
The conductor has let it be known that the quarter-million Euros he has received from Siemens will go towards buying instruments for the period ensemble he is developing at Bavarian Radio in Munich. ‘I am […]
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland has announced the death of Professor David Watkin, a leading cellist and conductor of baroque ensembles. Before taking up the professorship, Watkin was principal cellist of English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre […]
The all-controlling head of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theatres has complained that facilities in Moscow are inadequate for his company. He told a press conference: ‘The Bolshoi Theatre teams, in my view, (…) need new […]
Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann Alon Kariv (piano); English Chamber Orchestra / Roberto Forés Veses (conductor). Cadogan Hall, London, 11.05.2025 Mendelssohn Overture, ‘The Hebrides,’ Op. 26 (1829) Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 […]
This month I’m launching Backgrounders, a monthly illustrated intensive look into a person or event in the arts news that I don’t have space for on Ruth Leon’s Theatrewise. Please let me know if you’d like to receive Backgrounders. There […]
