Slipped Disc

Nat King Cole would have been 106 years old today. Born in Montgomery, Alabama on March 17, 1919, his mother was a church organist and taught him to play all kinds of music, “jazz, gospel, […]

HarrisonParrott’s Paris office has signed the Polish conductor Barbara Dragan, formerly with a Vienna boutique. Trained in Hamburg and Berlin, Dragan, 35, presided over pre-recordings of the 2024 Olympics with two Paris orchestras. The post […]

Conductor Oksana Lyniv commissioned a work that evokes a night in Odessa in March 2024, when a rocket attack claimed the lives of four infants and a baby. Five Interrupted Lullabies is by the Ukrainian […]

The US Presdident has signed an order shutting down the Voice of America, which broadcast chiefly to Russia and eastern Europe. All 1,300 staff have been sent home. America has gone isolationist. The post Trump […]

The 2025/6 programme was rolled out this morning under the enigmatic Sartrean slogan: ‘Man is what he makes of himself.’ Here goes: PREMIERES OF THE BAYERISCHE STAATSOPER 2025–26 THE ENGLISH CAT The first premiere of […]

The US violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley, first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic since 2014, has been co-opted by the Curtis Institute as its first ‘visiting faculty member’. He will devote one residency each semester to mentoring […]

Washington sources say the president will offer personal input on future programming and will demand to nominate the artists who receive the Center’s annual honours. Since the board is now composed of Trump stooges, his […]

Tonight in Berlin, the Staatsoper launches a new production of The Excursions of Mr Broucek. Tomorrow in Munich, the Staatsoper opens a new Katya Kabanova. This is not a Janacek anniversary year. It is routine […]

The conductor takes time out in Berlin to talk through his first performance of Janacek’s comic opera with its leading singer Peter Hoare. In true Broucek fashion, they have a beer and bratwurst. The beer, […]

The American mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Russo, who sang Fricka in Fulham Opera’s Ring cycle, has died of cancer. She was cantor and soloist at Saint Paul Roman Catholic Church in Greenwich, Ct., for 25 years. The […]