It’s a minute past midnight in New York on January 1, 1954. The partygoers include Rose Bampton-Wilfrid Pelletier Mr. & Mrs. S. Chotzinoff Blair Chotzinoff Mr. & Mrs. Yashia Merovich Guido Cantelli-Iris Cantelli Walter Toscanini […]
There were protests during Christmas mass at Freiburg Cathedral over clerical plans to remove the popular head of the Choir School, Boris Böhmann, after 22 years’ service. ‘The Holy Masses were deliberately disrupted, and there […]
From the Berliner Zeitung: …How dangerous real music making can be was also shown on this last evening of 2024 at the State Opera. Christian Thielemann injured himself on the sharp edge of a score […]
It seems amazing to me that I have not yet featured any music by the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (born 1949). These three quartets date from 1967, 1970 and 1971; Aho’s First Symphony was born […]
A tenor who was audibly below par, an extra who fell into an archaeological dig and a production that failed to justify its investment…. all went wrong at the New Year’s opening of Verdi’s Aida. […]
The French mezzo-soprano Katia Ledoux has gone on social media with a remarkably candid assessement of the perils of facing a fickle Vienna audience. There is good advice here for anyone having to appear before […]
Any guesses? He came into the world in West Hartlepool, the child of Polish-Jewish immigrants, and entered the Royal Academy of Music as a violinist. He came out a violist, the first to make a […]
The numeral 2025 is 45 x 45, a rare, square event in the calendar. The last such year was 1936, which was 44 x 44. Before that, 1849 Then 1764. The post It’s a square […]
The mezzo-soprano Regina Sarfaty, who has died at 90, never got picked to sing at the Met. She was picked by Santa Fe in 1957 while still a student at Juilliard and she went on […]
From Vienna to the world: We are delighted to announce that the 2026 New Year’s Concert will be conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin — marking his first time leading this world-renowned event. The artistic collaboration between […]
