classical

Christoph Meyer, 64, is taking early retirement as General Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. He says: ‘After consulting a doctor, my health condition unfortunately does not allow me to continue to lead the […]

A new ensemble, La Philharmonica, is putting on an alternative Vienna concert on New Year’s Day, we are informed. Seven women members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will play works by women composers at 4pm […]

Message from the BBC Symphony Orchestra: We regret to announce that Jennifer Pike is no longer able to perform at Perth Concert Hall on 21 February 2025, as she recovers from a micro-fracture on one […]

Many Russians will think highly of Valery Gergiev’s action in skipping out in mid-opera to conduct a Putin aria halfway across Moscow. Russian audiences are used to being kept waiting, and worse things happened under […]

Days after Sir John Eliot Gardiner flew in with his new team, the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir performed an identical programme at the Elbphilharmonie, conducted by Christophe Rousset (pictured). The performance was totally […]

The over-booked Finn had a hard time at his Vienna Philharmonic debut this weekend with Mahler’s sixth Symphony. The experienced critic for Der Standard, Stefan Ender, found the performance  ‘incredibly loud’, resulting in ‘a levelling […]

Birmingham Royal Ballet has just announced the death of its dedicated chief executive Caroline Miller. It is with great sadness that Birmingham Royal Ballet today announces that CEO Caroline Miller passed away in the early […]

The legendary tabla player, composer, actor and producer Zakir Hussain died today in a US hospital at the age of 73. A government minister declared him ‘irreplaceable’. Zakir Hussain shot to fame in the 1970s, […]

The emeritus music director of the Chicago Symphony seems charmingly vague about his successor in an interview with Dennis Polkow. Or maybe he’s just kidding, with a touch of malice. Excerpt: “I didn’t want to […]

An ecstatic reception of Petrenko’s Mahler Ninth with the Israel Philharmonic has been accompanied by thoughtful reviews. Petrenkko himself wrote in a programme note that he did not accept the collective conducting wisdom that the […]