classical

The prolific Finnish symphonist and conductor died today aged 80, his son has reported. After an education that he rounded off at Juilliard, Segerstam became chief conductor at Finnish National Opera, and at Stockholm’s Royal […]

The last French maker of accordions, Maugein, has gone into liquidation after 105 years. They blame unfair competition from China, along with the slump brought on by Covid. The last instrument leaves the factory next […]

From a well-known UK entertainment firm: Recall – previous news with obvious error!!! Julian is of course a CELLIST! Not a violinist – I’ve only worked with him for around 10 years!! Brain Fog! Legendary […]

We hear that Graham Walker, Director of the recently scrapped St John’s Voices Choir, has not been resting on laurels. He is the force behind the new Cambridge University Schola Cantorum, the university’s first liturgical […]

The death has been communicated of Dominic Cossa, a stalwart Met baritone in the 1970s and beyond. One record, he sang opposite Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti in L’elisir d’amore and in Handel’s Giulio Cesare […]

Many happy returns to Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s wizard of Cape jazz improvisation. A refugee from apartheid, he has lived most of his adult life in New York, performing under the stage name Dollar Brand. […]

The rising Brazilian violinist Guido Sant’Anna made a headline or two in 2022 by becoming the first South American violinist to win Vienna’s Fritz Kreisler Competition. Guido was 17 at the time. Now 19, Guido […]

Every chamber music lover knows that Beethoven wrote a set of three string quartets in 1806 for Count Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna. Razumovsky employed a house quartet, led by Beethoven’s friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh […]

The New York Times reported approvingly the other day that Atlanta Opera’s turnaround chief Tomer Zevulun made a handsome $700,000 in the company’s last financial year, parlayed down to $550,000 by some anxious PR. Zevulun […]

The Bernard Haitink Conducting Fellowship, founded by Patricia Haitink, has placed a young American on a two-year internship with Sir Simon Rattle at Munich’s BRSO. Sasha Scolnik-Brower, 29, was previously a conducting fellow at the […]