Latest news – Page 289
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California violin maker puts faith in burnt sugar
A California luthier's two-year quest to perfect his varnish formula coincided with a spiritual self-examination. David Morse, who has made instruments for players in the San Francisco Symphony, and a violin for the orchestra's conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt, hit upon a new formula involving burnt sugar after two years of ...
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Violinists Catherine Cho and Joseph Lin join Juilliard faculty
The Juilliard School has appointed Catherine Cho and Joseph Lin to its violin and chamber music faculty for the start of the 2011–12 academic year. Cho has been an assistant faculty member to Itzhak Perlman since 1999 and has taught in the school's pre-college division since 1996. Joseph Lin joined ...
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Bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker dies
Bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker has died at the age of 85. The son of an old-time fiddle player, Baker was born in Burdine, Kentucky. He took up guitar before becoming interested in the fiddle after listening to Western swing fiddler and bandleader Bob Wills and jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. After ...
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Amaryllis Quartet and Trio Rafale win at Melbourne Chamber Music Competition
The Amaryllis Quartet won first prize in the quartets division of the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. The Swiss–German quartet also took the overall grand prize. The Kelemen Quartet from Hungary took second prize and received the Musica Viva Australia Prize and the audience prize. Third prize went to the ...
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Minnesota Orchestra hosts Fantasy Camp for amateur musicians
The Minnesota Orchestra is taking a page out of the Baltimore Symphony's book by launching an immersive programme for adult amateur musicians. The orchestra's two-day Fantasy Camp this September will offer up to 50 people the chance to rehearse and perform with the orchestra in Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall. Participants will ...
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Double bassist wins RPS scholarship
Toby Hughes has become the first double bassist to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society's Julius Isserlis Scholarship for study abroad. The scholarship will enable the 18-year-old to study with Božo Paradžik in Lucerne. Cellist Victoria Harrild, 23, also won funding through an RPS award to study for her master's at ...
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Competition offers UK kids the chance to try a Stradivari violin
Children in the UK are being given the chance to swap their student violin for a Stradivari in a new competition from the ABRSM and PureSolo. The music exam board and the online recording platform have teamed up with Cremona-based restorer and maker Eric Blot to offer one lucky student ...
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Anthony Hopkins pens waltz for violinist André Rieu
Anthony Hopkins has composed a waltz for violinist André Rieu and his orchestra. The star of The Silence of the Lambs was in the audience when Rieu gave the new piece, And The Waltz Goes On, its premiere in Vienna recently. The Oscar-winning British actor has previously composed music for films ...
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Appeal saves London Mozart Players chamber orchestra
The London Mozart Players, one of the UK's oldest chamber orchestras, has staved off the possibility of closure after a drive to raise urgent funds was a success. Two months after news emerged that the chamber orchestra was on the brink, its funding appeal is on track to reach its ...
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Czech violinist Josef Suk dies aged 81
Josef Suk, the Czech violinist whose lineage stretched back to Dvo?ák, has died at the age of 81. Suk was Dvo?ák's great grandson, and the grandson of Josef Suk, the violinist and composer.Born in Prague in 1929, Suk studied violin with Jaroslav Kocian and made his public debut in 1940. ...
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Violinist Paul Kantor to join Rice University's Shepherd School of Music
Violin pedagogue Paul Kantor is to join the faculty of Rice University in Houston next July. He is currently professor of violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his students have included Caroline Goulding, the winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant earlier this year. Kantor will teach at ...
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Christopher Nupen's documentary on violinist Paganini set for DVD release
Paganini's Daemon, a documentary on the violinist–composer by Christopher Nupen, will be released on DVD on 26 September. The film, which was shown on BBC Four in the UK in February 2010, looks at the legends surrounding Paganini, explores his personality and technical prowess, and features extracts of his music. ...
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Violinist Gidon Kremer blasts Russian leadership
Violinist Gidon Kremer has issued a spirited attack via CNN against Russian authorities over the treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, and Lebedev, his close associate, have been in prison since 2003 on charges of fraud and tax evasion respectively. They were recently convicted ...
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Arts Council England unveils £40m philanthropy fund to help organisations raise private donations
A new £40m fund has been launched with the intention of increasing private giving to the arts. The Catalyst Arts scheme from Arts Council England will give £30m to organisations who already have some experience of fundraising but who need practical help to raise more money. Arts organisations with little ...
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Tchaikovsky Violin Competition announces winners
Narek Hakhnazaryan from Armenia won the first prize and gold medal in the cello division of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. The 22-year-old, who most recently studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston with Laurence Lesser, received €20,000. Second prize went to Edgar Moreau, 17, from France. Belarussian Ivan Karizna, ...
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Detroit Symphony names Kimberly Ann Kaloyanides Kennedy acting concertmaster
Kimberly Ann Kaloyanides Kennedy has been made acting concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for the 2011–12 season. She fills the chair left vacant after Emmanuelle Boisvert announced in May that she was leaving to join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Kennedy joined the Detroit orchestra in 1998 and has served ...
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Longtime Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Joseph Golan dies
Violinist and teacher Joseph Golan has died in Chicago at the age of 80. Golan, who studied with the violinist and composer George Perlman, joined the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner in 1953 and served as principal second violin from 1969 until his retirement in 2002.
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Russian conductor apologises for remarks aimed at Armenian cellist
A conductor at the Tchaikovsky Competition has apologised for allegedly insulting the nationality and racial origin of an Armenian competitor. Mark Gorenstein was rehearsing the Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra of Russia prior to performing with cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, when he appeared to refer to the competitor as an 'aul' (a ...
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Artists call for UK visa shake-up
More than a hundred leading authors, artists and musicians have co-signed an open letter to the Home Secretary, calling on the government to make it easier for writers and performers to visit the UK on a short-term basis. The signatories to the letter want short-term visits by non-EU artists ...
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Sony signs violinist Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy has signed an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical. The violinist's first recordings for the label will include his new work Four Elements, arrangements of music by Duke Ellington, and a new interpretation of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. He will record all these works with his recently formed ...
