Latest news – Page 290
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MasterChef claims another cellist
After a Scottish cellist made it through to the last eight of the UK MasterChef earlier this year, another orchestral cellist went nearly as far in the Australian version. Craig Young, who plays in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, was the 12th of 24 contestants to be eliminated from the show, ...
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Violinist and teacher Aida Stucki dies aged 90
Violinist and pedagogue Aida Stucki, whose pupils included Anne-Sophie Mutter, has died at the age of 90. Born in Cairo to Swiss and Italian parents, Stucki studied with Stefi Geyer and Carl Flesch before launching her career in the 1940s. As well as performing under conductors such as Hermann Scherchen ...
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Czech state recalls old Italian instruments
Czech musicians have had to return old Italian stringed instruments belonging to the Czech state to the vaults of the National Museum in Prague because of fears they could be impounded abroad. Among those affected are violinist Jan Talich and cellist Petr Prause of the Talich Quartet, who had to ...
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Jonathan Crow next concertmaster of Toronto Symphony
Jonathan Crow has been named as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's next concertmaster. Following a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony in which Crow was playing as guest concertmaster, the orchestra's music director, Peter Oundjian, made an impromptu announcement on stage about the violinist's impending appointment. Crow, who is still in his ...
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New online lutherie tech journal launches
A new lutherie research resource, the Savart Journal, has been launched online. It gives open access to peer-reviewed articles about stringed instrument science and technology, and is named after the French physicist Félix Savart (1791–1841), a pioneering researcher in the acoustics of stringed instruments who worked with Vuillaume. The ...
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Conductor Charles Dutoit plans inter-Korean orchestra
Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit is helping to lay the foundations for an orchestra of young musicians from the two Koreas. The conductor is in Pyongyang this week with his violinist wife, Chantal Juillet, for talks with North Korean officials about creating such an ensemble. Juillet is artistic director of the ...
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1721 'Lady Blunt' Stradivari violin sells for £9.8m
The 1721 'Lady Blunt', one of the best-preserved Stradivari violins in existence, was sold yesterday in a Tarisio online auction for £9.8m ($15.9m). The figure, which includes the buyer's premium (the hammer price was £8,750,000), is over four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin. The buyer was ...
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Composer Maxwell Davies attacks phone offenders
Peter Maxwell Davies has branded audience members who allow their phones to ring during concerts 'artistic terrorists'. The 76-year-old composer and Master of the Queen's Music added that he would like to see financial penalities imposed on concertgoers whose phones go off. Maxwell Davies voiced his opinions after a ...
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Three quartets given finalists' prizes at Paolo Borciani competition
The jury of this year's Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Reggio Emilia could not choose an outright winner. The three quartets in the final – the Amaryllis Quartet from Germany and Switzerland, the Meccorre Quartet from Poland, and the Voce Quartet from France – each received a ...
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Violinist David Garrett enshrined at Berlin Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds in Berlin has unveiled a wax figure of violinist David Garrett. The new figure has been placed next to figures of Bach and Beethoven at the tourist attraction. The 30-year-old violinist, who was born in Aachen to an American prima ballerina and a German lawyer, said at the ...
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BBC plans nationwide orchestral celebration for Olympics
Orchestras and performing groups across the UK will take part in a major music festival on the weekend of 3–4 March next year as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The BBC is coordinating the Music Nation festival, which will feature performances and workshops in 45 locations across the ...
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Street busker Darth Fiddler given new violin after assault
A busker in Victoria, Canada, who plays the violin dressed as Darth Vader, has been given a new violin after his instrument was damaged in an assault. After a Twitter campaign appealed for information about the attack on Darth Fidder, who suffered minor injuries in the incident, local store Larsen ...
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Romanian-born quartet cellist Wolfgang Laufer dies at 64
Cellist Wolfgang Laufer has died from lymphoma at the age of 64. Laufer was a member of the Fine Arts Quartet from 1979 until April of this year, and also served as professor of cello at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where the Fine Arts was quartet-in-residence. Born in Romania, ...
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Montreal Baroque music festival to feature six new Brandenburg concertos
This month's Montreal Baroque Festival is including a first performance of six 'new' Brandenburg Concertos. The instrumental works were created from movements of Bach cantatas by the late Bruce Haynes, the oboist and musicologist who wrote the provocative book The End of Early Music. The new Brandenburgs will be performed ...
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Cellist Nelson Cooke receives Order of Australia in Queen's birthday honours list
Cellist Nelson Cooke has been named a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday 2011 Honours list. The 91-year-old received the award in recognition of his work as a teacher and performer. Cooke was principal cellist in the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and held the ...
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Violinist Sergey Malov takes top prize at Michael Hill competition
Russian violinist and violist Sergey Malov has won first prize at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in Auckland, New Zealand. The 27-year-old, who performed Bartók's Violin Concerto no.2 in the final, received NZ$40,000 (£20,000). He also won the chamber music prize and the audience award. Second prize went to ...
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Chinese finalist in New Zealand violin competition persuaded to play by dying mother
A Chinese competitor in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in Auckland fulfilled his mother's last wish by playing in the contest. Xiang Yu, 22, would not have attended the event if it had not been for his dying mother's entreaties that he should go to New Zealand. Xiang's mother ...
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Website to record arts cuts victims
A website is being set up to record all the UK arts projects and organisations that will be lost because of cuts in public funding. The site, called Lost Arts, will also keep a tally of the money lost to the arts and the money lost to the Treasury (drawing ...
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Former prison chaplain accused of helping mob hitman recover antique violin
A priest has been charged with plotting to recover a violin for jailed Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. Calabrese, currently serving a life sentence in a high-security federal prison, allegedly passed messages about the violin to Eugene Klein, who worked as a chaplain at the facility. Calabrese was apparently worried ...
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J.B. Vuillaume cello sells for more than 230,000 euros at Vichy Enchères
A cello by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume sold for €231,730 (including buyer's premium) at Vichy Enchères, setting a new world auction record for the maker. The instrument, made in 1866, was estimated at €120,000–€150,000. The 7–9 June auction in Vichy, France, also set new records for Dominique Peccatte (a cello ...
