Latest news – Page 263
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ArticleDmitry Shebalin (1930–2013)
Russian viola player and pedagogue Dmitry Shebalin has died at the age of 83. For more than four decades he performed with the Borodin Quartet, one of the most acclaimed chamber music groups of the 20th century.Born in 1930, Shebalin was the son of the composer and teacher Vissarion Shebalin. ...
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ArticleAssistant concertmaster leaves Minnesota Orchestra
Another of the Minnesota Orchestra's locked-out musicians has quit the ensemble. Assistant concertmaster Stephanie Arado (pictured) has resigned to take up a teaching post at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. Arado, who joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 1991, wrote in an email to the orchestra's leadership: 'My ...
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ArticleErhu player receives Royal College of Music degree
London’s Royal College of Music (RCM) has awarded its first degree in a traditional Chinese instrument. Singaporean musician Chew Jun Ru, 24, has graduated with a BMus in performance on the erhu, a two-stringed bowed instrument sometimes known as a ‘Chinese violin’.Chew, 24, has principally studied at Singapore’s Nanyang Academy ...
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ArticleEx-Chetham's teacher Malcolm Layfield arrested
Malcolm Layfield, former head of strings at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), has been arrested on suspicion of three historic rapes. The 61-year-old, who quit his post at the RNCM in February, was detained over alleged offences of rape against three girls, two aged 16 and one aged ...
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ArticleFernando Grillo (1946–2013)
Fernando Grillo, the Italian double bassist, composer and teacher, has died at the age of 67. Closely associated with Italy’s avant-garde movement, he experimented with new forms of sound production and collaborated with composers including Salvatore Sciarrino, Harrison Birtwistle, Iannis Xenakis and Luciano Berio. Karlheinz Stockhausen once dubbed Grillo ‘the ...
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ArticleAdrian Shepherd (1939–2013)
Cellist and ensemble director Adrian Shepherd has died at the age of 74. For 20 years he served as principal cellist in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), but was best known as the founder of the chamber ensemble Cantilena, which mainly comprised players from the orchestra.Born in 1939 in ...
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ArticleArgentina's first stringed-instrument gallery set for opening
A museum in Buenos Aires is to open a new permanent exhibition hall dedicated to stringed instruments in October. Officials at the Isaac Fernández Blanco Museum of Spanish–American Art believe that the new gallery will be the first such exhibition space in Argentina. Among the instruments to be displayed is ...
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ArticleViolinist, 17, wins Schleswig-Holstein competition
Munich-based violinist Louise Wehr has won the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival’s competition for young musicians, which this year was devoted to the violin. The 17-year-old received €5,000 as well as the €500 audience prize at the competition’s final on 3 August.Born in 1996, Wehr (pictured) performed Chausson’s Poème and Bach’s Partita ...
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ArticlePittsburgh Symphony concertmaster joins Carnegie Mellon faculty
Noah Bendix-Balgley, concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO), is to join the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in September 2013. The 28-year-old violinist (pictured), who has occupied the concertmaster’s chair since 2011, will coach student quartets. Bendix-Balgley was the first violinist of the Athlos Quartet from ...
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ArticleToby Saks (1942–2013)
Cellist and teacher Toby Saks died on 1 August at the age of 71. A soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue, she founded the Seattle Chamber Music Society in 1982 and served as artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for more than three decades.Born in 1942, Saks began learning ...
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ArticleColumbus Symphony recruits new concertmaster
The Columbus Symphony in Ohio, US, has named Canadian Jean-Sébastien Roy as its new concertmaster. His appointment ends an 18-month search by the orchestra. Roy, who performed as guest concertmaster with the orchestra in the 2012–13 season, will lead the orchestra from the beginning of the 2013–14 season in October.Roy ...
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ArticleStolen £1.2m Stradivarius violin recovered
UK police have recovered a 1696 Stradivarius violin, more than two and half years after it was stolen from Korean violinist Min-Jin Kym. The instrument, discovered intact with some very minor damage including a small crack on the front, was recovered in its case on 18 July, along with a ...
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ArticleUS music camp to teach beginner strings to amputee children
A new music camp for amputee and limb-different children who want to learn stringed instruments or piano launches next week in Cincinnati, US.The Cincinnati Adaptive Music Camp will provide students with any adaptive devices, such as special fittings or instrument platforms, that they need to be able to ...
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ArticleTwo violinists share top prize at Cooper International Competition
Kyumin Park, 16, from South Korea, and 18-year-old William Ching-Yi Wei, from Taiwan, were joint first-prize winners of the Cooper International Violin Competition in Cleveland, US.Park (pictured) and Wei each received $10,000. The second prize of $6,000 went to Ming Liu, 18, from China. All three violinists, who performed in ...
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Newark students complete late maker's cello in two-week project
In a special project to benefit the UK-based Rowan Armour-Brown (RAB) Trust, a group of students from the Newark School of Violin Making have completed an unfinished cello by Brian Laurence, who died in 2012. Laurence, who was based in Doncaster, began making the cello in 1989 when he ...
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ArticleViolist plays national anthem at her US citizenship ceremony
Carol Cook, the newly appointed principal violist of the Chicago Lyric Opera, performed the US national anthem at her own citizenship ceremony on Monday 22 July. The Scottish-born Cook was one of more than 140 people from 53 countries who were naturalised as US citizens at the ...
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ArticleGidon Kremer plans concert to promote human rights in Russia
Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer has announced plans to hold a special concert in Berlin to promote awareness of the human-rights situation in Russia. Along with his own chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica, Kremer has stated that cellist Nicolas Altstaedt will perform at the concert, as well as pianists ...
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ArticleSeven SPCO string players take retirement option
Ten musicians from the St Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) have retired from the ensemble. Seven are string players, and all the retiring musicians have played in the orchestra for at least 30 years. An incentivised retirement package for players aged 55 and older was part of ...
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ArticleAustrian double bassist and historian Alfred Planyavsky dies aged 89
Austrian double bassist and historian Alfred Planyavsky died on 18 June at the age of 89. A long-serving musician in several Vienna-based ensembles, he wrote extensively on the history of the double bass and the music of his homeland. Born in Vienna in 1924, Planyavsky received ...
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ArticleRoyal Liverpool Philharmonic gets £7.5m to revamp its home
The home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) is set to be refurbished in 2014. Arts Council England (ACE) has awarded a grant of £7.5m towards the £12m revamp of the Grade II-listed Philharmonic Hall (pictured). After receiving £634,000 in seed funding from ACE in ...
