Latest news – Page 290
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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 ...
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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 ...
