Latest news – Page 291

  • Article

    Cellist Nelson Cooke receives Order of Australia in Queen's birthday honours list

    2011-06-12T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    Violinist Sergey Malov takes top prize at Michael Hill competition

    2011-06-12T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    Chinese finalist in New Zealand violin competition persuaded to play by dying mother

    2011-06-11T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    Website to record arts cuts victims

    2011-06-09T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    Former prison chaplain accused of helping mob hitman recover antique violin

    2011-06-09T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    J.B. Vuillaume cello sells for more than 230,000 euros at Vichy Enchères

    2011-06-09T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Article

    London Symphony Orchestra bassist lands conductor post

    2011-06-08T00:00:00Z

    The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden has appointed British double bassist and conductor Michael Francis as its principal conductor and artistic adviser from July 2012. Francis, who is in his mid-thirties, has played double bass in the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) since 2003. He got his first big conducting break ...

  • Article

    Mozart music for violin and keyboard withdrawn from auction

    2011-06-08T00:00:00Z

    A booklet of Mozart sonatas was withdrawn from auction after a claim that it was donated to a charity shop 'in error'. The first edition of the Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin K10–15, dating from 1765, had been expected to fetch up to £3,000 in the sale at Sotheby's in ...

  • Article

    Japanese violinist Mayumi Kanagawa wins Klein contest in San Francisco

    2011-06-07T00:00:00Z

    Violinist Mayumi Kanagawa has won the $12,000 first prize at the Irving M. Klein International String Competition in San Francisco. The 16-year-old from Japan is an academy student of Robert Lipsett and Arnold Steinhardt at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles. Second prize went to cellist Matthew ...

  • Article

    Debut for jazz and classical double bass ensemble

    2011-06-06T00:00:00Z

    A new ensemble of 12 double bassists has its debut concert on Friday 10 June at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. The Bassment comprises six jazz bassists and six classically trained bassists. The jazz section is led by Lex Futshane, one of South Africa's leading jazz bassists, and the classical ...

  • Article

    Charity to benefit from Mozart violin and keyboard sonatas

    2011-06-05T00:00:00Z

    A booklet of rare Mozart sheet music that was discovered in a charity shop is to be sold at Sotheby's on Wednesday 8 June. The second printing of a first edition of the Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin K10–15 was found in a box of sheet music at the Oxfam ...

  • Article

    Luthier Christoph Götting wins national craft award

    2011-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Violin maker Christoph Götting was the overall winner in The Balvenie Masters of Craft awards, a new awards programme set up to celebrate craftspeople in the UK. Götting, who is based in Hampshire, trained in Mittenwald and worked as a restorer at J.&A. Beare in London for 21 years. He ...

  • Article

    US clean sweep at Primrose Viola Competition

    2011-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Ayane Kozasa has won first prize at the Primrose International Viola Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The 24-year-old American, who studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Misha Amory and Roberto Díaz, received $5,000 and other prizes including a viola by Spanish luthier Jardón Rico. Second prize went to ...

  • Article

    Matteo Fedeli to play Piazzolla with four Stradivari violins in Cremona

    2011-06-02T00:00:00Z

    Violinist Matteo Fedeli will use a different Stradivari for each movement of Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires at a charity concert in Cremona on 2 July. Fedeli will play the c.1730 'Vesuvius' and the 1715 'Cremonese', both of which are owned by the city of Cremona, and the 1695 'Sandars' ...

  • Article

    Violinist Jun Iwasaki to join Nashville Symphony as concertmaster

    2011-06-02T00:00:00Z

    Jun Iwasaki is leaving his concertmaster position at the Oregon Symphony to take the leader's chair at the Nashville Symphony. The Tokyo-born Iwasaki, who studied with William Preucil at the Cleveland Institute of Music, will start his new job in September.

  • Article

    Violinists Frang and Repin win Edison awards

    2011-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Violinists Vilde Frang and Vadim Repin have been named among the winners of this year's Edison Klassiek music awards. Frang won the Debut award for her recording of the Sibelius and Prokofiev First concertos on EMI with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne under Thomas Søndergård. Repin won the Chamber Music ...

  • Article

    Two biopics about Italian composer Vivaldi in the works

    2011-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Shooting is set to start on one of two rival Vivaldi biopics. Director Boris Damast will begin filming Vivaldi this September in Venice, Hungary, Germany and Bruges. Young actors Max Irons and Claire Foy have been cast in the film, and Jacqueline Bisset, Alfred Molina, Tom Wilkinson and Sebastian Koch ...

  • Article

    Australian Chamber Orchestra acquires £1.2m Stradivari violin

    2011-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Satu Vänskä, the assistant leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), is to play on a Stradivari bought by the orchestra's own instrument fund. The violin, a composite of two instruments made by Stradivari between 1728 and 1729, was purchased from London dealer J.&A. Beare. It has been valued at ...

  • Article

    Vancouver Symphony players to teach at music school

    2011-05-31T00:00:00Z

    A new community music school in Vancouver opens for business on 2 August, with classes starting in September. The VSO School of Music is a project of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, 32 of whose players are on the new school's 49-strong faculty. Individual and group classes will be available, and ...

  • Article

    Violinist Mary Rowell quits ETHEL after 13 years

    2011-05-31T00:00:00Z

    ETHEL violinist Mary Rowell is leaving the ensemble she co-founded 13 years ago. She is retiring because of a heart condition, and will be replaced by Jennifer Choi, a former member of the Miró Quartet. Since its formation in 1998, ETHEL has performed more than 100 commissioned works in ...