Why Do We Do This?

This is the most difficult time to be an arts manager in my 26 years in the profession.

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Date: November 25th, 2011
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The classical music world can be obsessed with glitz, celebrity and sex appeal – but not Verbier Festival

Verbier Festival is a glitzy affair

This year’s Verbier Festival – the ultra-classy annual meet of music superstars that happens 1,500m up in the Swiss mountains – has been surreally accident-prone with its turnout of artists. Conductor Charles Dutoit cancelled his opening concert. Thomas Quasthoff cancelled a performance of Elijah. Bryn Terfel substituted for Quasthoff but then lost his voice as a result and cancelled his appearance in a semi-staged Tosca two nights later. For good measure, the advertised Cavaradossi also pulled out. And tonight there should have been a concert with Gidon Kremer – except he’s pulled out too.

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Date: November 23rd, 2011
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Passing the baton

Young maestro Nicholas Carter meets monthly with Credit Suisse chief David Livingstone. Picture: Paul Blackmore Source: The Australian

WHETHER you run a bank with more than 500 employees or an orchestra, managing human capital is about respect and authority. And that’s irrespective of your age, experience or specialty.

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Date: November 18th, 2011
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Still Searching For Bruckner’s True Intentions

J. Löwy/Courtesy of the Cleveland Orchestra

POSTERITY has not always treated Anton Bruckner kindly. The popular image of this composer as an unwitting visionary — “half genius, half klutz,” as the conductor Hans von Bülow once said — developed early on. During Bruckner’s lifetime conservative critics recoiled from his music. Eduard Hanslick called him the “gentlest and most peaceable of men who becomes an anarchist during the act of composition.”

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Date: November 16th, 2011
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Teacher’s pets banished from Tchaikovsky

Pulling the strings ... Valery Gergiev shakes hands with Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of this year's Tchaikovsky competition.
Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/EPA

WHEN conductor Valery Gergiev added the International Tchaikovsky Competition to his portfolio of musical empires, he promised to clean it up and wrench it into the 21st century.

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Date: November 11th, 2011
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One aria at a time

Australian style ... a scene from Gale Edwards' Melbourne production of La Boheme, which is about to open in Sydney.

Lyndon Terracini is tackling some big challenges, so it helps that the man charged with dragging opera into the 21st century can discuss rugby league and the Ring Cycle with equal authority, writes Elicia Murray.

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Date: November 9th, 2011
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The day the music died

FILLING A VOID: Life without music seems hollow.
Picture: Jamie Hanson Source: The Courier-Mail

LLOYD Heale knew something was up when the music on the eighth floor stopped.

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Date: November 4th, 2011
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Running in the family

David Moreau and Marie Feret in a scene from Mozart's Sister
Source: Supplied

WITH the exquisitely beautiful Mozart’s Sister, French director Rene Feret has created the most appealing film about musical genius since — well, perhaps since Milos Forman’s Amadeus, which was about Mozart.

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Date: November 2nd, 2011
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Dispatch from Canada: Toronto Symphony Orchestra strikes gold with the kids

The 2010-11 season has been a tough one for classical music across the continent. In most cities, a sticking of heads in the sand in regard to how technology has changed our relationship with live performance and an insistence that the music itself was enough to fill the hall has left orchestral music standing in the corner wondering why people aren’t noticing how awesome it is anymore.

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Date: October 28th, 2011
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Wunderkind to Take La Fenice Helm


Another success story for El Sistema has emerged, with the announcement that 27-year-old conductor and violinist Diego Matheuz is to be the new resident principal conductor of La Fenice, starting next year. He succeeds Eliahu Inbal and has signed a four-year contract.

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Date: October 26th, 2011
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