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The Philadelphia Orchestra opens its annual August season in the North Country of New York state.
...MORE | See all stories on this topic ...Here | Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Nationwide CD sales have continued to plummet. Figures for the first half of this year show a 15 percent decrease compared with the same time last year. Digital sales continue a steady ascent, even among classical fans who were at first slow to get into downloading. But many classical listeners still prefer to buy their music on CD at retail shops. ...More
A cellist's collection of autographs of some of the greatest names in 20th Century classical music is to be sold. In between rehearsals, Ambrose Gauntlett persuaded the likes of Elgar, Prokofiev, Stravinksy and Toscanini to sign his book. ...MORE
Marin Alsop Her previous big break came when she was made principal conductor of Britain's Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 2002.
See all stories on this topic | ...more | OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Two new novels exploring the lives of classical musicians living under Nazi rule in WWII-era Germany are raising eyebrows in the dual worlds of music and literature. At the heart of both books is the chilling conflict of great art in the face of great evil, and the inescapably human decisions that must be made in such situations. ...MORE NYTimes “The Savior” (Simon & Schuster), Eugene Drucker
“Variations on the Beast” (Dragon Press), Henry Grinberg
Not all the news from this year's Verbier Festival is about cancellations and substitutions. In conjunction with the classical new media company Medici Arts, the Festival has created a website dedicated to webcasting Verbier's concerts in high-definition audio and video.
At http://www.medici-arts.tv at least one concert will be streamed live each day.
Who will be the next to take the throne at the world-famous Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, which starts Wedensday? DW spoke with the most likely candidate, Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Katharina. Ever since Wolfgang Wagner, director of the Bayreuth Festival and the composer's grandson, announced in 1999 that the search for a worthy successor was underway, festival fans and classical music connoisseurs have been hotly speculating on the lucky heir. ...MORE
American opera singer Teresa Stich-Randall, a soprano praised by Arturo Toscanini as "the find of the century," has died 17 JUL 2007 in Vienna, Austria's Bundestheater said Tuesday without specifying the cause of death. Acclaimed for her interpretations of Mozart's greatest works, Stich-Randall shuttled between the United States and Europe, where she spent most of her professional career singing in the world's great opera houses. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1961 in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" and was a regular at the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna State Opera, where she performed on 355 separate occasions before retiring in 1972. See all stories on this topic | ...more | BIOGRAPHY
Originally produced by German TV in 2006, the six-part Arthaus "Classical Masterpieces" DVD se ries centers on core Austro-German symphonic repertoire, starting with Mozart's Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter." The programs feature a 52-minute documentary plus a full live performance, with the California-born Kent Nagano conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orches ter Berlin. The performance of this symphony balances richness and crispness in the modern Mozart style, attractive if not particularly charismatic. The sound is full- blooded, but the filming, while de tailed, is edited in such a ridiculously busy way that it leaves a viewer with vertigo.
This DVD features a half-hour film tracing the context and content of Dvorák's ever-popular Sym phony No. 9 (nicknamed "From the New World"), as the preface to a full live performance. And what a performance it is -- Claudio Ab bado conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, recorded in true sur round sound. Beyond the exalted playing -- the conductor yielding sounds like a conjurer of spirits in the symphony's Largo -- the musicians were beautifully shot in Palermo, Italy's Teatro Massimo. (This performance, plus Brahms' Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham, is also available on a DVD with the full 2002 Palermo concert.)
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