MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: NEWS performers
Edo de Waart, chief conductor and artistic director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, was named Thursday as the next music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. De Waart led the Minnesota Orchestra from 1986 to 1995. He will succeed Andreas Delfs, who has announced his intention to leave after the 2008-2009 season. De Waart is to serve as music director designate during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons, making his Milwaukee Symphony subscription concert debut in April. 
THE Three Tenors will never reform with a third singer, says tenor Jose Carreras, because it would be disrespectful to the memory of Luciano Pavarotti. "For Placido (Domingo) and myself to do something would betray the memory of Luciano, I don't think that would be ethical," Carreras said in Sydney yesterday. Pavarotti died from pancreatic cancer in September, and Carreras - a leukemia survivor - offered his friend moral support. He said he travelled to Pavarotti's home in Modena, Italy, and called him often. 
The German avant garde composer Hans Otte died on Christmas Day, 2007. His minimalistic work explored music through its most basic elements of sound. Following closely in Stockhausen's footsteps, the avant-garde pianist, Otte, died just a few weeks after his 81st birthday. 
Prague, Dec 21 (CTK) - Czech composer Jiri Pauer died in Prague Friday [21 DEC 2007] at the age of 88, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra general director Vaclav Riedlbauch told CTK. Pauer was chief of the Prague National Theatre's Opera and he was the theatre director in 1979-1989. He participated in the organisation of the Prague Spring music festivals, was a professor at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) and headed the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for over 20 years. Pauer composed many pieces, many of which focus on the brass orchestral instruments, symphonies, and further orchestra pieces, a horn concerto and a trumpet concerto, chamber music pieces, and piano pieces. He also composed five operas. 
Mother and son join the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for a stirring rendition of Felix Mendelssohn's vision of Shakespeare's woodland fantasy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky (pronounced sitt-kuh-VETT-skee) leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and his mother, legendary pianist Bella Davidovich, who will perform Schumann's beautiful Piano Concerto while Sitkovetsky himself takes center stage as soloist on Bach's Violin Concerto No. 1. The concerts take place in Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center on Friday, January 4 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, January 5 at 8:30 p.m.; and Sunday, January 6 at 3 p.m. Famed Russian pianist Bella Davidovich performs Schumann's Piano Concerto. Celebrating her 80th birthday in 2008, she began studying the piano at the age of 6. At 18 she entered the Moscow Conservatory and, in 1949, became the youngest pianist to win the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. She has been touring for more than half a century since then, performing with the most well-known orchestras and conductors around the world. She has performed with her son Dmitry Sitkovetsky since 1966, and the pair has recorded sonatas together by Grieg, Brahms and Ravel. 
1907 Birth of Dutch conductor and composer Willem van OTTERLOO in Winterswijk. d-Melbourne, Australia 1978. Director of Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. 
If you are a classical music lover who is your favourite composer?