MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: MILESTONES 2008
Giuliano Ciannella, an active exponent of the lyric tenor and Verdi repertory in the 1980s, has died, 13 JAN 2008. A student of Carlo Bergonzi, the tenor made his professional debut at Teatro Nuovo, Milan, in 1974, and arrived at La Scala in 1976, as Cassio in Otello. His first appearances with the Met were as Alfredo in spring 1979 Parks concerts of La Traviata: his official Met debut came the following autumn, as Cassio in a season-opening Otello that was also telecast on Live from the Met. 
Sergej Larin, a Russian tenor who found praise in European and American houses singing lirico-spinto roles as well as Russian repertory that included Boris Godunov's Grigory and Onegin's Lensky, has died following a long illness. Larin, who would have been 52 in March, died on January 13, 2008, in Bratislava. 
Manchester's Halle Orchestra is 150 years old. And what a difference it's made to the cultural life of the city...... The Hallé's 150th Anniversary Concert is at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (photo) on 30 January. The Hallé 150 season continues throughout the year... 
Today, the Honolulu Symphony has begun its second century of bringing great music to the Hawaiian Islands. Founded in 1900, the Honolulu Symphony claims the distinction of being the oldest American orchestra west of the Rocky Mountains! The Honolulu Symphony has undergone a series of transformations over the course of its first century, responding to the challenges and opportunities of the times. It has endured two World Wars, the Great Depression, financial crises, and changing musical and cultural fashions. The orchestra of professional musicians that performs today on the stage of the Blaisdell Center Concert Hall may bear little resemblance to the first group of amateur musicians which met in a clubhouse on the slopes of Punchbowl nearly 104 years ago. However, one thing remains constant, the mission of the Honolulu Symphony is to enhance the quality of life of the people of Hawaii by sustaining a symphony orchestra of the highest artistic quality... 
In a step beyond the pay-what-you-wish experiment undertaken by Radiohead and Barbara Hendricks, British violinist Tasmin Little is issuing her next recording as a digital download available completely free of charge. 
Ulysses Simpson Kay, Jr. was an African American composer, conductor and professor who was born on January 7, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona. Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University has generously made his research entry on Kay available to AfriClassical.com He tells us young Ulysses was surrounded by music at home and began learning the piano at six, with the encouragement of an uncle who was a famous musician, King Oliver. The youth started learning the violin as well, at age 10, but at age 12 he dropped the piano and violin in favor of the alto saxophone. Ulysses formed a jazz quintet in which he played saxophone, and for which he composed and arranged music. 
Salzburg, which hosted Mozart's 250th birthday celebrations in 2006, will deck itself out for another musical extravaganza this year -- the 100th birthday of perhaps its next most famous musical son, conductor Herbert von Karajan.Ringing in the "Herbert von Karajan Jubilee Year" today will be a concert in Salzburg's famous "Grosses Festspielhaus" concert hall.On the programme, by the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg under its chief conductor Ivor Bolton, will be Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto and Richard Strauss's symphonic poem, Don Juan.That is exactly the same programme, with exactly the same orchestra, that Karajan made his professional conducting debut with on January 22, 1929.The Berlin Philharmonic, whose chief conductor he was from 1955 until his death in 1989, will play birthday concerts in Berlin, Paris and Tokyo.Vienna's legendary Musikverein concert hall is staging a three-part Karajan cycle of concerts, with both the Berlin and the Vienna Philharmonics. There will be a special Karajan Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, and Salzburg's own Easter and Summer Festivals will also pay homage to the "maestro of all maestros".The birthday itself, April 5, will be marked by a special ceremony in Salzburg's Mozart House museum.The other orchestras Karajan worked closely with -- the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra -- all have special memorial concerts lined up in New York, London and Munich.Record labels Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Sony are unearthing and repackaging their countless and often legendary Karajan recordings and DVDs.There will also be a deluge of books about the conductor, including one by his widow, Eliette von Karajan, entitled "Mein Leben an seiner Seite" (My life at his side).And a new documentary by Robert Dornhelm is to be released on DVD.Born in Salzburg on April 5, 1908, Heribert Ritter von Karajan studied piano, harmony and composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg between 1916 and 1926 and then conducting at Vienna's Academy for Music and the Performing Arts between 1926 and 1929.It was his music-loving father, a doctor, who gave the 20-year-old Karajan his first break, hiring the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg for his debut concert in January 1929. 