Jerry Hadlery condition....
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Topic: NEWS Industry

PLAYBILLarts writer Matthew Westphal reports: Tenor Jerry Hadley's Condition Apparently Hopeless After Suicide Attempt

Topic: MILESTONESJun-Dec07
Pianist Natalia Karp, whose life was spared during the Holocaust because of her musical talent, died on 9 July 2007, The Daily Telegraph of London reports. Born in Krakow, Poland to wealthy parents, Karp showed promise as a musician early on and decided at age 13 to pursue a career as a pianist. Guided by her grandfather, a gifted cantor, she went to Berlin three years later to study with Artur Schnabel. At 18, Karp performed Chopin's First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic; rather than pursuing her nascent career in the city, however, she returned to Poland to be with her ailing mother.

...MORE PLAYBILLarts | TELEGRAPH UK

Topic: NEW CDs
A tribute to America's first great classical violinist, played by one of her musical descendants, on this week's Billboard classical chart. Making its debut at no. 12 is American Virtuosa: Tribute to Maud Powell, performed by violinist Rachel Barton Pine with pianist Matthew Hagle. Powell (1867-1920) was once renowned for her virtuosity on both sides of the Atlantic — conductor Leonard Slatkin has described her as "the female Fritz Kreisler" (and Barton Pine prefers to think of Kreisler as the male Maud Powell) — and was a star of both the concert stage and the 78 RPM recording. This new CD is a collection of turn-of-the-20th-century miniatures for violin and piano which Powell made staples of her touring repertoire; many of them are arrangements she made herself.

Power of the Proms: How the world's greatest classical music festival is changing
Now Playing: A West End star, a Soweto ensemble and Nitin Sawhney are appearing at the 2007 Proms.
Topic: NEWS Industry
The queue outside the Royal Albert Hall meanders down the stone stairs into Prince Consort Road, past the Royal College of Music and the ice-cream vans. People of all varieties perch on the parapets; some are first-timers, others turn up every day, every summer. Anoraks muddle together with posh frocks; golf umbrellas rub spokes with Woolworths' finest. The doors open, and there's a civilised stampede as the Promenaders surge in to bag the best spots. The central ethos of the Proms, which open tonight, is the same as ever: cheap tickets for standing places to hear great music-making. The result is a celebratory atmosphere in which a flood of enthusiastic takers each pay less than the price of a one-day travelcard on the Tube.

...MORE PROMS | BBC PROMS HOME

Star tenor Jerry Hadley on life support after suicide attempt
Topic: NEWS performers
Jerry Hadley’s career soared like his tenor voice at the start of the 1980s, quickly taking him to the world’s major opera houses. His career flourished. But in recent years, as he moved into his 50s, the bookings waned, and he was overtaken by financial worries and depression, musical colleagues, friends and the police said. Early Tuesday morning, the police said, he put an air rifle to his head and fired, causing severe brain damage. Hadley created the title role in composer John Harbison's "Great Gatsby" at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as the lead in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio." And Leonard Bernstein had chosen Hadley to sing the main part in a 1989 production of Bernstein's musical "Candide."     ...

International Herald Tribune - France and other links

Topic: NEWS performers

Conductor Leonard Slatkin soared in St. Louis but struggled in DC Can he work his magic in Nashville? by John Pitcher The sound of the Nashville Symphony ...

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Arturo Toscanini: Remembering the Maestro: Music Master, Anti-Fascist
Topic: NEWS performers
Toscanini was more than a great music master. He was also uncompromisingly anti-fascist at a time of Mussolini's rise to power in his native Italy in the 1920s followed by Hitler in 1930s Germany. Though non-political overall, throughout that period and during WW II, he was distinguished for his views as a symbol of freedom and humanity when so little of it existed at a time of global war on three continents. More on this story

Toscanini (March 25, 1867 – January 16, 1957) was an Italian musician. He is considered by many critics, fellow musicians, and much of the classical listening audience to have been the greatest conductor of his era. He was renowned for his brilliant intensity, his restless perfectionism, his phenomenal ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory which gave him extraordinary command over a vast repertoire of orchestral and operatic works, and allowed him to correct errors in orchestral parts unnoticed by his colleagues for decades.

...MORE Wiki Bio | CDS & Books about Toscanini

Topic: NEWS performers

Luciano Pavarotti reacting well to treatment for pancreatic cancer ...

The wife of Luciano Pavarotti says the tenor is "fighting like a lion" against cancer. She told an Italian newspaper he is responding well to treatment...The 71-year-old Opera star underwent surgery last year, after doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass. Pavarotti's manager says he is teaching and working on a recording of sacred music. He is also considering resuming the "Pavarotti and Friends" benefit concert.

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It aint over 'til the fat lady sings
Topic: NEWS performers
Ever since the art of opera developed—its first stars were castratos who became fat after being snipped— singers both fat and thin have gained stardom. Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1941), the Italian coloratura soprano after whom a caloric chicken-and-pastadish was named, would say in her later years: “I am old, I am fat, but I am still Tetrazzini.” Indeed, her buoyant, exuberant performances may be enjoyed on CD reissues from Pearl and Nimbus. [the CDs]

The hefty German-born contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861-1936), a legendary glutton, sang with gusto and virtuosity into her 70’s, as CD’s on Nimbus prove. [the CDs] Other female singers with lower voices followed in the Schumann-Heink tradition, like the stout Italian mezzo-soprano Ebe Stignani in recordings [the CDs] of Bellini’s Norma, with soprano Gina Cigna, [the CDs] and Verdi’s Requiem, alongside tenor Beniamino Gigli. Both recordings are available from Pearl. The most exuberantly overweight singer today is the Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé (b. 1933), [the CDs] whose soft singing and breath control were superhuman in her prime, as a new EMI set of vocal highlights shows.

Balance of commentary

Meet conductor Kristjan Jarvi
Topic: NEWS performers

Estonian-born Järvi is Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Jarvi's younger brother and very much his own man. Writer Mary Ellyn Hutton of the Cincinnatti Post caught up with him at a café in Tallinn in May, where he conducted a show-stopping "Aladdin" Suite by Carl Nielsen on a concert honoring their father Neeme Jarvi's 70th birthday. With him were his two sons, Finn Byron, born in February to Kristjan and his wife Hayley Melitta, and Lukas, 7, from his first marriage to violinist Leila Josefowicz.

There are three Järvi conductors (so far), Paavo, 44, Kristjan, 35, and Neeme (former music director of the Detroit Symphony, now music director of the New Jersey Symphony and the Hague Residentie Orchestra in The Netherlands). Like Paavo and their sister, flutist Maarika Järvi, 43, Kristjan was inoculated with music at an early age. Neeme likes to tell the story of toddler Kristjan complaining "Mozart hit me" after tumbling from a loudspeaker he had been climbing to see where the sound came from. He was 7 when the family left Estonia and came to the U.S. in 1980. A decade younger than his siblings, he adjusted quickly to life in America, speaks without an accent and grew up a hip New Yorker.

FULL STORY | Check him out, white suit and all, at www.kristjanjarvi.com.