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The 41-year-old bass-baritone BRYN TERFEL had been scheduled to play Wotan - one of the most demanding roles in opera - for Covent Garden's first staged performance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at short notice for “family reasons”. It was due to be one of the highlights of London's opera season: a full staging of Wagner's four-part Ring Cycle, the first in the capital for more than a decade and featuring one of Britain's most celebrated baritones in a major role. Confirmation of the Royal Opera House's production of the complete Ring had sent a flurry of excitement around the world and, spurred on by the participation of Bryn Terfel, tickets had sold out within days. Seats for a single instalment were reportedly sold for more than £800. But Monday 3 SEP 2007, a week into the eight-week rehearsal period, the opera company was forced to put out a stinging statement that provoked disappointment and fury in equal measure. Not for the first time in his illustrious career, Terfel had pulled out. ... Times Online - UK
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is planning a brief noontime observance that day in the Solti Gardens area of Grant Park. It is to include spoken tributes ... See all stories on this topic | Chicago Tribune - United States
After Beethoven died, many Viennese music fans were able to clip a keepsake of a lock of his hair, but only one has been preserved with all the proper provenance to show it as authentic. The story of that lock of hair is the backbone of a riveting slice of history in _Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved_ (Broadway Books) by Russell Martin. Martin has told three stories in his book, intercalating them in chapters that come to a pleasing whole. The first story is a fine capsule biography of Beethoven himself. Within the biography, Martin tells us much about the composer's medical problems, increasing our wonder of how such an afflicted man could have produced works of such profound concentration and joy. The second story within the book is about the fate of the wandering lock of hair as it passed to the heirs of the young musician who clipped it, and how it formed part of the story of the Holocaust, turning up in Denmark in 1943. Eventually it was sold at Sothebys in 1994, to a couple of non-musician fans of Beethoven, one of whom donated his share to the university Beethoven center he had started, and one who made his strands available for medical testing. The hair snipped by Beethoven's young friend was able to tell its story a hundred and seventy years later, giving a probable explanation for Beethoven's ailments.BUY Beethoven's Hair
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced on April 9 the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel, 26, as the orchestra's next music director, beginning in 2009. The news was a bombshell, and the global media went into astonishing high gear. India called. Al Jazeera requested an interview. "60 Minutes" insisted upon its 20 minutes with the fastest-rising star in classical music. But after a Philharmonic news conference, the fastest-rising star in classical music was nowhere to be found......MORE...
NEW YORK - The remains of Czech-born American pianist Rudolf Firkusny are to be laid to rest in a cemetery in the Czech Republic 10 years after his death. Firkusny, known for his fiery artistic temperament coupled with a brilliant technique, died in 1994 at age 82 in Staatsburg, N.Y. His wife, Tatiana Nevole Firkusny, died in 2005 at age 60 in New York. They were cremated and their ashes mixed. The family held the urn until they could arrange the burial in their native land, according to Veronique Firkusny-Callegari, their daughter. The burial will be Sept. 10 2007 at the central cemetery in Brno, Tatiana Nevole Firkusny's birthplace ......MORE... | BIO
Ludwig van Beethoven may have died accidentally at the hands of his own physician. The Austrian composer died in 1827 at age 56, probably of pneumonia and complications of abdominal problems. But scientists think he suffered from lead poisoning.......MORE...
Pianist, composer and teacher Clifford Benson died on August 10, 2007 from an inoperable brain tumor. He was 60. Benson is remembered as a collaborative musician of great versatility, spirit and sensitivity. Among those with whom he had worked are violinists Levon Chilingirian, Shlomo Mintz and Lydia Mordkovitch, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, clarinetist Thea King and flutists William Bennett, Marcel Moyse and Trevor Wye. ...MORE...
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