Monday Morning Violin Gossip, Op. 24

By Darcy Lewis

In a week crowded with classical music news, one item stands out as a ray of hope for the future. According to the New York Times, anonymous donors have promised $100 million to the Yale School of Music. This gift, one of the largest ever pledged to a music school will allow students to attend without tuition. The donation, to be spread over the next several years, will put the school in the category of the Curtis Institute of Music, the nation’s other free conservatory. Thomas C. Duffy, the acting dean at Yale, comments: "Somebody who obviously has the talent to amass this kind of money thinks we are important, and that's a very comforting thing ... This is a very unprecedented situation." Yale said it would also put the money toward increasing faculty, student and ensemble exchanges with foreign conservatories and toward Internet broadcasts of its events. The free tuition begins next school year and includes current students. Wow!

Orchestra News

11/3/05 - An Associated Press article reports that in this year's Radio City Music Hall Music Spectacular, "recorded holiday music replaced the usual live orchestra in a bitter labor dispute. The musicians pulled down their picket line and returned to work Thursday after a one-day strike. But they wound up stranded outside Radio City as the first show of the season went on with taped tunes." David Lennon, president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, comments: "We are ready to play unconditionally and immediately, but apparently we've been locked out." The reporter quotes a management statement: "We told the musicians in no uncertain terms that until there is an agreement, and there is no possibility of them walking out on future performances, they remain on strike," adding: "The strike forced cancellation of a Wednesday night show ... The musicians walked out Wednesday over salaries and overtime pay."

10/31/05 – According to the British government, British orchestras have failed to pay their share of National Insurance assessments and now owe £33 million ($58.4 million) in back taxes. The debt could force several major orchestras to fold, says the BBC. "Since a change in working laws in 1998, freelance singers and musicians have been classed as employees for NI purposes, but self-employed for tax purposes. The issue affects every major orchestra and smaller orchestra in this country and would have huge effects upon how they operate." The Guardian (UK) released these projections: "In the case of the Philharmonia Orchestra, for instance, it could mean an extra £500,000 tax a year, plus arrears backdated to 2000. In the case of the London Symphony Orchestra, the back-payments would amount to £8 million."

Musical Chairs

The Grand Rapids Symphony has named Joseph Conyers its new principal bass. A 2004 graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Conyers served most recently as assistant principal bass in the Haddonfield Symphony and principal bass in the Philadelphia Virtuosi.

The American Symphony Orchestra League has announced the appointments of Shizuo Kuwahara and Rebecca Miller as American Conducting Fellows at the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Houston Symphony, respectively. Kuwahara, who trained at Eastman and Yale, is associate conductor of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Miller, who studied conducting at Northwestern University and London's Royal College of Music, is music director of the New Professionals Orchestra, an ensemble she founded in the U.K. in 1999. The American Conducting Fellows Program, administered by the League, is made possible by major grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the support of host orchestras.

The Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Mass.) has announced several faculty appointments. Roger Tapping joins the viola faculty after a decade with the Takács Quartet. Meg Dole and Linda Hill have joined as members of the Suzuki violin and Suzuki viola faculties, respectively.

The San Francisco Symphony has named James Gaffigan, an assistant conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra, as its new associate conductor. He will join the orchestra in time for the beginning of the 2006-07 season. This marks the first time that the orchestra has appointed an associate conductor from the outset. The last person to hold the post, Alasdair Neale, was promoted into it.

Obituaries

11/1/05 - Skitch Henderson, the Grammy-winning conductor who founded the New York Pops and became the first Tonight Show bandleader, died at the age of 87. Henderson worked with stars such as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the 1930s and 1940s and served as bandleader for Steve Allen's Tonight Show in 1954. He founded the New York Pops in 1983 and continued his international conducting schedule until very recently. He studied with Arnold Schoenberg and served in the Navy in World War II.

10/29/05 - Robert Gerle, 81, a concert violinist acclaimed for his technique who also had a long career as a conductor and teacher, died at home of Parkinson’s disease, reports the Washington Post. Gerle taught at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and the Mannes College of Music in New York and started the orchestra program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1972. "He spent much of World War II in a labor camp in Budapest," then escaped and was captured along with other refugees by Soviet soldiers and brought before a firing squad as suspected snipers. "According to an account years later in the New York Times, as Mr. Gerle walked to his death with his instrument case, the Russian in charge ordered him to play a piece by Tchaikovsky. When he finished the selection, the officer was convinced that he was a musician and not a sniper and let all the men go, according to the Times article.” He wrote two books on violin technique, as well as a memoir, Playing It by Heart: Wonderful Things Can Happen Any Day (2005).

Other News

11/3/05 – The venerable Boston classical music station WCRB-FM may be sold, reports the Boston Globe. "The announcement mentioned that any buyer for WCRB would be required to continue the station's classical music format on at least one high-definition or digital channel. Such a channel would be an alternative to the main broadcast and could be heard on the new HD radio receivers but not on traditional analog receivers ... The trust, created by former owner Theodore Jones before his death in 1991, seemed to mandate that the station would remain classical for 99 years. Strictly speaking, anyone who buys a station has the right to program it in any format. But putting such demands in a sale agreement may carry weight. Therefore, those listeners with HD radios will probably continue to receive WCRB as we now know it for years to come ... But for listeners who keep their current analog radio receivers, it could mean the end of 24-hour commercial classical in Boston."

11/2/05 - The Moscow-based Violin Art Foundation bought a rare violin once owned by 19th-century virtuoso and composer Nicolo Paganini at auction. The Foundation, which plans to loan it out to the winner of its prestigious annual competition, paid just over $1 million. The instrument was made in 1720 by the Italian master Carlo Bergonzi. The sale price was a record for a Bergonzi violin, reports the BBC.

11/1/05 - Frederieke Saeijs has won the Long-Thibaud International Violin Competition in Paris. In addition to being the overall winner, Saeijs won the prizes for Best Performance of the Concerto, Best Performance of the competition's commissioned work (Pour Elia by Marc-Olivier Dupin), Best Performer (voted by students of the conservatories), and Best Performer (voted by the members of the Orchestre National de France). She is currently in the Indiana University artist diploma program as a student of Mauricio Fuks.

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