Musical America Blogs

by Sedgwick Clark NOTE: MY BLOG IS NOW POSTED ON THURSDAYS AT NOON RATHER THAN WEDNESDAYS. Why? The kids aren’t jaded. No repertoire is too daunting. Their enthusiasm nearly always makes up for any momentary technical shortcoming. One skips concerts at Juilliard at his or her peril and often encounters first-rate conductors that the Philharmonic has neglected. [...]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: February 1, 2013 MUNICH — In a statement issued today here, Lorin Maazel shed light on the brevity of his tenure as Chefdirigent of the Munich Philharmonic: “I congratulate Valery Gergiev on his appointment as principal conductor … starting the 2015–16 season. I am honored to have been serving as the [...]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 23, 2013 MUNICH — With the city council’s blessing today of Valery Gergiev’s hire as the next Chefdirigent of the Munich Philharmonic, all three of the Bavarian capital’s globally renowned orchestras will be in Soviet-born hands by late 2015. This September, 40-year-old Kirill Petrenko of Omsk, Siberia, finally takes over [...]

By Rebecca Schmid The theme of this year’s Dresdener Musikfestspiele, “Herz Europas” (the Heart of Europe), inventively returns the East German city to its roots as a thriving cultural hub. While today’s united Germany is roiled by the end of the ‘Merkozy’ era and Eurobond controversy, the emphasis of the festival (May 15-June 3) on [...]

by Sedgwick Clark   Many years ago I was sitting next to the p.r. director of the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall when a cellphone went off as Simon Rattle conducted. When the piece ended I asked him if that happened in Berlin. “Everywhere,” he said sadly.    I left for vacation two days after the cellphone brouhaha at the New [...]