Blanchard served as Directeur général and editor-in-chief of the Revue Musical before becoming artistic advisor to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris from 1987 to 1992 and managing director of the Opéra de Paris-Bastille from 1992 to 1994. From 1996 to 2001, he held the same position at the Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine and the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy. From 2001 to 2009, Blanchard was General Director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève and later Director of the Geneva Wagner Festival.

Founded in 1901, the Orchestre régional de Cannes-Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur consists of 37 musicians. Its artistic director is Benjamin Levy. It is financed by the Ministry of Culture, the city of Cannes, the Département des Alpes-Maritimes and the Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

Gomes studied clarinet in Portugal before going on to study choral and orchestral conducting in Geneva. He is a founding member of the Vintage Quartet, which performs regularly in Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland. From 2008 to 2011 he was Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Carouge. In Portugal, he is also involved with youth orchestras, including the Orquestra Geração.

The second European Union Conducting Competition was held in cooperation with the National Academy of Music in Sofia and the Pazardjik Symphony Orchestra in Sofia and Pazardjik. Cash prizes and concerts in Italy, Hungary, Russia, Turkey and Poland were awarded.

Valentine Michaud from France initially studied in the tradition of the French school. At the age of 16, she moved to Switzerland and studied with Pierre-Stéphane Meugé at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, where she became interested in the contemporary repertoire and early music (Baroque, Renaissance).

In 2013, she completed a bachelor's degree in saxophone and also graduated with a bachelor's degree in musicology from the Université de la Sorbonne in Paris. After a first Master's degree in instrumental pedagogy, she continued her education from 2015 to 2018 with a second Master's degree - this time specializing as a soloist - in Lars Mlekusch's class at the Zurich University of the Arts. From 2017 to 2018, she also worked as Lars Mlekusch's assistant.

The Credit Suisse Young Artist Award promotes outstanding soloists whose potential promises a great international career. In addition to the prize money of 75,000 Swiss francs, the winners receive the opportunity to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lucerne Summer Festival. The prize is awarded jointly by the Lucerne Festival, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien and the Credit Suisse Foundation.
 

"... humbly dedicated." The dedication of the Piano Concerto in G major op. 58 marks the beginning of a close musical and human friendship with the young Archduke Rudolph of Austria (1788-1831). Beethoven taught the talented Archduke piano playing and composition until 1824, who in turn, together with Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky, contractually agreed to pay him a lifelong annuity on March 1, 1809. It is therefore no coincidence that the Archduke is the first person to dedicate Beethoven's compositions to him, both in terms of number and weight: In addition to the Fourth Piano Concerto, composed in 1805/06, the Fifth Piano Concerto in E flat major op. 73 is also dedicated to him, as is the Les-Adieux-Sonata op. 81a, the piano reduction of the opera Fideliothe Violin Sonata in G major op. 96, the Piano Trio in B flat major op. 97 ("Archduke Trio"), the Piano Sonatas op. 106 and op. 111, the Missa Solemnis op. 123 and finally the Large joint op. 133 for string quartet.

The work itself is full of special features. Not only does the piano enter with the main theme in the opening movement before the orchestra. Robert Schumann even compared the Andante, which is often recitative-like and consists of seemingly rigid contrasts, to Orpheus, who, in order to reach Eurydice, appeased the Furies with his lyre. At the first public performance on December 22, 1808, Beethoven himself took on the solo part and "sang truly on his instrument with a deep melancholy feeling that also flowed through me" - according to Johann Friedrich Reichardt's recollection. Although the entrances and cadenzas worked out for Archduke Rudolph around 1808/09 have been known since 1865, the special role of the piano in this work nevertheless challenged numerous concertizing composers to write their own cadenzas, among them (alphabetically) Eugen d'Albert, Johannes Brahms, Hans von Bülow, Ferruccio Busoni, Nikolai Medtner, Ignaz Moscheles, Anton Rubinstein, Clara Schumann and Camille Saint-Saëns.
 

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Almost all (98%) of those who know Beethoven correctly classify him as a composer. 41% of Beethoven experts knew that the 250th anniversary of his birth was the occasion of the anniversary year. 23% mistakenly cited the 250th anniversary of his death as the occasion. Many were aware of the illness Ludwig van Beethoven suffered from as a young man - 64 percent of Beethoven experts correctly classified him as deaf.

6 percent of respondents mistakenly assumed that Beethoven suffered from blindness. The majority of Beethoven connoisseurs who were also able to correctly categorize him as a composer were familiar with works by the famous musician - three quarters (74 percent) of respondents stated this.

YouGov is an international data and analytics group. With 35 locations in 22 countries and panel members in 42 countries, YouGov has one of the ten largest market research networks in the world.

Original article:
https://yougov.de/news/2020/01/09/ludwig-van-beethoven-und-die-bedeutung-von-klassis/

The "People's Festival of the Arts" celebrated artistic successes when it was held in 2018. However, according to the official press release, continuing the festival with a strong, independent profile and with the current quality would only be possible beyond 2020 with substantial additional financial resources. Despite great efforts, it has not been possible to secure such long-term sustainable financing in recent years.

With the aim of concentrating financial resources, the festival initially switched to a two-year cycle with a first performance in 2018, in response to "fundamental social changes such as the diversification of society, the increased need for participatory offerings and the need to play a more active and creative role in shaping one's own future".

This reorientation has been very well received by the general public, says Managing Director Alexander Keil. At the same time, however, the willingness of sponsors to invest in cultural institutions has fallen sharply.

As a special analysis by GfK Entertainment in cooperation with the German Music Industry Association (BVMI) shows, the number of music streams exceeded the 100 billion mark for the first time last year with 107 billion downloads. By comparison, Germans generated 79.5 billion streams in the previous year and around 56.4 billion in 2017.

Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You is now in the lead in the most-streamed song of the day category. The catchy tune reached 3.2 million views on December 24. Last Christmas by Wham! also almost cracked the 3 million mark on Christmas Eve last year and is now in fourth place in the ranking of the most streamed songs within 24 hours. Between the two Christmas classics are two rap tracks: Ronin by Bushido & Animus and Tilidin by Capital Bra & Samra.

The analysis is based on ad-based and paid music streams with a length of 31 seconds or more.

According to the Schola Cantorum Basel (SCB), Schröder belonged to the young generation at the end of the 1960s who ventured into a new and momentous departure into early music in the Netherlands and Belgium. Contacts with Frans Brüggen, Gustav Leonhardt and other protagonists of his generation deepened his own artistic approaches.

From 1975 to 1990, he taught "violin in the old scale" at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Among the students in his class were Dana Maiben, Trix Landolf and Emilio Moreno. The latter graduated with the first ever diploma for violin in old scale at the SCB. Jaap Schröder laid the foundation for the more recent training of the "violin in old mensur" at the SCB and always remained on friendly terms with the institute.

Schröder also taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory and as a guest at American universities, where he was a faculty member of the School of Music at Yale University (New Haven, CT).

In addition to the theoretical reflection of the project, one focus of the project is on the reconstruction of the instrumental, vocal, linguistic and stage practice of the Wagner period.

According to Kent Nagano, although the Ring is one of the most researched compositions, there has not yet been a systematic approach to the tetralogy from a historically informed perspective. This makes it all the more important to tackle such a task and to question listening habits in the Romantic repertoire that previously seemed irrevocable. The first results are to be presented in the concert hall next February.

More info:
https://wagner-lesarten.de
 

Do you know this too? From the beginning of December to around mid-January, almost every email is "garlanded" with best wishes for the upcoming holidays or the New Year. Or good old-fashioned greeting cards arrive in the post from companies and associations that you simply haven't heard from in the past eleven months. But we are not alone! Even people at the end of the 18th century regarded such congratulations as "a real burden and, in Germany in particular, highly pedantic. Printed New Year's wishes, which were very much in vogue thirty years ago, seem to be gradually declining again and have become an object of confidential custom or meaningful elegance" (at least according to Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexicon from 1817).

Two examples of such "sensuous elegance" can be found in the œuvre of Ludwig van Beethoven, written on the once common words "Happy New Year!". In the first case, it is an imitative four-part movement, a so-called free canon, which was written on January 1, 1815 for Baron Johann Baptist von Pasqualati (WoO 165), who was often his advisor and also supported him as a friend until the end. In the other case, it is a real three-part canon from December 31, 1819 for Anna Maria Countess Erdödy (WoO 176). Beethoven had already dedicated the Piano Trios op. 70 (1809) and the Sonatas for cello and piano op. 102 (1819) to her. Such canons, whether mysteriously notated "closed" as a riddle canon (i.e. in one part without the parts' cue markings to be guessed) or "open" (then with the cues, sometimes even written out as a score), were part of the "good tone" of a music-loving society during Beethoven's lifetime, as were other concise aphorisms. Whether they were also sung or rather served as music for the eyes remains to be seen. In any case, they combine a pleasing attitude and contrapuntal ability in an entertaining way.

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