Ades wins Grawemeyer Award
British composer Thomas Adès (born London, 1971) has won the University
of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for the year 2000 with the
large-scale orchestral work Asyla (1997).
Asyla, commissioned by the John Feeney Charitable Trust for the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, was premièred in 1997 and
toured six European cities. The Minneapolis Orchestra then played the piece,
and Simon Rattle chose it for his final performance with the Birmingham
Orchestra in 1998.
Adès shot to fame initially as a pianist, when he won second place
in the 1989 BBC Young Musician of the Year award. His first published
composition was Five Eliot Landscapes (1990). He became recognised
internationally when his chamber opera Powder Her Face (1995) received
acclaim in Germany, California, the Aspen Festival, New York, Brisbane,
Helsinki and Sweden. Other Adès works include The Origin of the
Harp, These Premises are Alarmed and Living Toys. Thomas
Adès has exclusive relationships with Faber Music and EMI Classics.
All Day Entertainment
All Day Entertainment, an independent production company in the USA is
preparing a DVD (Digital Video Disc) for release early in 2000 which may
be of interest - the 1946 motion picture Carnegie Hall, Edgar G.
Ulmer's epic homage to classical music. The US National Film Music Council
agreed in 1947 that Carnegie Hall deserved the attention of all who enjoy
the best in music.
The film presents fourteen classics performed by artists whose interpretations
are internationally conceded to be of the finest. They include Jascha Heifetz,
Rise Stevens, Lily Pons, Ezio Pinza, Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur Rubinstein,
Jan Peerce, the Vatican Choir, Harry James, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter,
and Artur Rodzinski.
All Day Entertainment is working with The Edgar G. Ulmer Preservation
Corp. to restore some of Ulmer's most important and entertaining films on
DVD. All Day Online maintains an extensive website about Ulmer and his films.
Gramophone offshoots reprieved
Gramophone 'quality' offshoots International Piano Quarterly,
the axing of which was reported in Music & Vision, and its sister
journal International Classical Record Collector, have been reprieved,
sold to Orpheus Publications Ltd of Harrow, England, publishers of The
Strad, Choir & Organ and Double Bassist www.orpheuspublications.com. Eric Verdon-Roe, Managing Director
of Haymarket Magazines Ltd, the new owners of Gramophone, received
many 'fascinating' e-mails from an active lobby in protest at the summary
closure of IPC and ICRC. 'It has has been a very educational
few weeks,' he is quoted as saying, 'in which I have already come to understand
the passion and enthusiasm that exists for classical music. Gramophone
will work to give IPQ and ICRC as much support as possible.'
The Winter issue of International Piano Quarterly, largely commissioned
at the time of the axing, will now be published in January, founding editor
Harriet Smith once again at the helm. Long may it flourish.
Previously published news ...
A long life
The death in November 1999 of Thomas Pitfield, the British composer,
teacher, artist and craftsman, has ended a long life (born 1903), much of
it devoted to music, with distinguished composers Maxwell Davies, Alexander
Goehr and John McCabe beneficiaries of his teaching at the Royal Northern
College of Music.
Gyorgy Sebok, 1922 - 1999
Pianist and teacher Gyorgy Sebok died on 14 November in the USA. Born
in Szeged, Hungary, he gave his first solo recital at age 11, studying with
Kodaly and Leo Weiner, and becoming Professor of Music at Budapest's Bela
Bartok Conservatory in 1949.
Sebok left Hungary after the 1956 revolt, working in Paris, Germany,
Holland and the USA, receiving many awards and becoming famous internationally.
Since 1962 he has taught at Indiana University.
Gaby Casadesus, 1901 - 1999
French pianist and teacher Gaby Casadesus (née L'Hote) died in
Paris on 12 November, aged 98. Born in Marseilles on 9 August 1901 she won
her first piano prize at the age of sixteen, and went on to work with Fauré,
Milhaud and Ravel. She married composer and pianist Robert Casadesus in
1921, and bore him three children. Robert and Gaby Casadesus were often
two-piano recital partners.
As a teacher, Gaby Casadesus worked in Austria, France, and the USA.
Publications include Mes Noces Musicales (1989, Buchet-Chastel/Sacem,
with J Muller) and Ma technique quotidienne (Max Eschig).
The Bournemouth Sinfonietta is no more
More sad news from the UK - the Bournemouth Orchestras came to a sudden
agreement in November 1999 with the Arts Council to wind up the Bournemouth
Sinfonietta. The Sinfonietta had completed two rehearsals for a concert
which was immediately cancelled. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is not
affected.
Back to Bach basics
BBC2 (UK domestic TV) has laid down a challenge for Bach 2000 celebrations.
Five composers are to follow Bach's pattern of composing weekly a cantata
for the next Sunday. They will compose a ten-minute work for chorus and
orchestra under realistic conditions (plus challenges such as a performer
ill or double-booked) and deliver the completed work within seven days.
Cameras will follow the proceedings to be shown in five programmes on TV
in the late spring.
Howard Ferguson
Howard Ferguson has died. Please read our separate
obituary.
International Piano Quarterly axed
The long-running success story of Gramophone's quality quarterlies
for the enthusiast has left takeover management bosses apparently unimpressed.
Following the decision last month to close International Opera Collector,
edited by veteran broadcaster Michael Oliver, the new owners of Gramophone,
Haymarket Magazines Ltd (publishers of Autocar and Horticulture
Week), have now axed International Piano Quarterly. To the shock
of a flourishing readership, the Winter 99/2000 issue will not appear. In
the two years of its publication, with a distinguished panel of writers
and consultants drawn from leading pianophiles and critics around the world,
International Piano Quarterly, edited by Harriet Smith, enjoyed
a glittering reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. What chances of reprieve?
Will International Classical Record Collector or new investment
Gramophone Early Music be the next to go? Tell us what you think,
e-mail Gramophone editor James Jolly direct editor@gramophone.co.uk
.
Voces Sacrae
Voces Sacrae's latest recordings include Michael Finnissy's Seven
Sacred Motets (l991), recorded on Metier MSV CD92023, and 'Except the
Lord Build the House', recorded in Exeter College Chapel together with the
choir of St.Mary Magdalen, and comprising music by Mendelssohn, Byrd, John
Rutter and W.S.Lloyd Webber (Metier ..........). The 8-voice choir was recently
heard at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, during a tour of New South Wales.
Voces Sacrae's recording of Michael Berkeley's Eight Motets, together
with music by Magnus Williamson, Gabriel Jackson and Bob Chilcott, will
be released in the new year.
Voces Sacrae can be contacted
by e-mail, or visit their website.
RD
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