January 18, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | Better is the enemy of good. --Voltaire
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| Quote of the Week | | The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. --Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Bolshoi Ballet Director Attacked with Acid |  Sergei Filin, Bolshoi Ballet director of just under two years, was attacked with acid outside his home Thursday night. After 15-hour surgery to save his eyesight, he has been flown to Belgium for specialist treatment on third-degree burns. The 42-year-old former star dancer will require massive plastic surgery and may lose his sight entirely. Recovery could take as long as six months. The attack, by a masked assailant, is being blamed on Bolshoi theater politics, perhaps a spurned contender for his job, or the old-world Soviet school's bitter resistance to a more contemporary sensibility. Filin's predecessor, Alexei Ratmansky, now resident choreographer for American Ballet Theater writes on his Facebook page, "The attack on Sergei Filin is no accident. The Bolshoi has many diseases: a loathsome claque,... half-crazy fanatics prepared to bite the throats of any rivals to their idols, .... That is the real trouble with this great theatre." Says Filin's wife, "I now fear for his life, even for those of our children." MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| | | Riccardo Muti to Skip CSO Tour |  Riccardo Muti will not be touring Asia with the Chicago Symphony after all. After canceling his last two weeks of concerts in Chicago, and flying back to Italy to heal from what had been described as the flu, the 71-year-old maestro on Jan. 14 was declared well enough to conduct the CSO on its much anticipated 13-day Asian tour, Jan. 25 - Feb. 7. Not so fast. Last night, the CSO announced that Lorin Maazel, now 82, would be taking over the concerts in Hong Kong, China, and South Korea, and that another stand-in was being sought for the Taipei performance. Muti requires surgery for an inguinal hernia, "as soon as possible," reports the CSO. He has missed 25 concerts since becoming music director in fall 2010. With the Asia dates now cancelled, the number will grow to 34. |
Elizabeth Sobol to Exit IMG Artists |  Elizabeth Sobol, managing director of IMG Artists North and South America, is to be the new president and CEO of the Decca Label Group, USA. In her new position, effective April 15, she will oversee Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and Mercury Classics in the U.S. She succeeds Paul Foley, who left the company last week. A onetime aspiring concert pianist, Sobol began her career in artist management in the early 1980s, working for Hamlen/Landau Management as an intern. The firm was acquired in 1984 by IMG. Over time, IMG Artists has diversified beyond classical music. In April, Jerry Inzerillo was brought in as CEO from Kerzner Entertainment Group, signaling a shift to a more showbiz sensibility. Sobol, meanwhile, has been a "key player" in IMG Artists' diversification, creating the dance, Latin, and world music/jazz/attractions divisions, and managing numerous classical clients. |
IMG Artists Names New Managing Director |  IMG Artists wasted no time in announcing Elizabeth Sobol's successor as managing director. Sobol's resignation after 30 years with the firm, to becomePresident and CEO of Universal Music's Decca Label Group USA, was announced by UMG Thursday morning. Within hours, IMG Artists sent out its own press release: David Lai was to be its new managing director for North America, reporting directly to President and CEO Jerry Inzerillo. Lai is the founder and president of Park Avenue Artists, a boutique agency with - according to its website -- five artists involved in hip hop, rock, jazz, and musical theater. (Ashley Brown, who originated Mary Poppins on Broadway is among them.) Lai's past also includes being Senior VP of A&R and Operations for Sony Masterworks, working with the likes of Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell (both Sobol's previous clients at IMG), Audra McDonald, Yo-Yo Ma, and Herbie Hancock among others. He has also worked in television and was onetime music director of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| Houston Symphony Names New Music Director |  Houston Symphony has announced the appointment of Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, 35, as its next music director, effective in 2014-15 and continuing for five seasons. He succeeds Hans Graf, who relinquishes the post in May after 12 years. Next season, the Symphony's centennial, Orozco-Estrada will conduct 12 concerts in his official capacity as music director designate. He will continue to be music director of Austria's Tonkünstler Orchestra, but will step down in May as principal conductor of the Basque National Orchestra in San Sebastián, Spain. His Houston appointment caps a three-year search by a 12-member committee, whose chairman characterized Orozco-Estrada and the orchestra's chemistry as "off the charts." MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| New Year's Resolutions |  From An American in Paris by Frank Cadenhead It was just the second day of the new year that good news arrived. A new scientific study indicates that being a few pounds overweight has little or no effect on your general health. That was Resolution No. 1. I did not read the entire report, not exactly wanting to hear the definition of "a few extra pounds." Nevertheless, more vegetables will surely be on the plate this year. The fourth day of 2013 provided quick satisfaction of Resolution No. 2, "Hear More Wagner." At Salle Pleyel, the former director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (1984-2000), Marek Janowski, was in town to play with his former colleagues two all-Wagner concerts. This one started with the Flying Dutchman Overture and the Preludes to Acts One and Three of Lohengrin. Continuing with Act Three, Janowski was joined by Chorus of Radio France for the Scene One Treulich geführt ziehet dahin.
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| Distinguished Artists Are Extraordinary Artists! |  To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Hi Musical America, I am a Danish citizen and I plan to go to the Unites States on a promo tour in spring. I know that it is necessary to apply for an O-1B visa being a solo artist. I have a native US promoter who will petition for me. My question is: How am I going to prove that I have "extraordinary ability" as a performer to qualify for an O-1B visa? It sounds to me that you need to be either Rolling Stones or Anna Netrebko to get through the needle's eye. My music is folk/new age/healing and it has a limited audience. I do not have a big international following or a large music sale to boast. Any advice is appreciated. |
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From Ask Edna by Edna Landau What is one of the most valuable assets for any performing artist today? A loyal circle of friends with whom they have maintained contact through the years. Why do I say that? In late November of 2012, I received a press release announcing the appointment of Tito Munoz as Music Director of Ensemble LPR. The release also announced the upcoming U.S. debut performance of British composer/performer Max Richter's "Vivaldi Recomposed: The Four Seasons" with violinist Daniel Hope. Having never realized that there was an Ensemble LPR, my curiosity was piqued. I contacted Tito Munoz, who I had met a few years earlier, to find out more. I learned that composer/violinist David Handler, a co-founder of the very successful Le Poisson Rouge in New York's Greenwich Village, had long envisioned an ensemble growing out of LPR's eclectic programming. Read the full story |
| The Trials of Rattle and Muti | | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark A couple of Musical America's former Musicians of the Year took a drubbing last week. Rebecca Schmid, MA's Berlin correspondent, reported on our Web site (1/11) that Simon Rattle (2002) announced he would not renew his Berlin Philharmonic contract as music director in 2018 after 16 years. She wrote that "Rattle's popularity within the orchestra . . . and with the German public is mixed. The conductor's artistic direction . . . has taken the orchestra far afield from Brahms and Beethoven . . . ." Well, the self-governing BPO asked for it. When it signed Rattle, it pointedly stated its desire for a conductor who would lead it into 21st-century music and also teach it the joys of authentic period music-making. The British conductor's biographer, Nicholas Kenyon, laid out the possible pitfalls clearly in his Musician of the Year tribute to Rattle in the 2002 Directory, calling his succession to Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan, and Wilhelm Furtwängler "a daring risk and a massive leap of faith." |
| Latest Roster Changes | |  Musical America is helping presenters keep up with its advertisers! Managers whose rosters appear in the 2013 edition of the Musical America Directory should write to listings@musicalamerica.com with the names of artists and attractions that have been either added or removed, and please be sure to indicate "added" or "removed."
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