Where has the British talent gone?

No British violinists have got in to this year's Menuhin Competition. Have Brits been left behind in music's global market? You bet. Here's my piece on the topic from today's Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/where-has-the-british-classical-music-talent-gone-9150300.html

Alice Herz-Sommer 1903-2014

It is farewell to the pianist Alice Herz-Sommer: survivor of Terezin, daughter of a friend of Kafka and Mahler, resolute lover of life and an inspiration to us all. She made it to 110.

The clip above is from a film by Christopher Nupen, made when she was 98. Here's an article I wrote about her in 2010 and here is an obituary from The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/alice-herz-sommer-holocaust-survivor-dies

Victory looms for nascent Lucerne opera house

If you're in the know about the Lucerne Festival, you may have heard that its director Michael Haefliger's plans to build a new opera house, the Salle Modulable, for the Swiss lakeside town looked set to turn into fairy dust upon the withdrawal of necessary funds. This has been challenged in court and the opera house has won. We hope that in due course opera amid the mountains will become as vital a highlight of the European musical calendar as Lucerne's existing festivals are today.

Salle Modulable Foundation wins its case: withdrawal of funds was unlawful

Lucerne/Hamilton, 21 February 2014 – The judge of the competent court in Bermuda has ruled that the withdrawal of funding for the Salle Modulable in Lucerne took place unlawfully and that Butterfield Trust (Bermuda) Limited must fulfil its obligations.

The Salle Modulable Foundation has won its case before the Supreme Court of Bermuda: the withdrawal of funding for the Salle Modulable by Butterfield Trust (Bermuda) Ltd. (Butterfield) in October 2010 has been ruled unlawful. The presiding judge has found that a contract of donation governed by Swiss law was entered into in the summer of 2007 and that Butterfield must meet its obligations arising from it. If the Salle Modulable Foundation submits a feasibility study, adapted to the new circumstances, for a venue with flexible arrangements for experimental music theatre in the City of Lucerne, Butterfield is bound to honour the promise of finance it originally made in the amount of up to CHF 120 million. The feasibility study will be updated and adapted as part of the New Theatre Infrastructure Lucerne (NTI) Project.
Butterfield’s counter-claim was rejected in its entirety. The judge has not yet made any final pronouncement on other questions. This will entail a further hearing. The judgment may yet be referred to the Bermuda Appeal Court.

Hubert Achermann, Chairman of the Salle Modulable Foundation, says: “Naturally we are very pleased with the outcome and believe that justice has been done. Our expense and effort have paid off, and I thank everyone who has supported us in these lengthy proceedings. Still, we remain far from our objective. First, we expect the opposing party to accept this judgment and desist from further time-consuming and costly legal proceedings. Then we have to produce an updated and authoritative feasibility study, in co-operation with the Canton and City. For this purpose, we can build on the work done so far. We have a fine opportunity to create something unique for Lucerne, as the City of Culture and Festivals, and for its institutions, not least in memory of the great patron, Christof Engelhorn.“ 

An extraordinary winner at the RCM's 2014 Chappell Medal competition

I was lucky enough to spend yesterday adjudicating the Chappell Medal - the Royal College of Music's top award for pianists. With me on the jury were the pianists Margaret Fingerhut and Charles Owen and we were prepared for a day-long feast of music from the creme-de-la-creme of the college's students. What we hadn't anticipated was being completely blown away by one extraordinary winner.

John Granger Fisher from Brisbane, presented the kind of programme you don't see every day in concert halls, let alone a college contest. He opened with the Haydn Sonata in B minor; next, the Brahms Paganini Etudes, both books thereof; as interlude, the Chopin C sharp minor Etude from Op.25; and to close, Balakirev's Islamey. We were put in mind of the story that Murray Perahia tells about Horowitz: at one of Perahia's consultation lessons, Horowitz said to him, "If you want to be more than a virtuoso, first be a virtuoso." John - a modest and unaffected performer - made the gargantuan demands of the Brahms and Balakirev look easy, wrapping them up with stylish phrasing and classy finishing touches. His virtuosity knocked us over. More than that, he simply moved us to tears.

We were delighted to award second prize to Riyad Nicolas from Syria, a fascinating, accomplished young artist who is very much his own person and excelled particularly in Ravel's 'Scarbo' and Ligeti's 'Fanfares', as well as some gorgeous Scarlatti; and third to Jun Ishimura, who drew us into her beautifully coloured and shaped performances of Beethoven Op.109, the Chopin B flat minor Sonata and Ravel's La Valse. Prize for the best undergraduate went to the highly promising Aleksander Pavlovic from Serbia and we much enjoyed the performances by Dinara Klinton from Ukraine whose Prokofiev Sarcasms were glittery, original and well projected, and Hin-Yat Tsang from Hong Kong, whose tone quality and sense of love for the music were exceptionally beautiful.

Here's John's biography from a competition he entered last year.

John Granger Fisher

Age: 27

Origin: Australia

Education: Hartt School of Music University of Hartford, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

Competitions and Awards: Queensland Piano Competition (First Prize), Yamaha Australian Piano Competition (First Prize), 4MBS Chamber Music Competition (First Prize), John Allison City of Sydney Piano Scholarship, Florence Davey Piano Scholarship, Queensland University Postgraduate Award

John Granger Fisher was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1984. He began piano lessons with his mother at the age of four. In 1997 he commenced studying with John Winther at the Young Conservatorium Queensland. In 1998 he began studying with Natasha Vlassenko. From 2006 to 2008 he studied with both Natasha Vlassenko and Oleg Stepanov.

John completed the Bachelor of Music (Advanced Performance) with First Class Honours at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. He has been studying at the Hartt School of Music since September 2008. He has taken lessons from Oxana Yablonskaya and Boris Berman.

John has won first prizes in a number of competitions including: the Queensland Piano Competition (2001), the 5th Yamaha Australian National Piano Competition (2001) and the 4MBS Chamber Music Competition (Trio) (2004).  He has also been awarded the Queensland Conservatorium Postgraduate Award (2006); the Florence Davey Piano Scholarship (2007); the John Allison City of Sydney Piano Scholarship (2008) and the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Scholarship (2009). He received the second prize in the 2009 Louisiana International Piano Competition.

In Australia, John has appeared in the Tyalgum Festival of Classical Music, Kawai Keyboard Series, 4MBS Beethoven Sonata Series, Mostly Mozart Concert, Ithaca Auditorium Brisbane City Hall and the 4MBS Mozart on the Move Concert Series. He has appeared as soloist with a number of Australian Orchestras. In 2009 he toured with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”.

John has also maintained a keen interest in accompanying and Chamber Music. In 2005 he accompanied the Queensland Chamber Choir in a performance at the Queensland Parliament House. He has performed in a variety of chamber music ensembles and is involved in the 20/20 chamber music program at the Hartt School.

Interval drinks: brewing a revolution?

The clever old Barbican has launched a free app with which you can order your interval drink in advance, from 48 hours earlier to 30 mins before the concert begins. More info here. And you can download it here. Well done, chaps. Fast may this spread.

It's not a minute too soon - we all know the score. You have a 20-minute interval. You spend 15 minutes of it queuing up, another 2-3 processing your drinks order (finding, pouring, paying), and then you have 2-3 mins to down the liquid before you go back into the hall (being a classical audience, you are expected not to take said drink in with you). Alternatively you might have arrived early to spend 15 mins queuing before the concert to order your interval drink. And you can't help wondering, having been to sensible places like Germany, why we can't do as they do and have a whole rack of ready-poured helpings of the most popular drinks - red & white wine, beer, orange juice and water - so that people can just pick one up and hand over the cash pdq, which would save person-hours, aggro and the usual headache of having to choose between a drink and a trip to the loo.

Speaking of which, please can someone invent an app to create faster access to the Ladies Room?