Seven - no, EIGHT - things to do on International Women's Day

1. Go to the eclectic Women of the World Festival at the Southbank. Among musically-oriented treats today are Jessye Norman (yes), speaking at 4.30pm this afternoon; and tonight, the OAE with Marin Alsop and soprano Emma Bell in a delicious programme of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber and Schumann, part of the Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers series.

2. Go to the UK premiere of Written on Skin by composer George Benjamin and librettist Martin Crimp, at the Royal Opera House. It is a contemporary masterpiece and, although it's by two men, the story is very much about the sexual emancipation of a woman in the 13th century. I talked to its director, Katie Mitchell, about that, and the article should hopefully be out tomorrow. (Not going to see it until 18th, but I've heard the recording from Aix and found it absolutely amazing. My chat with George about the music for the ROH website is here.)

3. Spend a little time celebrating the music of women composers over the centuries whose work was discouraged, disguised or suppressed, unless it happened to be cute salon music for the home. And remember the ones who went right on ahead and did their own thing. 



4. Spend a little time remembering the great female performers of the past who knuckled down to work instead of knuckling under.



5. Listen to some music by the increasing raft of gifted, dedicated and proud women composers of today, whether on stage, screen, concert hall or multimedia. A reasonably random example, but one I've much enjoyed, is this mingling of space mission, dance, special effects and music by Errollyn Wallen in Falling.



6. Remember that today's greatest women performers simply cannot be bettered.



7. Reflect that it should not be necessary, in an ideal world, to add extra celebration to the achievements of women - in the classical music world as much as anywhere, and more than some - but with sexism so desperately ingrained in our culture, it is.

8. Remember that International Women's Day is all very well, but next we have to sort out the other 364 days of the year.

Welcome to Solti's first sponsors!

JDCMB has a brand-new sponsorship scheme!

A happy cat means a happy blogger. While I blog for free, the cost of Solti's cat food has been increasing beyond inflation. Instead of covering the site with irrelevant ads, I'd much rather offer promotional space to supporters of JDCMB - whether commercial organisations, fine-hearted individuals or both - in return for a modicum of sponsorship for the companion without whom our cat(ch) phrase would not be "music, ballet and writing, with ginger" and without whom we could never have started the annual Ginger Stripe Awards.

Here's how it works.

You'll see the THIS MONTH'S SPONSORS box in the top right-hand corner. You can sponsor Solti's cat food for one week for £7.50, one month for £25 or another length of time as negotiated with JD. In return you get a personal thank-you from Solti's chief-of-staff, your name and links prominently displayed for the agreed period, and hopefully plenty of hits on your site from our readers. Additionally, you have the satisfaction of knowing you are helping to support the assistant-in-chief of your favourite blogger and hence keep JDCMB up and running.

As there's no limit to that cat's appetite, there is no limit to the number of sponsors who can join us at any one time.

Click here to send me a message and become a sponsor! 

Easily manageable either by PayPal or a good old-fashioned cheque.

I'd like to extend a hearty welcome to Solti's inaugural sponsors: ViolinSchool, which offers online and offline tuition for violinists of any age and level. http://www.violinschool.org/

 

Pavilion in the sky for the new-look Southbank

 Gosh, so this is how it's going to be.

A £100m refit for an arts centre is not something to sniff at in this day and age, and the plans for the Southbank Centre Festival Wing redevelopment - the part encompassing all the concrete - are visionary, at least on the outside. The grassy spaces are especially welcome, the glass-pavilion-in-the-sky space is a touch of gorgeous imagination, though hopefully will offer air-conditioning for hot greenhouse rehearsals, and I hope profoundly that we will no longer be able to hear the noise from the very right-on urban skateboard park inside the QEH during piano recitals.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, the word "acoustics" does not seem to appear anywhere in the press release as far as the interior of the existing concert halls is concerned. Look... I love the Southbank and this will be a much-needed, massive improvement to it. But what London really needs is a world-class concert hall. With state-of-the-art acoustics. It doesn't have one. And this isn't going to provide one.The idea remains...well, pie in the sky.

Here's a full run-down from Classical Music Magazine on what will be done, and how, and when.
http://www.classicalmusicmagazine.org/2013/03/major-new-building-announced-for-southbank-centres-festival-wing/

A symphony of coughs?

Are classical concerts really just a symphony of coughs these days? The other week I went along to the London branch of the Voice of Russia radio station for a chat with its culture presenter Alice Lagnado and the dynamic Gareth Davies, ace flautist and orchestral tour blogger in chief of the LSO, about Annoying Things People Do At Concerts.

Gareth pointed out that some of the biggest concert-offences aren't at all what you might think they are, I gave a little demonstration of how best to muffle your bark, and we couldn't help reflecting that everything ought to be all about the music, with halls, behaviour and house-rules geared to optimising concert-goers' experience of listening to that music, and somehow people are losing sight of this in a flood of ideological insanity, or something...

Apparently in Russia audiences are a lot quieter.

Listen to the whole thing here: http://ruvr.co.uk/radio_broadcast/77030634/105953243.html

Oops. Happy birthday to us.

Ah. So 2 March was JDCMB's 9th birthday. Oops. Thought it was today. I've never been much good at remembering birthdays. Luckily, it seems we celebrated in the best possible way - at that Parsifal cinecast - had I but thought to check.

Since I didn't, here is Krystian Zimerman playing the music of someone whose birthday was the day before, unless it was in fact a week earlier. (Well, any excuse would do.)

In the meantime, it is becoming apparent that this time next year, this blog will have been going for a decade. I'm looking for a good way to combine high quality chocolate, amazing singers, great pianists, slidey strings, inspirational composers, words&music, fine wine and no gluten. What do you think we should do to mark the occasion? Please feel free to write in with any suggestions!