As medici.tv’s Chief Content Officer I spend a lot of time thinking about classical music—and a lot of time on the internet. Here’s my selection of the top five news items you need to see this week if you want to stay in the know.
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King Charles in attendance for unveiling of new Royal Ballet and Opera curtains
King Charles III attended a glittering gala at the Royal Ballet and Opera last week to celebrate a set of new main stage curtains featuring his royal cipher. The curtains, which replace the previous set that had carried Queen Elizabeth II’s cipher since the late 1990s, were a joint project involving artisans in the UK, Germany, and France and required over a million hand-embroidered stitches from a team of eight embroiders from the Royal School of Needlework. The symbolism—literally changing the curtain on one royal era and opening another—has drawn a lot of media attention.
New Vaughan Williams song discovered in London school archive (Classic FM)
A previously unknown song by Ralph Vaughan Williams has been discovered in an archive box at London’s Morley College London. Titled “Before the Mirror,” the work sets a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, inspired by a painting by James McNeill Whistler. Archivist Elaine Andrews uncovered the manuscript and the Vaughan Williams Foundation authenticated it as a genuine early work. Scholars believe it offers a rare glimpse into Vaughan Williams’s formative compositional process, complete with revisions and crossings-out on the manuscript page.
The MET Opera Orchestra partner with IMSLP’s Excerpt Hub
Everyone’s favorite digital score library IMSLP just announced a new partnership with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra to enrich their Excerpt Hub with recordings, masterclasses, and audition prep advice from the professional musicians in the orchestra to help the next generation of orchestral performers learn their craft. As Met Opera Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin shared in his video announcement: “Our mission is to bring the highest level of knowledge to every musician, accessible to everyone, everywhere.”
Evgeny Kissin limited to just one encore at Chicago recital by hall staff
Star pianist Evgeny Kissin took to Instagram this week to recount an incident that occurred during his recital in Chicago: at the end of the program, hall staff informed him that they only had time for one encore before they needed to begin prepping the stage for the next concert. Kissin is known for performing multiple encores—including a particularly legendary and record-breaking 50-minute set at the BBC Proms in 1997, which you can watch below—and was extremely disappointed. Apologizing to his fans, he said that it was the first time in his career that he wasn’t allowed to perform as many encores as he and the audience desired.
Op-Ed: are tech billionaires the answer to classical music’s funding problems? (NYT)
A new op-ed in the New York Times by former English National Opera director John Berry puts forth a (sure to be polemic) solution to the ongoing and growing funding problems facing some of America’s biggest classical music institutions: we simply need to get the tech bros on board. “We shouldn’t ask the tech titans to save a struggling art form. In their cultural Darwinism, they may say it deserves to die. But if asked to help invent a new version of it, one that eschews the traditional opera experience, which may well have put them off in the first place, it may at least pique their interest. We need to appeal to their desire to change the world in a way they understand.”
