Latest news – Page 249
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1721 'Lady Blunt' Stradivari violin sells for £9.8m
The 1721 'Lady Blunt', one of the best-preserved Stradivari violins in existence, was sold yesterday in a Tarisio online auction for £9.8m ($15.9m). The figure, which includes the buyer's premium (the hammer price was £8,750,000), is over four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin. The buyer was ...
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Composer Maxwell Davies attacks phone offenders
Peter Maxwell Davies has branded audience members who allow their phones to ring during concerts 'artistic terrorists'. The 76-year-old composer and Master of the Queen's Music added that he would like to see financial penalities imposed on concertgoers whose phones go off. Maxwell Davies voiced his opinions after a ...
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Three quartets given finalists' prizes at Paolo Borciani competition
The jury of this year's Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Reggio Emilia could not choose an outright winner. The three quartets in the final – the Amaryllis Quartet from Germany and Switzerland, the Meccorre Quartet from Poland, and the Voce Quartet from France – each received a ...
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Violinist David Garrett enshrined at Berlin Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds in Berlin has unveiled a wax figure of violinist David Garrett. The new figure has been placed next to figures of Bach and Beethoven at the tourist attraction. The 30-year-old violinist, who was born in Aachen to an American prima ballerina and a German lawyer, said at the ...
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BBC plans nationwide orchestral celebration for Olympics
Orchestras and performing groups across the UK will take part in a major music festival on the weekend of 3–4 March next year as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The BBC is coordinating the Music Nation festival, which will feature performances and workshops in 45 locations across the ...
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Street busker Darth Fiddler given new violin after assault
A busker in Victoria, Canada, who plays the violin dressed as Darth Vader, has been given a new violin after his instrument was damaged in an assault. After a Twitter campaign appealed for information about the attack on Darth Fidder, who suffered minor injuries in the incident, local store Larsen ...
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Romanian-born quartet cellist Wolfgang Laufer dies at 64
Cellist Wolfgang Laufer has died from lymphoma at the age of 64. Laufer was a member of the Fine Arts Quartet from 1979 until April of this year, and also served as professor of cello at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where the Fine Arts was quartet-in-residence. Born in Romania, ...
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Montreal Baroque music festival to feature six new Brandenburg concertos
This month's Montreal Baroque Festival is including a first performance of six 'new' Brandenburg Concertos. The instrumental works were created from movements of Bach cantatas by the late Bruce Haynes, the oboist and musicologist who wrote the provocative book The End of Early Music. The new Brandenburgs will be performed ...
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Cellist Nelson Cooke receives Order of Australia in Queen's birthday honours list
Cellist Nelson Cooke has been named a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday 2011 Honours list. The 91-year-old received the award in recognition of his work as a teacher and performer. Cooke was principal cellist in the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and held the ...
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Violinist Sergey Malov takes top prize at Michael Hill competition
Russian violinist and violist Sergey Malov has won first prize at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in Auckland, New Zealand. The 27-year-old, who performed Bartók's Violin Concerto no.2 in the final, received NZ$40,000 (£20,000). He also won the chamber music prize and the audience award. Second prize went to ...
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Chinese finalist in New Zealand violin competition persuaded to play by dying mother
A Chinese competitor in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in Auckland fulfilled his mother's last wish by playing in the contest. Xiang Yu, 22, would not have attended the event if it had not been for his dying mother's entreaties that he should go to New Zealand. Xiang's mother ...
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Website to record arts cuts victims
A website is being set up to record all the UK arts projects and organisations that will be lost because of cuts in public funding. The site, called Lost Arts, will also keep a tally of the money lost to the arts and the money lost to the Treasury (drawing ...
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Former prison chaplain accused of helping mob hitman recover antique violin
A priest has been charged with plotting to recover a violin for jailed Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. Calabrese, currently serving a life sentence in a high-security federal prison, allegedly passed messages about the violin to Eugene Klein, who worked as a chaplain at the facility. Calabrese was apparently worried ...
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J.B. Vuillaume cello sells for more than 230,000 euros at Vichy Enchères
A cello by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume sold for €231,730 (including buyer's premium) at Vichy Enchères, setting a new world auction record for the maker. The instrument, made in 1866, was estimated at €120,000–€150,000. The 7–9 June auction in Vichy, France, also set new records for Dominique Peccatte (a cello ...
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London Symphony Orchestra bassist lands conductor post
The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden has appointed British double bassist and conductor Michael Francis as its principal conductor and artistic adviser from July 2012. Francis, who is in his mid-thirties, has played double bass in the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) since 2003. He got his first big conducting break ...
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Mozart music for violin and keyboard withdrawn from auction
A booklet of Mozart sonatas was withdrawn from auction after a claim that it was donated to a charity shop 'in error'. The first edition of the Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin K10–15, dating from 1765, had been expected to fetch up to £3,000 in the sale at Sotheby's in ...
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Japanese violinist Mayumi Kanagawa wins Klein contest in San Francisco
Violinist Mayumi Kanagawa has won the $12,000 first prize at the Irving M. Klein International String Competition in San Francisco. The 16-year-old from Japan is an academy student of Robert Lipsett and Arnold Steinhardt at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles. Second prize went to cellist Matthew ...
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Debut for jazz and classical double bass ensemble
A new ensemble of 12 double bassists has its debut concert on Friday 10 June at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. The Bassment comprises six jazz bassists and six classically trained bassists. The jazz section is led by Lex Futshane, one of South Africa's leading jazz bassists, and the classical ...
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Charity to benefit from Mozart violin and keyboard sonatas
A booklet of rare Mozart sheet music that was discovered in a charity shop is to be sold at Sotheby's on Wednesday 8 June. The second printing of a first edition of the Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin K10–15 was found in a box of sheet music at the Oxfam ...
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Luthier Christoph Götting wins national craft award
Violin maker Christoph Götting was the overall winner in The Balvenie Masters of Craft awards, a new awards programme set up to celebrate craftspeople in the UK. Götting, who is based in Hampshire, trained in Mittenwald and worked as a restorer at J.&A. Beare in London for 21 years. He ...