May 13, 2007

This week in classical music 5-13-07

It’s this week in classical music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

Italian conductor Riccardo Muti is helping renew Lebanon’s summer festivals, which were cancelled last year due to the Isreal-Hezbollah war.  Muti is set to conduct his orchstra at the roman temples at the eastern city of Baalbek nd play piano at a concert during a festival near Beirut.  The dates and details of the festivals are still to be announced.  Tourism Minister Joseph Sarkis said all four of Lebanon’s major annual arts festivals would take place this summer despite the country’s political crisis, saying “we invite arabs and foreigners to come spend the summer in Lebanon”

British Composer Brian Ferneyhough was awarded the 2007 Ernst von Siemens music prize this month in Munich.  Founded in 1972 by it’s namesake, the annual award goes to a composer, performer or scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the world of music.  The award specifically mentioned his works “Time and Motion Study II” and Cassandra’s Dream Song”.  Ferneyhough, 64, A Stanford Professor, received 200,000 Euros and joins an impressive list of past winners that include Benjamin Britten, Msitislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim and others.

For the first time ever, there were fisticuffs at the Boston Pops on opening night.  Witnesses say they heard a scream from the balcony, chairs falling and a second scream as the fight escalated.  The fight erupted after one audience member tried to get the man in front of him to stop talking.  At which point the man started throwing punches.  Part of the fight was caught on video by a local TV station.  Conductor Keith Lockhart briefly stopped the performance, which featured singer-songwriter Ben Folds, as the two men were escorted out of the hall.

For more information on these and other items and events, go to the KBAQ website at KBAQ-dot-org.… be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries, … I’m Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ’s  “This week in Classical Music”…  on 89-five KBAQ, K-B-A-Q Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University