July 29, 2007

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

Katharina Wagner’s staging of her Great grandfather’s opera “Die Meistersinger” at the Bayreuth Festival this year has caused some controversy.  The controversial staging by Ms Wagner, which included full frontal nudity and Hitler as a character, drew boos and howls from the audience at the venerable festival of Wagnerian works.  According to Katharina, “They didn’t understand it.  Bayreuth has gained a certain kind of mythological status… if you scratch that status, you have to be aware of the consequences”. 

A young Russian has won the 2007 William Kapell International Piano Competition.  27-year-old Sofya Gulyak won the $25,000 first prize with her fearless technique in the demanding Rachmaninoff Concerto #4; Second Prize and $15,000 went to 20-year-old American  Sara Daneshpour for her powerful Tchaikovsky Concerto #1; and another American, Spencer Meyer, 29, won the $10,000 third prize, playing Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.

Santa Fe Opera has named Edo de Waart the company’s chief Conductor.  He succeeds Alan Gilbert, who stepped down in May and was named the next Music Director of the New York Philharmonic.  De Waart made his US debut with the Santa Fe Opera in 1971.  the 66-year-old conductor’s contract is for four years, and he will conduct at least one opera  each summer, beginning with Britten’s “Billy Budd” next year.  Santa Fe Opera Director Richard Gaddes calls de Waart “an extraordinary musician with a reputation for orchestra-building.”

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