The Republican candidate has made it clear that he intends to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts which, for the past half-century has funneled small amounts of seed capital into deserving causes. Following a huge debate on this topic, Slipped Disc has commissioned a series of articles on the state of the arts in the United States under the Obama administration. Will the arts be better off in an Obama second term? To start the ball rolling, here's Nicholas Alexander Brown, a … [Read more...]

Hans Ulrich Schmid, founder of Konzertdirektion Schmid, has died of cancer, aged 86. His was one of of the first German agencies to reprent artists on an exclusive worldwide basis. Among current clients are the condcutor Andris Nelsons aqnd the violinist Christian Tetzlaff. A condolence book has been opened here. … [Read more...]

Marvin Hamlisch, for one. Bill Clinton was there and Barack Obama sent a message, as did Nancy Reagan (I guess the Bushes are tone-deaf). Here's a CBS News report.   … [Read more...]

Every bookshop in Bayreuth is stacked with announcements of new titles for the Master's coming bicentennial. None is generating more excitement than this new beat-and-tell book by Germany's favourite conductor. It's out next month. Also raising the temperature is the forthcoming 22nd volume of Wagner's complete correspondence - and yet more to come. Imagine what his output might have been like if he'd had Twitter.   … [Read more...]

The Russian bass-baritone, who left Bayreuth in a furore over swastika tattoos, has shifted ground slightly in a hostile conversation with Der Spiegel, which he says will be the last interview he ever gives. He blames the press, with some justification, for blowing up the issue of his body art into a false issue of fascist sympathies. He also sounds as if he is trying to mend bridges with Bayreuth. Best of all, he sounds fit and able to tough it out. Read the interview here (in English). … [Read more...]

The virtuoso jazz saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski has died, aged 65, of the effects of a stroke. They don't make players like this more than once in a generation. … [Read more...]

First film, just in from North Korea, shows the One Whose Name I Won't Mention in case I get the wrong Korea and he walks off the video introducing his new wife to the nation at the opening of a playground. Everyone seems quite pleased to see her, especially the news presenter whose voice trembles with emotion throughout. … [Read more...]

The Munich based soloist is touring festivals this summer with three soloist pals - viola player Nils Mönkemeyer, violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky and cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger. Julia, 29, also plays piano, holds a professorship and has a child to look after. Why add another string to her bow? 'I've been addicted to string quartets since  was three years old,' says Julia. See here. UPDATE: The first performance of the newly formed quartet can be clicked in Comments below. … [Read more...]

The Royal Opera in Copenhagen has been floundering in limbo since the joint walkouts of artistic director Keith Warner and music director Jakub Hrusa in January, over savage budget cuts that reduced the company to chamber size. Today, they gave Warner's job to his stand-in, Sven Müller, and Hrusa's to another German, Michael Boder, presently music director at the Liceu in Barcelona, which  has been under threat of partial closure.  Boder will leave Barcelona at the end of the season. The … [Read more...]

There has been a tiny bit of movement in efforts to secure the release of Rodolfo Cazares, the Bremerhaven conductor kidnapped last July by Mexican bandits and still missing despite the payment of four ransom demands. A second Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, took up the story this weekend, with fresh information from his wife and family and a lovely picture of Rodolfo in Paris, shortly before his abduction. Read it here. … [Read more...]

A report in The Stage that dancers are being paid £327 a week, or £8 ($12) an hour to appear in The Death of Klinghoffer at English National Opera has provoked mixed reactions. One one side, horror and disgust that arts professionals are treated so poorly. On the other, the old comfort that 'at least they have work'. An entertaining diatribe in Article 19 comes down heavily on side A. My take is rather more conflicted. The dancers caught the eye in Klinghoffer because they were quick … [Read more...]

A protégé of Muddy Waters, Louisiana Red (real name Iverson Minter) grew up tough in Alabama. His mother died a week after his birth. When he was eight, his father was  murdered by Ku Klux Klan racists. In 1972, his wife died of cancer. He cut his first disc in Detroit at 17, played in John lee Hooker's band and worked in the Chicago fish market. A lucky break in a 1982 German movie gave him a new life, a new country, new fame. His website announced his death today, aged 79. RIP … [Read more...]

Elizabeth Connell, a leading soprano at the Royal Opera House in the 1970s and 1980s, has died in London after a short illness. A hugely popular colleague, she sang Isolde and other major roles with innate modesty and distinction. South Africa born and London based for most of her career, she gave her last performance less than three months ago. Elizabeth will be mourned worldwide. Our sympathies go out to her family and many friends. (More tributes here). And a beautiful memorial … [Read more...]

Luis Alberto Spinetta, known as El Flaco (Skinny), has died in Buenos Aires of lung cancer, aged 62. More here.   … [Read more...]

It's coming up next week in L.A. and the stage hands are doing musical dry-runs. Watch this: … [Read more...]