This Week in Classical Music w/Randy Kinkel 12/16/18

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US Orchestras Lead Grammy Noms;

Docs save life during concert

 

 

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

 

Four American Orchestras are in the running for Grammys this year.

The Seattle Symphony leads all orchestras with three nominations — two for present music director, Ludovic Morlot, in Aaron Jay Kernis’ Violin Concerto with soloist James Ehnes (in the classical instrumental solo and contemporary composition categories), and one for future music director, Thomas Dausgaard, in Nielsen’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4, nominated for best orchestral performance.

Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony, who won two Grammys last year, are back with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony (also nominated for best engineering).

Michael Tilson Thomas and the SF Symphony are also nominated for their recording of Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1-4, and Also in the running are Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 11. Andris Nelsons, conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

 

A Concert may have saved an elderly Brookline woman’s life.

It was a recent Sunday afternoon at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and the local chamber music ensemble Mistral was in the middle of a concert titled “The Walk to the Paradise Garden.”

They had performed works by Henry Purcell and Edward Elgar. Then Ingrid Christiansen, 89, went into cardiac arrest.

Mistral cofounder and artistic director Julie Scolnik

Bottom of Form

had raised her flute to lead the program’s third piece, when her husband, Mistral cofounder Michael Brower, tapped her on the shoulder and told her to hold the music.

In her front-row seat, Ingrid Christiansen had fallen unconscious and was slumped over on another patron.  Four doctors seated nearby hurried to examine her. emergency physician Anne Stack said that after two minutes of CPR, She felt a strong pulse. “I made the assumption that her pacemaker was malfunctioning, and it finally kicked in, and she had that nice strong pulse thereafter,” Stack said.

An ambulance arrived quickly to transport a reluctant Christiansen to the hospital. Flutist Skolnik later visited Ingrid there and played some bach for her.

Christiansen is feeling much improved, she said.

 

Principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe is trying to come to terms with the Boston Symphony Orchestra before the equal pay lawsuit she filed against them turns into a court battle.

Rowe is suing the BSO for $200,000 in back pay. She says she was being paid $70,000 a year less than the male principal oboist because she’s a woman.

This week Rowe told The Washington Post that her motivation for the suit is to see fairness and equality.

The BSO told The Post that pay is different because the instruments are not comparable. They saw the limited pool of great oboists gives them leverage in negotiating pay.

Rowe hopes an agreement in mediation will resolve the conflict.

 

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