The American Classical Orchestra is generously offering to lighten the gloom of Europeans trapped by the volcanic cloud in New York (although it's hardly the worst place for an enforced stopover). This Saturday the ACO performs the climactic concert of its 25th-anniversary season at the Big Apple's Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, and any stranded European nationals will be given a free ticket if they show their passport at the door.
classical music buzz
Peter Culshaw
Joanna Wos (left, no relation to Jonathan Ross) put in a stellar performance last night singing in Gorecki's Third Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall with the LPO, singing the part made famous on the million-selling recording by Dawn Upshaw. To get there, she drove for three days and nights from Poland arriving yesterday afternoon. What a trouper. It would be unfair to judge her against Upshaw in the circumstances. But I will. She didn't quite have Upshaw's power, but she was splendidly expressive. She even reminded me, strangely, at times of Victoria de los Angeles. And the LPO seemed slightly on automatic for the first section but then burst into life for the latter movements.David Nice
Britain's most exciting wunderkind conductor since Simon Rattle first emerged - and, no, I haven't forgotten Daniel Harding - has big plans for his first full season with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Robin Ticciati is one of the new-generation firebrands determined to change the face of concert planning, hoping to achieve wonders similar to what Vladimir Jurowski has already stage-managed with the LPO.
Peter Culshaw
This week's musicians birthdays include the genius/lecherous mediocrity (according to taste) Serge Gainsbourg, singing a duet with Brigitte Bardot, classic early 60s footage of Marvin Gaye, vibraphone maestro Red Norvo, Herb Alpert in a rodeo video doing “Casino Royale”, and Astrud Gilberto from Ipanema. Composer birthdays of the week are Franz Joseph Haydn and William Walton. Videos below.
Ismene Brown
Jonathan Mills has announced the programme for Edinburgh International Festival 2010, on a theme of modern culture in the New Worlds of the Americas and Australasia. Ranging from California to Canberra, New York to New Zealand, from Santiago to Samoa, the festival opens on Friday 13 August with John Adams' oratorio El Niño and closes on Sunday 5 September with the traditional fireworks concert.
Peter Culshaw
Should we be silent in classical concerts? Alex Ross, the classical critic of the New Yorker and writer of the superb panorama of 20th Century music The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, an “unlikely mass-market proposition” which has been a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic will be giving this year’s Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture. His talk is entitled Inventing and Reinventing the Classical Concert and will be given on 8 March at the Wigmore Hall. In the lecture Alex Ross will address concert culture - what has changed since the 18th century and what can we take forward into the 21st?
igor.toronyilalic
The death of the late great American virtuoso Earl Wild a few weeks ago has had me poring over youtube trying to find a decent clip of him in his prime. You'd think there'd be a raft of footage of a man who spent three decades as a staff pianist for NBC, then ABC, all while building up a virtuoso concert career that saw him become one of the most respected pianists of the 20th century. There is some fizzy footage of him performing Chopin and MacDowell on the American variety and talk shows of the 1950s (which I wish would happen today; I'd pay good money to see Krystian Zimerman perform a Chopin ballade on Loose Women). But most of the video fragments are badly recorded amateur snatches at concerts from when Wild was much older.
igor.toronyilalic
According to award-winning film-maker Tony Palmer, the London Polish Daily newspaper has gone "ape-shit" over the re-release of his dramatised Chopin film, The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka, accusing it of maligning the good name of Chopin/Poland/The Polish Daily. They were planning to interview him tomorrow but cancelled, accusing him of "more or less anything you can think of", Palmer tells me.
Ismene Brown
The V&A has made a small concession to the musical outcry over its plan to substitute musical instruments with fashion galleries - an outcry you read first on theartsdesk. It is opening the instruments gallery for extra days before the closure on 22 February.
Ismene Brown
The Victoria and Albert Museum intends on 22 February to disperse its collection of musical instruments to other venues, to allow more room for fashion and textile exhibits. Conductor Christopher Hogwood and composer Oliver Knussen are two more well-known names in the list of more than 5,100 signatories to the petition lodged at 10 Downing Street asking for the move to be prevented. theartsdesk invited big hitters on either side to debate the case - Roxy Music designer Anthony Price makes the fashion case, while conductor Laurence Cummings heads the musician's view. And we ask you: What do you think? Please take part in the debate by making your comment below.