Barenboim News

I travelled to Israel and Palestine for this Sunday's Observer Music Monthly, to meet members of Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra .

“Both sides were prompted to take this step because they were unable to reach agreement on the future direction of the overall operation and the artistic programming”

BERLIN - Peter Mussbach, general manager of Berlin's famed Staatsoper, is leaving due to differences over programming. via KOB-TV

“I would like to make this last engagement as music director in my life something that can enrich people”

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has its man. Riccardo Muti, 66, one of the world's leading orchestral and opera conductors, has agreed to a five-year contract to become music director of the CSO, starting with ... via Daily Herald

“I'm ecstatic, and so are all the musicians and staff in Chicago.”

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association named maestro Riccardo Muti early Monday as the next music director of the CSO, the 10th conductor to hold the prestigious post.

Muti, 66, signed a five-year contract to serve as music director beginning in September of the 2010-2011 season, association president Deborah Card announced. The post has been vacant since Daniel Barenboim retired in 2006.

The contract calls for Muti to conduct a minimum of 10 weeks of CSO subscription concerts each season, plus lead the orchestra in domestic and international tours. Read more

“They should be able to give any conductor exactly what he wants”

One of Daniel Barenboim's prime goals as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was to build up its flexibility to match and meld with its already-renowned virtuosity. via Chicago Sun-Times

“First of all, I'm a woman, so it's a matter of course. Then it's because I'm a novelist, because I direct operas, and because I've made some very, very commercially successful movies that are really more like auteur films.”

She is Germany's most successful woman director and has made her reputation with bittersweet romantic comedies. via Hollywood Reporter

The season, announced today by Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb and music director James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera House, will also feature eighteen revivals, two gala performances - ' an ... via Opera News

Child's play . Time Out Chicago. February 21, 2008. Soprano Linden Christ started her own opera company, called Opera Play-House, with the notion of it being an outreach vehicle, not a vanity project. via Marc Geelhoed

London, Fiona Maddocks's rating Description: The cycle reaches its conclusion as the acclaimed pianist performs Beethoven's Piano Sonata In C Minor, Op.111 and three other works. via This Is London

“I will not allow you to say that all opinions are as good as one another”

Barenboim's cycle of 32 Beethoven sonatas is a reminder that the best art is uniquely ennobling. via Guardian Unlimited

After being overwhelmed by the wisdom of Barenboim on Newsnight - yes, real coverage of a real classical artist on a real current affairs programme is still possible, just - this Britblogger is overwhelmed all ... via Jessica Duchen's classical music blog

The annals of opera will record that Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera , was the trailblazer who brought high-definition video broadcasts of performances to movie theaters around the ... via New York Times

Daniel Barenboim, London It's 50 years since Daniel Barenboim first gave a complete cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas in public, and almost 40 since he made his famous first recording of them all for EMI. via MediaGuardian.co.uk

“It is a great honor to be offered a passport”

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples. via WNED.org

“I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office”

Berlin's well-known opera director, Daniel Barenboim, will show his support for Palestine with a charity paino concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah. via Deutsche Welle

“We will continue to play music for that”

Conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim is to give a charity piano concert with Beethoven sonatas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden said Wednesday. via Earth Times

The first is a glowing review of the new La Scala Ch ©reau/Barenboim production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde by compulsive operagoer Mostly Opera : In brief: It a was a truly magical evening of the kind ... via Sounds & fury

If you didn't happen to be in Italy for the evening-after broadcast of the Daniel Barenboim Tristan and Isolde at La Scala in Milan, here's Waltraud Meier's stellar Liebestod, to give you an idea of what was ... via ArchitectureChicago PLUS

“A perfect Jose, sung as he hasn't been sung in a long time... This young Mexican tenor alone makes it worth seeing.”

Bizet's Carmen is reputed to be the most famous opera in the world. Maestro Daniel Barenboim presents his musical view on this classic opera. via The Arts Channel