Gustav Meier (1929–2016) was a Swiss-born conductor

Gustav Meier, conductor emeritus of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, died Friday morning, May 27 2016, at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he had been under hospice care for several weeks. He was 86. Gustav Meier (1929–2016) was a Swiss-born conductor and director of the Orchestra Conducting

Program at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. He was also Music Director of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, for more than 40 years (1972–2013).

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 VIDEO: The Greater Bridgeport Symphony rehearses with Gustav Meier conducting at the Klein Memorial Auditorium on March 14, 2013. This will be Meier's final season conducting for the symphony. The musical piece is: Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien, Opus 45."

 

Jane Little, Atlanta’s Venerable Bassist, Dies at 87

Atlanta's Dainty Double-Bass Player For 71 Years, Dies Onstage. 

 Jane Little spent her long life making beautiful music, and she died May 15, 2016 doing just what she loved, onstage. Little played with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for more than 71 years. She joined the symphony in 1945, when she was just 16. NPR

Robert W. Gutman, composer biographer, dies

NYTimes Obit Robert W. Gutman, Biographer of Wagner and Mozart, was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 11, 1925, the son of Theodore Gutman, a lawyer, and the former Elsie Edenbaum, a legal secretary and homemaker. As a young man, he studied the piano and took instruction in music theory from Kurt Adler, a longtime conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. His biographies of Wagner and Mozart helped upend popularly held ideas about both composers’ lives, he died on Friday, May 20, 2016 in the Bronx. He was 90.

Synthesizer and electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita has died at 84

Isao Tomita often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencers and the Mellotron and featured futuristic science fiction themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop music and trance-like rhythms. Many of his albums are electronic versions and adaptations of famous classical music pieces and he received four Grammy Award nominations for his 1974 album Snowflakes Are Dancing. WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: Arabesque No. 1 from Isao Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" LP.
 

Elsie Jean Morison (15 August 1924 – 5 April 2016) was an Australian operatic soprano.

Elsie Jean Morison won the Dame Nellie Melba Scholarship in 1945, and the Queen's Prize at the Royal College of Music in 1947. Among Morison's many recordings, those of Purcell, Handel and Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time capture the grace and conviction of her singing. She has also recorded an outstanding and very well received complete Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, Opp. 52 and 65, with Marjorie Thomas, Richard Lewis and Donald Bell, accompanied by Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin. In 1963, she married the Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík, and decided to retire from performing. She did sing occasionally post-retirement, such as at a 1968 concert in Melbourne conducted by her husband, with her mother in the audience. Morison died in Prague on 5 April 2016, aged 91. WIKIPEDIA

 VIDEO: From "The Fairy Queen" by Henry Purcell, here is Australian soprano Elsie Morison singing the Act II air under the baton of Anthony Lewis. 1957.
 

Ursula Mamlok, Avant-Garde Composer, Dies at 93

  NYTimes Obit Ursula Mamlok (February 1, 1923 – May 4, 2016) was a German-born American composer and teacher. Mamlok composed extensively for small chamber ensembles of various configurations as well as works for piano. However, her compositional oeuvre included a few pieces for orchestra, including a concerto for oboe. Other works included several songs, as well as works for voice and chamber ensemble. Mamlok's husband, Dwight Mamlok, penned the text for her 1987 song entitled "Der Andreasgarten". WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: Hamed Shadad, clarinet Kate Goldstein, violin James Rosamilla, cello December 12, 2013 Longy School of Music of Bard College Ursula Mamlok (1923-2016) was born in Berlin and immigrated to Ecuador in 1939 due to Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens. In the same year, she received a scholarship to the Mannes School of Music in New York, where she studied with Roger Sessions, Stefan Wolpe (a student of Anton Webern), and Ralph Shapey. After graduating, she taught composition at New York University and at the Manhattan School of Music for 40 years.
 

Alan Loveday obituary Violinist who helped shape the distinctive sound of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields

Alan Raymond Loveday, violinist, born 29 February 1928; died 12 April 2016 The violinist Alan Loveday, who has died aged 88, went on from prodigious beginnings in New Zealand to London, and in particular the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF). As one of the ensemble’s soloists and leaders, he helped create its distinctively brilliant and even string sound. The ASMF’s founder, Neville Marriner, asked Loveday to be the solo violin in a recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (1969); his beautiful, unmannered playing led to sales of half a million copies and the ASMF’s first gold disc. Marriner, a contemporary at the Royal College of Music in London, recalled that Loveday “was better than any of us. I would say that he was the best individual violin player that the RCM has ever produced.” The Guardian Obit

Dmytro Hnatyuk (28 March 1925 – 29 April 2016)

Dmytro Hnatyuk was a Ukrainian baritone opera singer and a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament. WIKIPEDIA He was a singer at the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theatre appearing as a soloist in many songs. In 1979, Hnatyuk graduated from the State Institute and of Theatrical Arts as a Director (rezhyser). From 1951 to 1988, he worked as an opera singer and from 1975 also as a director of the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet as well working as a trainer of the National Academic Theatre. In 1988, he became the director of the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet. Hnatyuk sang in many operas by Ukrainian and worldwide composers.

Gabriele Sima (February 25, 1955 – April 27, 2016)

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Gabriele Sima was an Austrian opera singer who had an active international performance career since 1979. Particularly known for her appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera, and the Zurich Opera, she has performed in roles associated with both the soprano and mezzo-soprano repertoires.

Jan Henrik Kayser (born February 20, 1933 in Bergen , died April 24, 2016 ) was a Norwegian pianist .

 He received his education at the music conservatory in Bergen and Music Academy in Vienna and debuted in 1953 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra . He won the Princess Astrid Music Prize in 1961 and got Grieg Price with Anne Bolstad and Find Nielsen in 1978. He has collaborated with Harald Sæverud for almost 40 years, which in 1997 led to the release of a richly illustrated book about Sæverud and his piano music. In addition to being Sæverud student, he was also his partner, and they held many concerts together where Sæverud told about music Kayser played.  Kayser has had an international career and held concerts in the United States, China and Russia in addition to a lot of activity in Europe, where he has played with, among others, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Prague Symphony Orchestra. He is awarded the King's Medal of Merit in gold .

 VIDEO: Harald Sæverud - Tunes and Dances from Siljustol, Suite No. 1, Op. 21 - Jan Henrik Kayser..Rec. 1976 (Nacka Aula, Nacka, Sweden) . 

Guy Anthony Woolfenden OBE (12 July 1937 – 15 April 2016) was an English composer and conductor.

Guy Woolfenden was born in Ipswich and educated at Westminster Abbey Choir School, London, and Whitgift School, Croydon. He studied music at Christ's College in Cambridge and went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1961 and was Head of Music from 1963 to 1998. He was Artistic Director of the Cambridge Festival from 1986 to 1991. In 1995 he was a founder director of the English Music Festival which became the Stratford on Avon Music Festival. . He was the Chairman of the Denne Gilkes Memorial Fund, a charity which supports young musicians and actors. He was the founder of the publishing company, Ariel Music. Woolfenden married Jane Aldrick in 1962 and they had three sons. WIKIPEDIA

 VIDEO: Firedance, by composer Guy Woolfenden, was originally commissioned by Warwick Castle for one of its celebrated annual fireworks concerts – the first performance was given by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins on July 1st 2000. Keith Allen, Music Director of Birmingham Symphonic Winds was present at that performance at Warwick Castle and commissioned a new arrangement for BSW’s 10th anniversary concert at the CBSO Centre, Birmingham on November 16th 2002, when it was conducted Wollfenden.

 

Brian Asawa (October 1, 1966 – April 18, 2016)

Brian Asawa was a Japanese-American countertenor. "In his prime", according to Opera News, "Asawa was an electric performer, his fearless performing style supported by a voice of arresting beauty and expressivity". Brian Asawa's discography includes four solo recital discs ranging from Dowland and Edmund Campion to Rachmaninoff and Ned Rorem. Opera recordings include Farnace in Mitridate for Decca, Arsamene in Serse for Conifer and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream for Philips with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis. Asawa also appeared on DVD in Ligeti's "Le Grand Macabre" Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Monteverdi's "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" Opus Arte, Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, and Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" Kultur, as well as both a CD and DVD release of Handel's "Messiah" directed by Marc Minkowski. In 2014, Asawa and mezzo soprano Diana Tash released an album of duets on the LML Music label that included works by Handel, Monteverdi, Purcell, A. Scarlatti, and Marco da Gagliano. WIKIPEDIA VIDEO:

Royston Hulbert Nash (July 23, 1933 – April 4, 2016) was an English-born conductor, best known as a music director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Royston Nash began as a conductor with the Royal Marines from 1957 to 1970. He then joined D'Oyly Carte, becoming Music Director from 1971 to 1979. There, he led the company during its centenary year in 1975 and issued a number of recordings, including the company's only recordings of Utopia, Limited, The Grand Duke, and The Zoo, as well as recordings of some rarely heard Sullivan music. He then moved to the United States, where he became musical director of the Nashua Symphony Orchestra and the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra until his retirement in 2007. He also founded and conducted Symphony by the Sea. WIKIPEDIA

Howard Reid Cable (December 15, 1920 – March 30, 2016) was a conductor, arranger, music director, composer, and radio and television producer. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Cable composed and arranged the original theme for the Hockey Night in Canada television broadcast, The Saturday Game which opened the broadcast from 1952 until 1968. His arrangement of Dolores Claman's "The Hockey Theme", which replaced his own composition in 1968, is the standard version, has been called "Canada's Second National Anthem". His Royal Conservatory arrangement of "The Hockey Theme" for piano is one of the best selling pieces of sheet music in Canada. Cable was conductor for the early CBC TV variety programs General Electric Showtime and Mr. Show Business. In addition he conducted and arranged music for various CBC radio and TV programs in the 1960s. From 1971 to 1985 he was host of the program Howard Cable Presents heard on St. Catharines radio station "CHRE-fm", and for most of the years it was the station's highest rated program. WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: Howard Cable rehearses his Banks of Newfoundland with the Wellington Winds October 2011 This rehearsal was in preparation for our performance of this great piece by Canadian treasure, Howard Cable.
 

Peter Maxwell Davies, British Composer, Dies at 81

 Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the prolific English composer long known as an anti-establishment anti-monarchist avant-gardist enfant terrible — but whose work was so renowned that he was named Queen Elizabeth II’s official music master anyway — died on Monday 14 MAR 2016, at his home in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. He was 81. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CH CBE (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor. In 2004 he was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and at the Royal Manchester College of Music, he formed a group dedicated to contemporary music, the New Music Manchester, with fellow students Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Elgar Howarth and John Ogdon. His compositions include eight works for the stage, from the monodrama Eight Songs for a Mad King, which shocked the audience in 1969, to Kommilitonen!, first performed in 2011. He wrote ten symphonies, the first from 1973 to 1976, the tenth ("Alla ricerca di Borromini") in 2013. As a conductor, he was Artistic Director of the Dartington International Summer School from 1979 to 1984. From 1992 to 2002 he was associate conductor/composer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he also held with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra." WIKIPEDIA

 VIDEO: 'The Lighthouse' by Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir George Henry Martin CBE (3 January 1926 – 9 March 2016)

Martin was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer, and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle" in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. He is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time, with 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States. Martin was influenced by a range of musical styles, encompassing Cole Porter and John Dankworth. He attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1947 to 1950, studying piano and oboe. Following his graduation, he worked for the BBC's classical music department, then joined EMI in 1950. Martin produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, among others. WIKIPEDIA VIDEO:

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor and Early-Music Specialist, Dies at 86

Mr. Harnoncourt, who was also a cellist, founded the period-instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien and worked regularly with many of Europe’s major orchestras. NYTimes OBIT 

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unverzagt; 6 December 1929 – 5 March 2016) was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble, Concentus Musicus Wien, in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement. Around 1970, Harnoncourt started to conduct opera and concert performances, soon leading renowned international symphony orchestras, and appearing at leading concert halls, operatic venues and festivals. His repertoire then widened to include composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2001 and 2003, he conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert. Harnoncourt was also the author of several books, mostly on subjects of performance history and musical aesthetics. WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: For decades now Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt has been best known for using old instruments and the original notes to make his classical music performances sound as close to the original as possible. Over the last few years he has been working with piano soloist Lang Lang... 

Christine Palmer Whitlock, lyric soprano and former Dallas voice coach, dies at 96

Whitlock toured extensively with the San Carlo Opera and became a leading lady with the New York City Opera. She was offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera, but decided to stick with her lighter repertoire. She also sang with operas in Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco. She performed lead roles in musical comedies and appeared on television and in clubs across the country. She also taught voice in New York. OBIT

Violist Peter Kamnitzer, 93

Violist Peter Kamnitzer passed away in Israel on Feb. 23, 2016, at the age of 93. He is survived by his wife, Dr. Neora “Sophy” Kamnitzer.
BIO
The LaSalle Quartet was best known for its espousal of the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, and of the European modernists who derived from that tradition, though they also performed standard classical and romantic literature. The Quartet gave the premiere of Witold Lutosławski's String Quartet in Stockholm in 1965. György Ligeti dedicated his Second String Quartet to the group, and they premiered it in Baden-Baden on December 14, 1969. The quartet has been credited with the "Zemlinsky Renaissance," as Zemlinsky remained largely unknown until they performed his works. The quartet won the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis for their recording of his four string quartets.

 Member of the LaSalle Quartet was a string quartet active from 1946 to 1987. It was founded by first violinist Walter Levin. The LaSalle's name is attributed to an apartment on LaSalle Street in Manhattan, where some of its members lived during the quartet's inception. The quartet played on a donated set of Amati instruments.

Miguel Ángel Coria Varela (born 24 October 1937 – 24 February 2016)

Spanish composer of classical music. His early work showed affinities to the music of Anton Webern, but he became increasingly influenced by Impressionism. From 1973 he entered his post-modern period where his compositions were marked by "attempts to evoke the spirit of the music of the past, but without literal allusions". In addition to his instrumental music, he also composed an opera, Belisa, which premiered at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1992. Coria served as the Administrative Director of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the 1980s and was a co-founder of ALEA, Spain's first laboratory for electronic music. WIKIPEDIA