Ades wins Grawemeyer Award

British composer Thomas Adès (born London, 1971) has won the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for the year 2000 with the large-scale orchestral work Asyla (1997).

Asyla, commissioned by the John Feeney Charitable Trust for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, was premièred in 1997 and toured six European cities. The Minneapolis Orchestra then played the piece, and Simon Rattle chose it for his final performance with the Birmingham Orchestra in 1998.

Adès shot to fame initially as a pianist, when he won second place in the 1989 BBC Young Musician of the Year award. His first published composition was Five Eliot Landscapes (1990). He became recognised internationally when his chamber opera Powder Her Face (1995) received acclaim in Germany, California, the Aspen Festival, New York, Brisbane, Helsinki and Sweden. Other Adès works include The Origin of the Harp, These Premises are Alarmed and Living Toys. Thomas Adès has exclusive relationships with Faber Music and EMI Classics.

All Day Entertainment

All Day Entertainment, an independent production company in the USA is preparing a DVD (Digital Video Disc) for release early in 2000 which may be of interest - the 1946 motion picture Carnegie Hall, Edgar G. Ulmer's epic homage to classical music. The US National Film Music Council agreed in 1947 that Carnegie Hall deserved the attention of all who enjoy the best in music.

The film presents fourteen classics performed by artists whose interpretations are internationally conceded to be of the finest. They include Jascha Heifetz, Rise Stevens, Lily Pons, Ezio Pinza, Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur Rubinstein, Jan Peerce, the Vatican Choir, Harry James, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, and Artur Rodzinski.

All Day Entertainment is working with The Edgar G. Ulmer Preservation Corp. to restore some of Ulmer's most important and entertaining films on DVD. All Day Online maintains an extensive website about Ulmer and his films.

Gramophone offshoots reprieved

Gramophone 'quality' offshoots International Piano Quarterly, the axing of which was reported in Music & Vision, and its sister journal International Classical Record Collector, have been reprieved, sold to Orpheus Publications Ltd of Harrow, England, publishers of The Strad, Choir & Organ and Double Bassist www.orpheuspublications.com. Eric Verdon-Roe, Managing Director of Haymarket Magazines Ltd, the new owners of Gramophone, received many 'fascinating' e-mails from an active lobby in protest at the summary closure of IPC and ICRC. 'It has has been a very educational few weeks,' he is quoted as saying, 'in which I have already come to understand the passion and enthusiasm that exists for classical music. Gramophone will work to give IPQ and ICRC as much support as possible.' The Winter issue of International Piano Quarterly, largely commissioned at the time of the axing, will now be published in January, founding editor Harriet Smith once again at the helm. Long may it flourish.

Previously published news ...

A long life

The death in November 1999 of Thomas Pitfield, the British composer, teacher, artist and craftsman, has ended a long life (born 1903), much of it devoted to music, with distinguished composers Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr and John McCabe beneficiaries of his teaching at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Gyorgy Sebok, 1922 - 1999

Pianist and teacher Gyorgy Sebok died on 14 November in the USA. Born in Szeged, Hungary, he gave his first solo recital at age 11, studying with Kodaly and Leo Weiner, and becoming Professor of Music at Budapest's Bela Bartok Conservatory in 1949.

Sebok left Hungary after the 1956 revolt, working in Paris, Germany, Holland and the USA, receiving many awards and becoming famous internationally. Since 1962 he has taught at Indiana University.

Gaby Casadesus, 1901 - 1999

French pianist and teacher Gaby Casadesus (née L'Hote) died in Paris on 12 November, aged 98. Born in Marseilles on 9 August 1901 she won her first piano prize at the age of sixteen, and went on to work with Fauré, Milhaud and Ravel. She married composer and pianist Robert Casadesus in 1921, and bore him three children. Robert and Gaby Casadesus were often two-piano recital partners.

As a teacher, Gaby Casadesus worked in Austria, France, and the USA. Publications include Mes Noces Musicales (1989, Buchet-Chastel/Sacem, with J Muller) and Ma technique quotidienne (Max Eschig).

The Bournemouth Sinfonietta is no more

More sad news from the UK - the Bournemouth Orchestras came to a sudden agreement in November 1999 with the Arts Council to wind up the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. The Sinfonietta had completed two rehearsals for a concert which was immediately cancelled. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is not affected.

Back to Bach basics

BBC2 (UK domestic TV) has laid down a challenge for Bach 2000 celebrations. Five composers are to follow Bach's pattern of composing weekly a cantata for the next Sunday. They will compose a ten-minute work for chorus and orchestra under realistic conditions (plus challenges such as a performer ill or double-booked) and deliver the completed work within seven days. Cameras will follow the proceedings to be shown in five programmes on TV in the late spring.

Howard Ferguson

Howard Ferguson has died. Please read our separate obituary.

International Piano Quarterly axed

The long-running success story of Gramophone's quality quarterlies for the enthusiast has left takeover management bosses apparently unimpressed. Following the decision last month to close International Opera Collector, edited by veteran broadcaster Michael Oliver, the new owners of Gramophone, Haymarket Magazines Ltd (publishers of Autocar and Horticulture Week), have now axed International Piano Quarterly. To the shock of a flourishing readership, the Winter 99/2000 issue will not appear. In the two years of its publication, with a distinguished panel of writers and consultants drawn from leading pianophiles and critics around the world, International Piano Quarterly, edited by Harriet Smith, enjoyed a glittering reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. What chances of reprieve? Will International Classical Record Collector or new investment Gramophone Early Music be the next to go? Tell us what you think, e-mail Gramophone editor James Jolly direct editor@gramophone.co.uk .

Voces Sacrae

Voces Sacrae's latest recordings include Michael Finnissy's Seven Sacred Motets (l991), recorded on Metier MSV CD92023, and 'Except the Lord Build the House', recorded in Exeter College Chapel together with the choir of St.Mary Magdalen, and comprising music by Mendelssohn, Byrd, John Rutter and W.S.Lloyd Webber (Metier ..........). The 8-voice choir was recently heard at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, during a tour of New South Wales.

Voces Sacrae's recording of Michael Berkeley's Eight Motets, together with music by Magnus Williamson, Gabriel Jackson and Bob Chilcott, will be released in the new year.

Voces Sacrae can be contacted by e-mail, or visit their website.

RD