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News: New Principal Viola For The Vienna Philharmonic
The solo (principal) viola position in the VPO, held until recently by Heinrich Koll, was won this morning at audition by Gerhard Marschner, 32.
Gerhard, Vienna born, has been stimmführer (associate leader) of the viola section for some years.
He was appointed to the opera orchestra at 19 and to the philharmonic three years later, having studied with Alfred Staar, who taught around 20 members of the orchestra.
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Enda Walsh: ‘Working With Other Directors Has Sharpened My Work’
Enda Walsh claims working with new directors has forced him to “sharpen” his own directing aesthetic.
In an interview with playwright Simon Stephens, Walsh spoke about collaborating with directors John Tiffany and Ivo van Hove.
Walsh said: “It’s so weird when you direct your own work and then you see someone else’s aesthetic. It makes me sharpen my own aesthetic.”
The playwright co-wrote musical Lazarus with David Bowie and said Van Hove did “a fantastic job” directing the show, calling the production “so bold and so right”.
In the interview, part of a new series of Royal Court podcasts, Walsh said that “to write a work about a man who’s dying while all this shit was going on for David was extraordinary”.
Walsh admitted he could “see now it [Lazarus] is all about him and what he was going through”.
Walsh added: “Two months in he was aware of it [the cancer] and we were working together for 18 months. He was aware of it but brilliant with it, just saying, ‘But that’s the way it is.'”
Lazarus, which runs at the King’s Cross Theatre until January 22, is a musical sequel to The Man Who Fell to Earth.
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Interview: Luke Navin, Composer
Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?
I’ve always bought into the idea that you have to do what you’re good at and you have to do what you love, and I’m very lucky that the two are one and the same. For as long as I can remember I’ve always thought musically. Long before any formal education in music or the piano, it seemed an obvious and natural form of expression. My mind has always been full of musical invention – as much now as when I was five years old – the only conscious decision I made was when I was 15, when I decided to write some of it down.
Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
I think that discovering opera played a pivotal role in shaping my attitude towards composition and music as a whole, in that it convinced me of exactly what I wanted from a piece of music. I saw Tosca at Covent Garden, which was a perfect introduction as it clearly said to me, ‘this is what music should be, and this is how it should make you feel’. Ever since, Puccini has been extremely important to me, as has Italian opera as a whole.
Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden and James Levine at the Met Opera in New York have broadened both mine and thousands of other peoples’ love of music. On a more personal level, I am exceedingly grateful to my last piano teacher, Warren Mailley-Smith, for the mountain of support he gave me, in particular as a composer.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
I’m fortunate that I’ve never been lacking in inspiration or ideas. The greatest challenge has always been one of structure – I know what I want the music to do and have the musical ideas to express it, but sometimes putting it all together in an ordered and balanced way can prove elusive! Generally I find it just needs time – I leave something for a while, and after some time away, it either works itself out and fits together or it doesn’t. Usually it does!
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The Musical: She Loves Me
Paul Farnsworth’s design twinkles exquisitely, as rich and fine as spun sugar: gilt, eau de nil and pink, with light glinting through rows of bottles. In the comic performance of the evening, Katherine Kingsley vamps in layers of scarlet. While her cad lover (nonchalantly powerful Dominic Tighe) flirts with a customer, she cuts a length of ribbon as if she were administering a vasectomy. Scarlett Strallen and Mark Umbers charm as the couple who move from awkwardness to adoration. High comedy and pathos are intertwined in a romantically themed restaurant where trays are dropped as often as kisses are exchanged. Kindness is mingled with anxiety among the scent staff. This bijou evening has no lazy moments.
• She Loves Me is at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London until 4 March
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Photography: The Little Mermaid
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