The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music news: A violin raises $16 million for Japan disaster relief. The NEA honors opera stars. Music may foster peace between North Korean and South Korea.

By Jacob Stockinger

Coming into a holiday of freedom seems like a good time for some good news, positive and uplifting news about classical music.

And this week, that is what we have for the most part.

ITEM: Do people miss classical music more when it is gone or threatened? Whatever the cause, donations and tickets are up after the now ended strike by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (below, with conductor Leonard Slatkin):

http://www.freep.com/article/20110624/ENT04/106240317/DSO-s-fund-raising-ticket-sales-increase-since-musicians-strike-ended

ITEM: Remember Rise Stevens (below and bottom)? The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the 2011 lifetime honorees in opera, and the 98-year-old mezzo-soprano star of the Metropolitan Opera is among them:

http://www.nea.gov/honors/opera/media/2011-opera-honorees.html

ITEM: The pioneering and prestigious record label EMI is up for sale – again:

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/emi-puts-itself-up-for-sale-again/

ITEM: Maestro Charles Dutoit (below), current music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and former longtime music director of the Montreal Symphony, may be following in the footsteps of Sir Daniel Barenboim and Sir Neville Marriner as he goers to Pyongyang seeking to use music to further peace – this time between North Korea and South Korea with an inter-Korean orchestra:

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2011/06/178_89314.html

ITEM: The Lady Blunt Stradivarius violin (below) raised almost $16 million at auction. The proceeds will go for disaster relief in Japan:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-20/stradivarius-sets-15-9-million-auction-price-to-help-japan-quake-relief.html