The "La Scala Orchestra," composed of ninety-seven of the best virtuosi of Italy, and under the leadership of Arturo Toscanini, will sail from Naples on December 8th to tour America during the coming winter.
A $75,000 building for the Department of Music of the University of Oregon is to be built.
Edward Johnson, tenor of the Chicago Opera Company, has been presented with the cross of Officer of the Crown of Italy. King Victor Emmanuel conferred this decoration in recognition of Mr. Johnson having created leading tenor roles in operas of Puccini, Montemezzi and other Italian composers, while singing in Italy under the name of Edoardo di Giovanni.
Leoncavallo, composer of the ever-delightful Pagliacci and Zaza is to be honored with a great monument at Naples, to be built by public subscription.
Cecil Fanning, according to the London Times, has made the greatest success of American singers there this summer.
Anna Pavlowa will bring her Ballet Russe with Symphony Orchestra to New York in September, to begin her American tour at the Manhattan Opera House.
Mme. Emma Calve, who has sung Carmen almost fourteen hundred times, thus exceeding the record of any other singer, will retire from public work after a tour of the British Provinces where she hitherto has not been heard.
The Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace, London, was resumed this June after having been discontinued during the war. A chorus of 2,500 voices, orchestra of 500, with the great Crystal Palace organ, are reported to have furnished inspiring programs under the direction of Sir Frederick Cowen. Messiah, Judas Maccabeus and Israel in Egypt were the chief works given.
A Real West to East Movement, characterized good-naturedly as an "American Invasion," is reported from England. With the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, a real crowd of soloists and a promised visit of the Metropolitan Opera Company, it would seem that the former movement of musical culture is to be reversed.
$175,000, required as a guarantee fund for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, has been mostly subscribed.
Congregational Singing in the Catholic Church is to be restored to its ancient place in the services by a movement to foster the singing of the Gregorian Chants by the occupants of the pews.
The Centenary of Henri Vieuxtemps was celebrated at his birthplace, Verviers, Belgium, by a week of concerts in which his works had a prominent place and were interpreted by Jacques Thibaud, Cesar Thomson, Mischa Elman and Eugène Ysaye. King Albert and the queen presided at the meetings.
Mme. Emma Albani, at one time second only to Patti as a favorite in American and English opera houses, and a special favorite of the late Queen Victoria, is included in the latest list of English civil pensions, receiving an annuity of £100. Fame and fortune are fickle jades.
Lorenzo Perosi, the Italian composer, and Mgr. Antonio Hella, for twenty years director in the Sistine Chapel, are announced to lead the next American tour of the Vatican Choirs.
London is stirred on the question of welcoming a "German invasion" in the form of a symphony orchestra under the direction of Arthur Nikisch. Nikisch was for a number of years the popular conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and later was a great favorite as a conductor in London.
The Walnut Street Theater, built in 1804, in which Jenny Lind made her Philadelphia, debut in 1850, and the oldest theater in continuous use in America, is having its interior thoroughly remodelled and redecorated.
Percy Grainger, the Australian pianist and composer, who has done so much to revive interest in the folk songs of Ireland, will spend the summer of 1921 in Denmark collecting and studying the folk music of that country.
The Young Men's Hebrew Association of New York maintains a symphony orchestra, "To give the amateur as well as the advanced musician an opportunity to study and perform symphonies." Rehearsals are held once a week, membership is open to all races, no dues are charged, regular attendance and diligent study of the scores being the only requirements.
The New York Grand Opera Company will give a season at the Champs Elysées Theatre, Paris, in September and October, to be followed by another in the spring.
The Chicago Madrigal Club announces the eighteenth annual competition for the W. W. Kimball prize of $100 for the best setting of the poem, "A Shepherd's Song." The composer must be a resident of the United States, the setting must be in madrigal form for mixed voices a capella, and the compositions must be sent to the director, D. A. Clippinger, Kimball Hall, Chicago, on or before October 1.
Lilli Lehmann has handed over all the letters she has received during her career as a soprano to the Prussian State Library of Berlin. She gave her Richard Wagner letters to the same institution some years ago.
Henry S. Fry was elected president of the National Association of Organists, at their convention held in New York City in July. One of the outstanding features of the convention was the Philadelphia Day when two recitals were played composed entirely of compositions of the members of the American Organ Players' Club, of which Mr. Fry has for years been the treasurer.
A Free Orchestra School is receiving substantial encouragement from the music lovers of Kansas City, Missouri, with the organization of a municipal orchestra as its goal. One-fourth of the necessary endowment is already subscribed. Those who receive instruction, according to the plans, are to maintain a high degree of scholarship, and, upon completion of a thorough course, are to play for a stated time in the Municipal Orchestra.
G. Francesco Malipiero has been voted the winner of the $1,000 prize offered by Mrs. F. S. Coolidge, for the best string quartet submitted in the competition of 1920. Malipiero is one of the rising composers of Italy.
A New Symphony Orchestra for Boston will begin rehearsals in Ocotober (sic), according to an announcement of Thomas Finigan, a director of the Boston Musicians' Protective Association. It will be under the auspices of the Musicians' Mutual Relief Society.
Professor Walter Henry Hall's great Summer Festival of Concerts at Columbia University in New York City proved a huge success. Thousands attended during the season.
Homer A. Norris, one of the ablest of the American composers of his time, died August 14th from injuries received from being knocked down by a taxicab last June. Mr. Norris was for years organist of George's Church, Stuyvesant Square, New York, of which the late J. P. Morgan was senior warden. Mr. Morgan was a warm admirer of Mr. Norris and, in appreciation of the organist's labors in behalf of the church, presented him with a country estate said to have been valued at $80,000, at Greenwood Lake, N. J. Mr. Norris was born at Wayne. Me., October 4, 1860. He was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a pupil of Guilmant in Paris. Among his best-known works are the oratorio Nain, the songs Three Roses Red; There, Little Girl, Don't Cry; Deep in a Rose, and the two well-known harmony books, Practical Harmony and Practical Harmony on a French Basis and The Art of Counterpoint.
Dr. Eugene E. Ayres, a distinguished Greek scholar and teacher, who was also an able musician, died August 5, 1920. In fact, in his early years most of his professional work was devoted to music. When twenty years old he wrote a book on Counterpoint and Canon. At one time he was offered the presidency of the New England Conservatory. This he abandoned for his theological work. For the past seventeen years he held the chair of New Testament Greek at the Crozier (Baptist) Theological Seminary at Chester, Pa.
T. Carl Whitmer is to "teach the young idea how to scribble modern discords" at the newly organized Conservatory of Music in Pittsburgh.
Joseph Bonnet, the eminent French organist of the Church of St. Eustache of Paris, will return to America for a tour of concerts in the United States and Canada.
A theater, a children's theater and a music auditorium in one building is planned for Washington, by the "Founders' Association," an organization of successful business and professional women of the capital city. It is a part of a plan to make Washington the art and music center of the United States.
Charles Wakefield Cadman is writing the musical setting for the film, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam."
Max Bruch, the eminent German composer, is reported to be near death in Berlin. The privations of the war are known to have affected his health very seriously. He is now eighty-two years old.
The Carnegie Trust in England is about to prepare for the publication of a large quantity of Tudor music recently unearthed by British scholars. This music dates from the time of Henry VII, when music in England reached high creative values.
Edmonstone Duncan, a well-known English writer upon musical subjects, died on June 28th.
Russell Carter, one of the most able of all American supervisors of school music, has been chosen as the head of the musical section of the State Educational Department, in New York State (University of the State of New York). Mr. Carter will have the supervision of a far-reaching system and is in position to do great good in forming a fair and just policy toward the much-discussed subject of school credits.
Galli-Curci, on her recent return from Europe, announced her intention to become, an American citizen as quickly as possible.
