This Week in Blogville

Lately, I have gotten lazy about posting a few links now and then to the good things out there on other blogs. I'll try to make this a regular Sunday feature. Here are some of the goodies from Blogville:

• A great review of the North American premiere of Gerald Barry's opera The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, by a new but excellent addition to Blogville [Out West Arts]
  
• Always reliable for good content, Bob Shingleton prepares us for tomorrow's anniversary of Britten's death with a description of a performance of Britten's music at Snape Maltings [On an Overgrown Path]
  
• The growth of blogging means that anyone could be writing a review of your concert, even the seemingly innocent George Mason University student brought in to turn your pages. In October, I did a review of DVD performances of Ivo Pogorelich in his heyday, just before his latest recital program was skewered by both Tim Page and Anthony Tommasini, who seemed to have written reviews from the same set of notes. Pogorelich seems to have lost it, which is probably related to the trauma of his wife's death, discussed by the pianist in shocking detail in a recent interview. What did Pogorelich's page turner in Fairfax, a piano student named J. Ho, think of his recital here? Read her blog [I Really Should Be Practicing]
  
• Sydney's Pinchgut Opera first came to my attention because Antony Walker, of Washington Concert Opera, is one of their artistic directors. They do interesting productions, as it turns out, including Rameau. Now you can find out all about that, because they (apparently, one Ken Neilsen) are writing a blog about it [Pinchgut Opera Blog] Hat Tip to Lisa Hirsch
  
• I am generally impressed by James Macmillan's music and have performed some of the choral works in my choir gig. Here is a review of a new recording of an interesting organ work, A Scotch Bestiary (probably influenced by books like the famous and fascinating Aberdeen Bestiary), commissioned to christen the new organ at Disney Hall in Los Angeles [Monotonous Forest]
  
• The jockeying of orchestras looking for music directors keeps getting more interesting. Steve Smith had a good post about Lorin Maazel's apparent attempt to pass his place on the podium of the New York Philharmonic to Daniel Barenboim, as well as who might end up in Philadelphia. Does Leonard Slatkin have an opinion about who should succeed him at the National Symphony? [Night after Night]