Patty at OboeInsight has the tip of the iceberg on this newflash. Here’s some of the remaining 9/10ths.

The Guardian reports that, “[Thom] Yorke is one of 11 musicians - among them Simon Tong from Gorillaz, John Maclean of the Beta Band and Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of the Russian composer - who have contributed to the classical remix album Cortical Songs, released this month on Nonclassical. Yorke et al have remixed an original work for string ensemble and solo violin by musician and physicist John Matthias and sound designer and producer Nick Ryan.

According to Prokofiev: ‘This is a way of searching for new sounds and direction in music. Yorke’s remix in particular - the first he has ever done of a classical work - is really adventurous and avant garde.’ ”

Here’s the track listing from the back of the album courtesy of Prokofiev the Younger’s mySpace page:

And, in case you were wondering, cortical is the adjectival form of cortex, which is the outer layer of your brain, coming from the Latin for bark. (think trees, not dogs) If you’ve got access to academic journals and the ability to wade through some pretty heavy medicalese, you may find [Ikegaya Y, Aaron G. "Synfire chains and cortical songs: temporal modules of cortical activity". Science. 2004 Apr 23;304(5670):523-4] to be useful. Since Miss Mussel has neither of those, she’s hoping for liner notes that explain everything with words containing three or less syllables.

According to Pitchfork Media, Cortical Songs the composition is, “a process-oriented piece in which players are prompted to play based on the firings of a small computer-simulated brain.”

It this the first truly intellectual music then?
Only one way to find out. Watch this space.

The Canadian Opera Company have been looking for a new general director since the much-loved Richard Bradshaw died unexpectedly in August 2007. This morning, the COC announced that German-born Alexander Neef, currently the casting director at the Opera Nationale de Paris, has accepted the post.

Neef is just 34 years old but according to David Ferguson, president of the COC Board of Directors, “He was the unanimous choice of the search committee and of the senior members of the company who met with him.” Ferguson went on to say that Neef’s relative youth was, “one of the things we liked about him as a candidate is that he is young. The COC is facing the challenge of attracting a younger audience and we hope he will give youth his attention.”

The CBC reported that Neef’s major goals for the opera company were to attracting great artists, including more international opera stars; creating a high-quality standard repertoire and adding new operas the COC has never performed and commissioning and producing new operas. He is also working on extending the COC’s planning cycle to help with attracting singers booked years in advance.

The leadership of the COC is not fully settled though since Neef will not be filling the conductor’s role as Bradshaw did. A search for new music director will commence in earnest when Neef takes up his post in October.

CBC | La Scena Musicale | CP

The Elora Festival is now in its 29th year and presents a widely varying program including classical choral and chamber music, jazz and folk over four weeks in July and August. Elora is about roughly an hour and a half northwest of Toronto, half an hour from Kitchener and an hour and a half north east of London.

Elora itself is quite lovely, so there is plenty of eating, shopping and general puttering around to do during the day. More adventurous concert goers may want to hike, swim or tube at the Elora Gorge.

The Festival takes place at several venues throughout the the town of Elora with the two main ones being St John’s Anglican Church and The Gambrel Barn. While St John’s functions as a church when the Festival is not on, The Gambrel Barn does double duty as a salt shed.

Have a look at the complete concert listings or scroll down for Miss Mussel’s picks.

11th July
Handel Solomon;
Karina Gauvin, Robin Blaze, Lawrence Wiliford, James Westman, Elora Festival Singers, Elora Festival Orchestra, Noel Edison, baton.
Venue: The Gambrel Barn
Time: 8pm

19th July
Paganini, Scarlatti, Beethoven, von Weber and others; Duo Affinité (bassoon and trumpet/piano)
Venue: St John’s Church, Elora
Time: 2pm

24th July
Music of Britten, Holst and Vaughan Williams; Elora Festival Orchestra; James Mason, baton.
Venue: Knox Presbyterian Church
Time: 7:30pm

25th July
Britten, Walton, Purcell, Parry, Ugis Praulins; Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge; Stephen Layton, director
Venue: The Gambrel Barn
Time: 8pm

27th July
Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor; Elora Festival Singers; Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Venue: The Gambrel Barn
Time: 2pm

30th July
Organ Recital; Matthew Larkin
Venue: St John’s, Elora
Time: 2pm

Choral Evensong - a rare treat in this corner of the universe.
Thursday evenings throughout the Festival.
6pm at St John’s Church, Elora.

July 17, 2008 (Michael Bloss, organ)
July 24, 2008 (Michael Bloss, organ)
July 31, 2008 (Matthew Larkin, organ)

Kitchener-Waterloo is about an hour west of Toronto, an hour east of London, and an hour and half from Niagara Falls. If you live somewhere between here and there, take a drive over some night and take in a concert with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony.

• 12th & 13th September John Corigliano Promenade Overture, Dvorak Cello Concerto , Mussorgsky arr. Ravel Pictures At An Exhibition; Alban Gerhardt, cello; Edwin Outwater, baton
• 25th & 26th September Mason Bates Omnivorous Furniture, Jonny Greenwood Popcorn Superhet Receiver; Mason Bates, DJ/composer; Edwin Outwater, baton.
• 3rd & 4th October Nico Muhly So To Speak (Canadian premiere), Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27 K595, Chopin Variations on ‘La ci darem la mano’ Op 2, Debussy La mer; Orion Weiss, piano; Edwin Outwater, baton.
• 12th, 14th & 15th November CPE Bach Sinfonia No. 1 in G major Muffat Concerto No. 12 in G major Propitia Sydera, Haydn Cello Concerto in C majorDumbarton Oaks, Haydn Symphony No. 59 Feuersymphonie; Andrea Herzog, cello; Tania Miller, baton.
• 26th & 27th November program TBA; Time For Three, string trio; Edwin Outwater, baton
• 26th & 27th February Program TBA Alain Trudel trombone/baton.
• 6th & 7th March John Adams Tromba Iontana, Mahler Symphony No. 9 in D major; Edwin Outwater, baton
• 22nd & 24th April Mendelssohn The Hebrides, R. Murray Schafer The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller, Bridge The Sea, Britten The Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra; Stephen Sitarski,violin, Edwin Outwater, baton.
• 30th April & 1st May Program TBA (part of the KWS Open Ears Festival) Eve Egoyan, piano; Edwin Outwater, baton.
• 6th, 8th & 9th May Monteverdi Sinfonie e Ritornelli from Orfeo, Marcello Concerto Grosso in D major Op 1 No. 1, Molter Clarinet Concerto, Mozart Divertimento in F major K138, Mendelssohn Sinfonia No. 7 in D major; Ross Edwards, clarinet; Stephen Sitarski, baton.

A quick trawl through the rather intimidating OM Drafts folder reveals that Justin Davidson covered the start of construction of Hamburg’s iconic new concert hall about this time last year.

Designed by the firm Herzog & de Meuron, creators of the Tate Modern, the hall complex will contain 45 apartments, over 200 hotel rooms, 510 parking spaces as well as three concert halls.

The rice terrace seating seems to be catching on in new concert hall builds. Aesthetically, it’s a welcome change from boring old rows, marking a change in philosophy from concerts being a one-way conversation to a two-way experience. While some audience members will inevitably be seated further back than others, the soccer pitch arrangement (audience surrounding orchestra) means poor sightlines are gone for good. Relative to the traditional shoebox arrangement, all 2150 concert patrons will be able to sit quite a lot closer to the orchestra even if they’ve come on student cheapie and are relegated to the back row.

To balance all the egalitarian subtext, a knee jerk reaction: why must the acoustic panel on the ceiling look like the business end of a watering can?

So, what’s happened over the last 14 months or since Justin’s first report? According to the project’s super snazzy website, it has been fairly smooth sailing thus far and the late Summer 2010 opening is still a go.

“Demolition, gutting and foundation reinforcement work in the old Warehouse A has now been completed. So as to be able to bear the approx. 200,000 ton load of the future Elbe Philharmonic Hall Hamburg, a further 625 concrete piles were positioned in the silt of the Elbe to complement the 1,111 existing ones. The bottom plate and later the foundations were then cast.

Since the beginning of this year construction work on the basement levels has been making rapid progress. Around 100 workers are engaged in reinforcement and molding work on the two lower levels. The steel reinforcement sections, which still have to be fitted, serve to reinforce the concrete’s pressure resistance and tensile strength. There are initial outlines of elevator shafts and stairwells. First signs of the future underground car park newel in the gutted warehouse are slowly becoming visible.”

For those readers starving for more detailed information, webcams, brochures, photo galleries, 1:10 scale mockups and a snazzy Flash tour await at elbphilharmonie.de