Sound bites
Vaccine in C major
When Yo-yo Ma went to receive his second COVID-19 vaccine, he brought his cello with him to give his fellow jabbees a little musical lift as they waited in line. Once he’d had his own dose administered at the Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts, the mask-wearing Ma stuck around to play a 15-minute recital of works by JS Bach and Schubert, much to the delight of his impromptu audience.
Instrumental player
The Premier League footballer Wilfried Zaha has called for all schoolchildren in the UK to be provided with a free musical instrument and lessons as part of the country’s road to recovery from the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic. ‘Music can bring so much joy to so many,’ the Crystal Palace star told
The Times, ‘and enabling more children to have access to instruments and teaching can only benefit them.’
Latest score
A previously unknown piano piece by Engelbert Humperdinck has been discovered in Germany. The score for Erinnerung, which the composer wrote in 1871 when he was 17, was found lurking in a poetry book once owned by his sister Ernestine that was recently bought at auction by journalist
Kai Diekmann. The pleasantly surprised hack says that the discovery has made his purchase something of a bargain.
Dancing squirrel
Conductor John Andrews has launched a new company with the specific aim of championing underperformed operas. Called Red Squirrel, the company’s first outing will be Malcolm Arnold’s 1952 comedy The Dancing Master, to be staged at this year’s Buxton International Festival. As visitors to p32 will discover, it is an opera with which Andrews has already enjoyed great success.