+ Jazz musician Guy Nadon, known as “le roi du drum” died at the age of 82. He passed away at 2 a.m. on Sunday in the Maison Neuve residence for older people where he lost his battle against kidney disease. He performed his last concert at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in June 2016. In 1998, he was awarded the jazz fest’s Oscar Peterson Award for outstanding contributions to the development of Canadian jazz. (English/French)
+ Peter Allen, voice on the radio for the Met Opera died at 96. He passed away at his home on Saturday in Manhattan. He presided over 29 seasons of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday matinee radio broadcasts, delivering Wagner and Verdi to millions of listeners beyond the Met’s theater.
+ Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, one of the biggest opera stars in the world, will make her Canadian debut at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on April 25, 2017. She will be performing with a new opera group Trio Magnifico, which includes her husband, Azerbaijan-rased tenor Yusif Eyazov and Russian baritone Dmitiri Hvorostovsky. The trio will sing opera arias, duets and duets, accompanied by the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra conducted by Italian Jader Bignamini.
+ Philipp Kochheim, artistic director at Staaststheater Braunschweig, is the new head of the Aarhus Opera, Denmark’s second largest opera house. Kochheim, 46, succeeds Annilese Miskimmon.
+ Violinist Daniel Hope is named Artistic Partner of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra. The multitalented Irish-German-South African-British-Viennese violinist will be replacing music director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg who is leaving at the end of the current season but with some constraints.
