The bad news outweighs the good for the world’s orchestras FOR those readers who have been clamouring for good news, here’s an inch or two. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, last sighted in deep waters, has announced a small profit. Well, not exactly a profit once you count the extra three million NZ dollars the government had to pump in to keep the flagship afloat, but nonetheless a return to stability. And here’s another heart-warmer. The San Diego Symphony Orchestra which went belly-up in 1996, amid fears of a domino-like collapse of US regional orchestras, has bounced back with a…

The most austere of classical violinists had to turn her technique upside down to play jazz. THE poster leapt out at me from the wall of an Italian opera house, and I had to read it twice. Viktoria Mullova, the most austere of classical violinists, was on a jazz and blues tour with a band of “amici”. Come again? Mullova, also known as the Ice Queen, was doing riffs and wrinkles on Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Youssou N’Dour and other laid-back legends – and, judging by what I got to hear, doing them with respect and feeling. This is not…