Around The Classical Internet: June 10, 2011

NPR | By Anastasia Tsioulcas

Published June 10, 2011 at 2:41 PM EDT

Now that the Van Cliburn amateur competition has concluded with a Maryland doctor taking the top prize, a member of the press jury reflects on the participants and their performances.

Julius Rudel, the former general director and principal conductor of City Opera, published an impassioned and anguished op-ed piece in the Times about the company's crisis.

Peter Dobrin compares the salaries of some of America's top orchestra CEOs in order to see how Philadelphia's chief sizes up at $597K. His conclusion: "[Her] compensation is at the middle of a scale that includes 10 top U.S. orchestras. Then again, none of those orchestras is in bankruptcy."

Less than a year after releasing a terrific two-disc set of Latin music and garnering praise for performances as a DIY ensemble, rising young conductor Alondra de la Parra's Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas has announced its operations are being suspended due to a bleak financial future.

ASCAP gave out its annual Adventurous Programming Awards yesterday. Among the winners: the Alabama Symphony Orchestra for "strongest commitment" to new American music, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Minnesota Orchestra.

This is one of those stories that has to be read to be believed: something close to a small riot broke out at a viola performance in San Francisco earlier this week, instigated by ... an 85-year-old violist. A viola was trashed in the fight. (Not by one of the instigators, but by one of the performers. We know: crazy.)

Here's a beautiful portrait of some of the students, teachers and parents in the hard Chicago neighborhood of Humboldt Park who are fighting to save their school's orchestra program.

She may have been at the epicenter of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike, but Anne Parsons has signed on for three more years as their president.

European arts organizations aren't having an easy time of it, either. But the luxe shoe company Tod's just pledged more than 5 million Euros to La Scala and is trying to coax other Italian sponsors to do the same.

Seiji Ozawa promises that despite all his serious health issues over the past few years, he will lead Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle at the Saito Kinen festival in August.

$5 tickets to attend performances by a dozen of Portland, Oregon's best arts groups? A great deal - -and one that proved to be a smash success.

Is this a case of coals to Newcastle? And just how prepared are teen musicians for the profundities of Mahler's Ninth Symphony? No matter — Boston's esteemed Youth Philharmonic Orchestra is headed to Vienna to play it.

The New York Philharmonic has canceled its very popular free "Concerts in the Parks" series this summer, citing no more than "scheduling conflicts." (Is another mysterious foreign trip in the works?) But they'll be playing a free concert in September with Andrea Bocelli.

The Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra is moving its headquarters into a former supermarket.

You can find a whole laptop orchestra at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

New blog find of the week: Awkward Classical Music Photos. (The site's name pretty much says it all.)