All the seated tickets for Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra sold out within three hours. Verdi's Requiem and Havergal Brian's gargantuan the Gothic Symphony have also all gone. However, up to 1,400 extra tickets are released on the day of each concert. Proms director Roger Wright said, "We're delighted that so many people have been able to get their tickets successfully and look forward to welcoming them to the Proms this summer."
Musical Chairs - Warner Music has been bought by an industrial group whose holdings range from oil and aluminium firms to the UK's Top Up TV. Access Industries, run by Russian born billionaire Len Blavatnik, paid $3.3bn (£2bn) in cash for the world's third largest music firm. Warner, whose artists include Bruno Mars, has been struggling with declining sales and profits. Access Industries already owned a small stake in the US firm. Blavatnik said he was "excited" to be extending his involvement in the firm.
Warner Music Group, whose entire music and publishing businesses have been sold, will become a private company with its shares delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Chairman Edgar Bronfman said Access Industries was "supportive of the company's vision, growth strategy and artists, while bringing a fresh entrepreneurial perspective and expertise in technology and media". Meanwhile, speculation as to the future of the EMI group continues, with a number of potential purchasers in the frame.
Farewell - Arthur Laurents, writer of the stage musicals West Side Story and Gypsy, has died in New York aged 93. Born in Brooklyn, the attorney's son began in radio and wrote military training films during World War II. His screen credits include the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, Barbra Streisand romance The Way We Were and 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point.
Laurents won a Tony award in 1968 as author of the book for the musical Hallelujah, Baby!, and another, in 1984, for directing La Cage aux Folles. He remains best known for writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy, hit Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.
(Jim Evans)
