'Major discovery': France's National Library brings forgotten Mozart manuscript back to life

By FRANCE 24

A long-forgotten manuscript by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be brought to life this weekend in Paris. The newly rediscovered work – composed in 1778 when the Austrian prodigy was just 22 – will be performed in public for the first time ever at France's National Library. 

A composition notebook by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart containing seven pieces for harp and flute is displayed at
the National Library of France (BnF) in Paris on June 15, 2026. © Kenzo Tribouillard, AFP

Musicians this weekend will for the first time publicly interpret music for flute and harp that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote as a 22-year-old while teaching an aristocratic French student.

The unprecedented concert on Sunday at France’s National Library (BnF), comes after what it has called a "major discovery".

Francois-Pierre Goy, a curator in the library's music department, stumbled across the treasure as he examined a pile of anonymous manuscripts he wanted to get through before retirement.

"I never imagined what I was about to find," he told AFP.

The 44-page notebook includes a dozen daily exercises the Austrian prodigy gave Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnieres de Guines from May to July 1778, as well as seven pieces for flute and harp, he said.

She was an excellent harpist and the daughter of the Duke of Guines, himself a renowned flautist.

"It just so happened that I had been looking at some of Mozart's teaching material a few weeks earlier," Goy said.

Soon he noticed similarities – including "the treble clefs that are quite rounded and tilted slightly forward", and bass clefs drawn in the opposite direction from how they usually are in France, he added.

"Could it be him?" Goy said he thought to himself.

Comparisons with Mozart's other handwritten works, the French paper used, and stamps on the notebook identical to those on a French copy of Mozart's "Concerto for Flute and Harp" that the Duke of Guines had commissioned all seemed to indicate he was right.

Armin Brinzing, director of the Austria-based Mozarteum Foundation, authenticated the document in April.

The manuscript "is part of two bundles of music that were confiscated from the home of the Duke of Guines in 1794" during the French Revolution, and eventually ended up at the BnF, according to the library.

Mozart died in 1791 aged 35.

Discoveries like this "for such a famous composer are almost unheard of", said Mathias Auclair, director of the BnF's music department.

Several Mozart compositions have been rediscovered in recent years.

In one case, in 2012, someone found a Mozart piano piece composed when he was 11 in an Austrian attic.

For harpists and flautists, who have "very little repertoire" available to them, the discovery at the BnF is a wonderful surprise, he said.

BnF president Gilles Pecout said the new music sheets shed light on Mozart as a young teacher and documented his last stay in Paris in 1778 – on which there is scant information.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP) - June 19, 2026

Remembering the car that carried Australia

Prime Minister Ben Chifley at the launch of the first Holden car in 1948.

By Helen Musa

Public reaction to Australia’s first locally made car in 1948 was extraordinary. Now an aptly titled exhibition at the National Archives, Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, brings to life the memories and stories of GMH, reports HELEN MUSA. 

“We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars,” went the famous advertising jingle from the 1970s.

Small matter that it was a rip-off from the American jingle, “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”, it took off here among a populace who probably didn’t know or care that the same company – General Motors – owned both Holden and Chevrolet.

Historically, public reaction to Australia’s first locally made car in 1948 was extraordinary. Around 18,000 people reportedly signed up to buy the car sight unseen and at the height of Holden’s popularity, the EH Holden became the fastest-selling Australian car ever, with more than 250,000 sold in 18 months.

Now an aptly titled exhibition at the National Archives of Australia, Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, brings to life the memories and stories of General Motors Holden.

As visitors walk in the door of the archives, they will be confronted by a large 48-215 (FX) Holden, the property of Canberra Classic Holden Club members June and Tony Pryce, who painstakingly restored it in original duck-egg blue tones sourced from period colours.

NAA curator Anna Edmundson with a Holden 48-215 (FX). The oldest Holden registered in the ACT, it was assembled in Sydney in September 1949. June and Tony Pryce bought it in 1990 and painstakingly restored it in original duck-egg blue tones sourced from period colours. Photo: Peter Hislop

When I catch up with NAA curator Anna Edmundson, I learn that the show, developed originally by the State Library of South Australia with the University of Adelaide, has been augmented in Canberra with patent records, advertising, industrial relations files and material relating to women workers’ campaigns for equal pay, all from the Archives’ collection.

Bookended by the first and last engines Holden produced – yes, the actual engines – Rear Vision traces the company’s journey from a 19th century Adelaide saddlery, through military production during World War II, the creation of Australia’s own car and finally the company’s closure in 2017.

Inside the show are Monaro transmission components, custom paint and trim samples, fibreglass moulds, glasswork, Lego model cars and the original bronze lion statue from the entrance to the Elizabeth assembly plant.

The launch of the 500,000th Holden, 1958 .

And for those feeling nostalgic, there will even be photo opportunities inviting visitors to place themselves back into the “good old days” behind the wheel of a cardboard FX.

I find that although American-owned, Holden quickly became synonymous with Australian nationalism and indeed the names “Boomerang” and “Woomera” were touted for the original car, though they settled on the more commonplace 48-215, quickly known as the FX and later superseded by the famous FJ.

Later models, however, did adopt names drawn from Aboriginal languages: Torana meaning “to fly”, Monaro meaning “high plains” and Camira meaning “wind”.

The exhibition explores Holden’s place in Australian cultural memory.

“We’ve all got a picture in our minds of grandma near a Holden with a Hills Hoist in the background,” Edmundson says.

There is material relating to artist Albert Namatjira, who spent his first tax return on a green Holden truck, and to Jimmy Barnes, who worked at the Elizabeth plant in SA after migrating from Glasgow.

Barnes would go on to perform Shutting Down Our Town, written by Troy Cassar-Daley, at a farewell party for retrenched workers when the Elizabeth factory closed in October 2017.

Holden as an early saddlery in Adelaide… Holden & Frost, Grenfell Street, 1907. Photo: Ernest Gall

The story began in 1856 when James Alexander Holden, a talented inventor as Edmundson points out, established a saddlery business in Adelaide that expanded into carriage trim, leather seats and carriage bodies before moving into early car-body production mounted on to imported Chevrolet chassis and engines. Little known is that in the 1920s Holden also supplied bodies for Melbourne’s W-Class trams.

When it merged with General Motors in 1931, the company retained enough autonomy to develop vehicles adapted to Australian conditions.

The exhibition argues that Holden’s real industrial transformation came during World War II when it shifted into military manufacturing, producing aircraft engines, anti-tank guns, artillery shells, bombs and military equipment.

Among the wartime objects on show is the Gipsy Major engine that powered Tiger Moth aircraft, the first Australian-built Holden engine, contrasted with the company’s final 2017 vehicle, the VF Commodore SS-V Redline, later purchased for $750,000 by a former Holden employee.

Women workers during World War II cleaning dust from bomber tanks, 1943. Photographer: Darian Smith

Pride of place is also given to the Beaufort Bomber program, especially photographs showing the women working on the bomber production.

Edmundson says that around 35 per cent of people working on the Beaufort were women, though they had to strike to demand equal pay with men after intervention by the Women’s Employment Board. 

The exhibition also stresses the multicultural make-up of the workforce, while another section examines the devastation wrought on trades communities after the company’s collapse.

Ultimately, Edmundson says, Rear Visions is less about the physicality of the car than the stories of people.

Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, National Archives of Australia, daily, until October 11. Free.

First published at Canberra City News, June 17, 2026

Beatles great Sir Paul McCartney extends chart record

Sir Paul McCartney has secured his 24th number one album in the UK with The Boys of Dungeon Lane.
(EPA PHOTO)

Sir Paul McCartney has extended his record as the most successful albums act of all time.

The 83-year-old icon has topped the UK charts once again with The Boys of Dungeon Lane, which has become the 24th number one album of his storied career.

“Paul McCartney securing his 24th number one album in the UK is an incredible achievement, and his place as the most successful albums artist in the history of the Official Charts is truly deserved,” Official Charts Company co-managing directors Becca Monahan and Chris Austin said.

“Across seven decades, Paul’s music has found new generations of fans, and this latest milestone is a testament to his extraordinary career.

“As we near the 70th anniversary of the Official Albums Chart on 22nd July, Paul’s continued success highlights his profound and sustained impact across the lifetime of the chart.

“Congratulations to Paul on another historic milestone.”

McCartney has achieved 15 number one LPs as a member of the Beatles, two with the band Wings, six with his solo projects and one alongside Linda McCartney, his first wife, who passed away in April 1998, aged 56.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane has also topped the Official Vinyl Albums Chart and the Official Record Store Chart, meaning it’s sold the most copies in independent UK record shops in the past week.

Meanwhile, McCartney recently confessed to being amazed by the Beatles’ enduring popularity and his solo success.

“It is phenomenal, it is really phenomenal,” McCartney said, appearing on TikTok live.

“When we started out, we were just kids, and rock and roll was just really coming in, and we thought, ‘if we’re lucky, we’ve got a couple of years’ – that’s how long people normally lasted. They couldn’t really sustain much more after that.

“We expected maybe five years max, and then that became 10, and we were kind of still going and the scene’s still there.

“Then it became 20, then 30, and now it’s right up there. It’s great, it is a lovely feeling.”

Published at Australian Associated Press via City News, June 6, 2026

Tenor Limmie Pulliam, Who Sang on Stages Worldwide, Dies at 50

Gifted singer became a regular presence on the Oberlin campus where he honed his craft.

Communications Staff

Limmie Pulliam, in an October 2022 preview performance of "The Ordering of Moses" with the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs in Finney Chapel. The following month, the musicians presented the work at Carnegie Hall. Photo: Yevhan Gulenko

Dramatic tenor Limmie Pulliam, a 1998 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory who gave life to a host of leading opera roles and as a classical soloist on prominent stages across America and around the globe—and whose unlikely rise to fame after years away from music buoyed the dreams of performers everywhere—has died. He was 50.

Last week, Pulliam had been the tenor soloist in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.

Raised in Kennett, Missouri, Pulliam, the son of a preacher, grew up singing in his church choir before his passion for classical music took shape. At Oberlin, he was a student of the legendary voice professor Richard Miller, who played a vital role in developing Pulliam’s remarkably powerful sound.

Soon after graduating, however, Pulliam found himself disillusioned over concerns related to his weight and the audition rejections and body shaming he was subjected to as a result of it. For 12 years, he pursued work as a debt collector and security guard—even operating his own security business. For most of that time, he seldom even thought of music, let alone sang.

Pulliam’s rediscovery of his own voice came in the unlikeliest of ways: While working as an organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in Missouri, he was invited to sing the National Anthem when the scheduled singer backed out.

The performance, and several others that followed, signaled to Pulliam that his voice had matured and grown in size in the years since his Oberlin training. It reignited his interest in exploring where he might go with it. His formal return to the stage happened at age 36, with a performance in the National Opera Association’s vocal competition. 

In November 2024, Pulliam discussed his career trajectory with Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar on the Running to the Noise podcast. In it, he revealed how he revisited old videotapes of his sessions with Professor Miller.

"It was almost like riding a bicycle," he recalled. "As I began to work with the tapes, the coordination began to come back."

Limmie Pulliam performing the title role in The Ordering of Moses with the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs at Carnegie Hall in January 2023. Photo: Fadi Kheir

 As Pulliam’s career resurgence took shape, so did his involvement with Oberlin, where he delighted in working with students on projects and in rehearsals.

His on-campus collaborations included singing the title role in The Ordering of Moses, an opera penned by 1908 Oberlin alum R. Nathaniel Dett. The work, performed by the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs in January 2023, marked Pulliam’s Carnegie Hall debut.

The previous month, he had made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Radamès in Verdi’s Aida. He was the first Black singer in the history of the Met to perform the role.

Also in 2023, Pulliam debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra in the title role of a semi-staged production of Verdi’s Otello.

“He has an amazing voice,” Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst said in an interview with cleveland.com. “I’ve not heard a better Otello in a very long time. He really is quite something."

Within days of Pulliam’s Carnegie Hall premiere, he was featured in a New York Times story with the headline “He Quit Singing Because of Body Shaming. Now He’s Making a Comeback.” 

Former First Lady Michelle Obama called out Pulliam on Facebook in February 2023, recalling his initial performance on her husband’s campaign and his spate of debut performances. “Limmie, I’m so proud of you,” she wrote. “Your story is incredible and I hope you know how much you are inspiring people to never give up on their dreams.”

In 2024, Pulliam was one of several Oberlin contemporaries who reunited for a collaborative concert production of Omar, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by Rhiannon Giddens ’01 and Michael Abels. He sang the title role alongside his longtime friends and collaborators Giddens, bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch ’98, and baritone Michael Preacely ’01. Another prominent Oberlin alum, John Kennedy ’82, conducted the performance. Pulliam and Giddens spoke with NPR about the experience of returning to campus to perform the opera.

Pulliam performing the title role in Rhiannon Giddens' 'Omar' in Finney Chapel in December 2024.
Photo: Mike Crupi

Pulliam derived great joy from his work with Oberlin students, and he offered them a word of support in his podcast conversation with Ambar.

“Don’t be afraid to face your fears, to step out of your comfort zone, to be persistent in your work, to be consistent in your work, and don’t let a no deter you from continuing to push forward,” he said.

“It’s up to us to take control of our own destinies and to define ourselves, as opposed to allowing other people to define us.”

In October 2025, Oberlin students attended Pulliam’s performance as soloist in Mahler's Song of the Earth with the Cleveland Orchestra, after which the orchestra hosted a reception for Pulliam and his Oberlin guests. In February of this year, a busload of Oberlin students experienced Pulliam’s performance in Turandot at Detroit Music Hall.

Most recently, Pulliam returned to campus to honor the late Daune Mahy, a longtime voice professor whom the conservatory celebrated with a memorial concert in early March. Pulliam sang Richard Strauss’ Zueignung (von Gilm).

“Limmie was an extraordinary, powerful artist,” says Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen. “Even more, he was a deeply good, kind-hearted, funny, brilliant, and generous colleague and friend who transformed the lives of everyone he met. His performances with our students were life-changing for all involved. On behalf of everyone at Oberlin, we send deepest condolences to Limmie's family, friends, classmates, and loved ones. He was a remarkable artist, and we will miss him greatly.”

In his podcast conversation, Pulliam’s reaction to achieving notoriety later in life was a fitting example of that big-hearted generosity. “I hope [my story] inspired others to just really know not to ever give up on their dreams,” he said.

First published at Oberlin, May 20, 2026

Related article: Tenor Limmie Pulliam makes his Florida Grand Opera debut

Six Artists Vie to Design Billie Holiday Monument in New York

The public is invited to weigh in on proposals submitted by artists including Thomas J. Price and Tavares Strachan.

Nekisha Durrett, Bending the Note artwork proposal. Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

by Richard Whiddington May 19, 2026

In the late 1920s, Eleanora Fagan left Baltimore for New York City, singing to dive bars in the outer boroughs. Within a couple of years, she had changed her name to Billie Holiday and was cutting jazz records with the likes of Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman.

Now, the borough of Queens, which heard Holiday’s haunting voice early on and became her on-and-off home in the 1950s, is commissioning a public monument to the singer outside the Jamaica Performing Arts Center.

Billie Holiday. Photo by William P. Gottlieb / Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection,
Music Division, Library of Congress.

On May 19, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs released the proposals of its six finalists and invited the public to review and comment on the designs. The feedback period will run through the end of May, with the selection panel set to choose its final design later in the year.

The finalists are La Vaughn Belle, Nikesha Breeze, Nekisha Durrett, Tanda Francis, Thomas J. Price, and Tavares Strachan. After responding to an open call put out in late 2025, all six finalists participated in a site visit as well as discussions with Holiday scholars and family members.

Nikesha Breeze, Lady Sings the Truth: A Monument to Billie Holiday artwork proposal.
Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Breeze’s proposal offers an image of Holiday mid-performance, her hands clasped to her chest, with white marble gardenias in her hair. Its base bears the engraving, “Sing the Truth.” Durrett’s Bending the Note, meanwhile, is a white marble carving based on the singer’s profile, which glides upward revealing to reveal a gold underside. A rendering of Holiday’s beloved pooch Pepe sits at the base of the statue, gazing upward.

Strachan, who represented Bahamas at the 55th Venice Biennale and previously cast a monumental sculpture critiquing colonialism outside London’s Royal Academy, is taking a minimalist approach. His proposal offers Holiday’s silhouette in the form of a white vessel, one the artist calls a “container for memory.”

Thomas J. Price, Held Within artwork proposal. Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Price, a British sculptor whose work recently inaugurated V&A East, presents two sleek bronze beans resting against one another on a plinth. Drawing off a photograph of Holiday cuddling with a beloved dog, Price hopes to create a portrait of authentic joy.

The other proposals approach the subject in a more conventionally representative way. Belle suggests a larger-than-life Holiday sat at the edge of a reflecting pool and enjoying some calm, offering what the artist calls “a pre-stage moment.” Davis proposes a large rendering of the musician’s head, with gardenia petals spiraling from her crown into a pond lined with blood red tiles—a nod to “Strange Fruit,” a protest song made famous by Holiday.

Tanda Francis, Blood at the Root artwork proposal.
Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The project is being funded by Percent for Art program, which since 1982 has ensured that one percent of New York City’s construction project budget is spent on public artworks.

“Honoring her here in Queens, where she lived, performed, and contributed to the cultural life of the borough, makes this project especially meaningful,” Nantasha Williams, who represents New York’s 27th district, said in a statement. “This monument is an opportunity to create a lasting cultural landmark that connects residents and visitors alike to the history, creativity, and influence rooted in Queens.”

First published at Artnet, May 19, 2026

Leonard Weiss steps up to historic podium

Weiss becomes the first Australian to conduct a subscription concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

by Jason Blake on 2 April, 2026

Australian conductor Leonard Weiss will make history this week when he becomes the first Australian to conduct a subscription concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, appearing at Symphony Hall Boston as part of the orchestra’s main season.

Weiss will take the podium on 3 April, leading the opening movement, Vyšehrad, from Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic cycle Má vlast. The performance forms part of a shared program in which fellow emerging conductor Yiran Zhao will conduct the better-known second movement, Vltava (The Moldau).

The appearance follows Weiss’s participation in the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellowship last summer, a program closely affiliated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As part of an ongoing mentorship initiative, selected fellows are invited back to conduct the orchestra in subscription concerts.

Leonard Weiss. Photo © Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Weiss described his first rehearsal with the orchestra as “incredible”, praising the ensemble’s responsiveness and the support of its musicians. “It’s a great honour – and, given the lack of previous Australian conductors in this context, a truly unique life experience,” he said.

The engagement marks a significant milestone in Weiss’s rapidly developing international career. Currently based in Berlin, he is midway through a five-month residency at Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he is serving as a Kapellmeister on scholarship through the Opera Foundation for Young Australians. The placement follows his receipt of the foundation’s 2025 Berlin Music Opera Award.

During his Berlin tenure, Weiss has been conducting rehearsals for Handel’s Giulio Cesare in a production directed by David McVicar. He is also preparing the premiere of his own work, Endlich, scheduled to open in Berlin before transferring to the Munich Biennale in May.

Further engagements are planned with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, where Weiss will assist on recording projects with Lang Lang and conduct within the orchestra’s Mendelssohn Academy program.

First published at Limelight, April 2, 2026