The ripples from the suspension of the entire Brazil Symphony Orchestra (OSB) are spreading fast. The conductor Kurt Masur, who posted an open letter in support of his conductor protégé Roberto Minczuk, was confronted by an angry bassoonist when he conducted yesterday in the US. Here’s the musician’s summary:
Dear Mr. Masur.
I hope you enjoyed your week with us here in San Francisco. I think the concerts were a great success. While I was left with fond memories of our Mendelssohn collaborations I’m afraid my memory of our lengthy discussion about the OSB situation will not be so fondly remembered by me.
I had been led to believe from your tremendous personal history of achievements in building social and artistic change in Europe and elsewhere, that we could expect the same wisdom and careful thought to be applied by you with regards to the horrible developments in Brazil. I relayed to my friends throughout the international music community that I truly believed you would help your friend, Roberto Minzcuk, come to the realization that change, however it may be wanted or maybe even needed, must only occur primarily with the best interests of the individuals and stakeholders taken into account and secondarily to serve a broader agenda and community.
I would never have believed that an almost cavalier and ultimately damaging approach to achieving “artistic” excellence would have been so erroneously endorsed by you. I must believe that you are, I am afraid to say, being bamboozled. You spoke to me of the history of the orchestra and wit it your associations with many players who are a part of that history. I simply cannot believe that, armed with factual and measured information you would be willing to throw these people to the dogs!
That cannot be your intention but it is what you are saying in your unbridled support of Mr. Minzcuk and his band of henchmen. At the very least you must be made aware of the pure fact that you are not doing him, Minzcuk, any favors what so ever by encouraging this behavior. The eyes of the international music community are focusing in greater numbers on this man and they do NOT like what they are seeing. We are not a vindictive bunch but we are loyal to our colleagues and they are being unfairly attacked. Mr. Minzcuk is running the risk of alienating himself from the very community of musicians that he depends upon for good musical collaboration and, in turn his very livelihood. Perhaps, like other dictatorial and delusional “leaders” he cannot see this. A pity as it is indeed there and, in the end, he will be eaten by his own imagined sense of power.
So, as my friend Ole Bohn has said, it is not too late to go back and begin the process of healing these self inflicted wounds. One of the greatest gifts a human being can give to another is the ability to admit a mistake. People have an amazing capacity to forgive when the forgiveness is requested with humility and dignity. It is NOT too late, I am choosing to believe, even for you Mr. Masur. Look at ALL the facts and then you will, no doubt, want to reassess your position and that of Mr. Minzcuk.
All the best of wishes to you and your lovely wife.
Looking ahead to further shared musical experiences.
Rob Weir
Bassoonist
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Philharmonic is being flown home by the earliest available connection, cancelling four remaining concerts. The orchestra were caught on a swaying bridge during the Tokyo quake.
Here’s the BBC report (with video). And
here’s the Guardian on the orchestra’s ordeal.
The BBC Philharmonic is being flown home by the earliest available connection, cancelling four remaining concerts. The orchestra were caught on a swaying bridge during the Tokyo quake.
Here’s the BBC report (with video). And
here’s the Guardian on the orchestra’s ordeal.
Times are tough, I know, but how is your opera house shaping up to tight budgets? In many cases by putting on fewer shows. Six new productions next year? Eight? Ten?
Dresden’s doing nineteen.
Yep, you read that right. The Semper Oper in Dresden under the vigorous management of Ulrike Hessler, is splashing out on 19 new shows, including the world premiere of an opera by the Czech, Miroslav Srnka, and a revival of the inter-war Czech hit, Schwanda the Bagpiper.
The Germans have a different was of counting premieres that the rest of us, including gala nights and children’s works. Nevertheless, eight new opera, five new ballets and much else suggests that Dresden is not resting on any laurels. Ms Hessler (below) also made it clear that Wagner was being rested ahead of his birthday year in 2013.
Sounds like the Semper’s in pretty good shape.
Here’s a German report.
Hang on – news just in:
Nürnberg is doing 10 new opera productions, three ballets, 16 plays. Beat that.
photo: dpa
Times are tough, I know, but how is your opera house shaping up to tight budgets? In many cases by putting on fewer shows. Six new productions next year? Eight? Ten?
Dresden’s doing nineteen.
Yep, you read that right. The Semper Oper in Dresden under the vigorous management of Ulrike Hessler, is splashing out on 19 new shows, including the world premiere of an opera by the Czech, Miroslav Srnka, and a revival of the inter-war Czech hit, Schwanda the Bagpiper.
The Germans have a different was of counting premieres that the rest of us, including gala nights and children’s works. Nevertheless, eight new opera, five new ballets and much else suggests that Dresden is not resting on any laurels. Ms Hessler (below) also made it clear that Wagner was being rested ahead of his birthday year in 2013.
Sounds like the Semper’s in pretty good shape.
Here’s a German report.
Hang on – news just in:
Nürnberg is doing 10 new opera productions, three ballets, 16 plays. Beat that.
photo: dpa
The confrontation at the Brazil Symphony Orchestra cannot be contained within Rio. The implications are universal and the interest intense.
As of this moment, as I understand it, the orchestra has suspended its musicians and ordered them to re-audition for their jobs. Those who fail to attend audition are dismissed. The music director, Robert Minczuk, has given a public assurance
on this site that no-one ‘who participates in the evaluation will be dismissed’. His friend and mentor
Kurt Masur has appealed to musicians to take part (though whether Mr Masur is in possession of the full facts has yet to be ascertained). Meanwhile, the first players have received dismissal notices.
Reauditioning an entire orchestra is a radical procedure, without precedent in my experience. It would be helpful to know what conductors in other countries think about it. Is it a model to be emulated? Or should it, as some suggest,be stopped immediately on grounds of illegality?
Conductors wield power in 2011 by social consent. I would like to hear some more of their responses here to what is going down in Rio.
The confrontation at the Brazil Symphony Orchestra cannot be contained within Rio. The implications are universal and the interest intense.
As of this moment, as I understand it, the orchestra has suspended its musicians and ordered them to re-audition for their jobs. Those who fail to attend audition are dismissed. The music director, Robert Minczuk, has given a public assurance
on this site that no-one ‘who participates in the evaluation will be dismissed’. His friend and mentor
Kurt Masur has appealed to musicians to take part (though whether Mr Masur is in possession of the full facts has yet to be ascertained). Meanwhile, the first players have received dismissal notices.
Reauditioning an entire orchestra is a radical procedure, without precedent in my experience. It would be helpful to know what conductors in other countries think about it. Is it a model to be emulated? Or should it, as some suggest,be stopped immediately on grounds of illegality?
Conductors wield power in 2011 by social consent. I would like to hear some more of their responses here to what is going down in Rio.
I have been sent the following open letter from conductor Kurt Masur, by the Brazil Symphony Orchestra’s director of marketing and communications, Ricardo Levitsky.
Dear music lovers in Rio!
1970 I started my first concert series with OSB.
For 40 yeas I followed the changing fate and ups and downs of this
Orchestra. Yet, there were always enough music lovers in the audience
to fill the concert houses. Most of the musicians, even until now, used
to take several other jobs in order to be able to feed their family.
Everybody has been dreaming of having better situations as an orchestra
musician.
And now we have been given sensational better situations!
Soon will be the cidade da musica reopened, and orchestra
musicians will be paid much better fee, as good as some professional
Orchestras in London or in good orchestras in USA!
And I am surprised that some members of orchestra are refusing new
auditions for bringing the artistically level to the necessary highest
standard as those well paid orchestras in the world!
I know the current music director, Maestro Roberto Minczuk as a great
and honest human being and he handsels everything honest and careful. I
trust him that he will be able to bring the orchestra then up to the
highest level of music making which gives great benefit to all music
lovers in Rio de janeiro.
His talent and his vision of the future is for me absolutely
convincing.
As a proof what I mean, you should read his letter and statement he
gave to the blog of Norman Lebrecht on March 8th. This letter of
Roberto Minczuk makes you think about the great chance of future music
life for all of you in Rio.
Every body of you has the responsibility about the future music life in
Rio. I recommend strongly to the members of OSB, if you are also in
concern of the future of music life in Rio, you should sit together and
talk your concerns.
Don?t miss this great opportunity and chance in the history of this
orchestra and I beg you all not to be uncontrolled emotions but act
wise and careful.
With Love
Kurt Masur
I have been sent the following open letter from conductor Kurt Masur, by the Brazil Symphony Orchestra’s director of marketing and communications, Ricardo Levitsky.
Dear music lovers in Rio!
1970 I started my first concert series with OSB.
For 40 yeas I followed the changing fate and ups and downs of this
Orchestra. Yet, there were always enough music lovers in the audience
to fill the concert houses. Most of the musicians, even until now, used
to take several other jobs in order to be able to feed their family.
Everybody has been dreaming of having better situations as an orchestra
musician.
And now we have been given sensational better situations!
Soon will be the cidade da musica reopened, and orchestra
musicians will be paid much better fee, as good as some professional
Orchestras in London or in good orchestras in USA!
And I am surprised that some members of orchestra are refusing new
auditions for bringing the artistically level to the necessary highest
standard as those well paid orchestras in the world!
I know the current music director, Maestro Roberto Minczuk as a great
and honest human being and he handsels everything honest and careful. I
trust him that he will be able to bring the orchestra then up to the
highest level of music making which gives great benefit to all music
lovers in Rio de janeiro.
His talent and his vision of the future is for me absolutely
convincing.
As a proof what I mean, you should read his letter and statement he
gave to the blog of Norman Lebrecht on March 8th. This letter of
Roberto Minczuk makes you think about the great chance of future music
life for all of you in Rio.
Every body of you has the responsibility about the future music life in
Rio. I recommend strongly to the members of OSB, if you are also in
concern of the future of music life in Rio, you should sit together and
talk your concerns.
Don?t miss this great opportunity and chance in the history of this
orchestra and I beg you all not to be uncontrolled emotions but act
wise and careful.
With Love
Kurt Masur
When the earth shook in Tokyo this afternoon, there were two orchestral concerts scheduled for the evening.
The Japan Philharmonic Symphony was playing at Suntory Hall with chief conductor Alexander Lazarev a programme of Stravinsky’s violin concerto (soloist Yano Ryoko) and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suite. Not much is known to me of this event except that, despite a paralysis of public transport. it went ahead without incident.
The New Japan Philharmonic, with guest conductor Daniel Harding, were performing Wagner’s Parsifal prelude, followed by Mahler’s fifth symphony at Sumida Triphony Hall. Barely 50 people managed to attend out of an expected 1,800 but Harding reported a ‘wonderful atmosphere’, with one elderly man walking four hours across town to get there.
Getting home was another matter. The orchestral musicians bedded down on the floor of the concert hall, unable to get home. The conductor was driven back to his hotel at snail’s pace, covering five kilometres in two hours. He posted a picture of the traffic jams taken from his bedroom window
and settled down to watch England play cricket on the telly against Bangladesh.
Spirit of the Blitz? Alive and well.
Tomorrow’s concert will go ahead, public transport permitting.
When the earth shook in Tokyo this afternoon, there were two orchestral concerts scheduled for the evening.
The Japan Philharmonic Symphony was playing at Suntory Hall with chief conductor Alexander Lazarev a programme of Stravinsky’s violin concerto (soloist Yano Ryoko) and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suite. Not much is known to me of this event except that, despite a paralysis of public transport. it went ahead without incident.
The New Japan Philharmonic, with guest conductor Daniel Harding, were performing Wagner’s Parsifal prelude, followed by Mahler’s fifth symphony at Sumida Triphony Hall. Barely 50 people managed to attend out of an expected 1,800 but Harding reported a ‘wonderful atmosphere’, with one elderly man walking four hours across town to get there.
Getting home was another matter. The orchestral musicians bedded down on the floor of the concert hall, unable to get home. The conductor was driven back to his hotel at snail’s pace, covering five kilometres in two hours. He posted a picture of the traffic jams taken from his bedroom window
and settled down to watch England play cricket on the telly against Bangladesh.
Spirit of the Blitz? Alive and well.
Tomorrow’s concert will go ahead, public transport permitting.
Here’s the latest appeal from the heart of an orchestra that is being torn apart. The writer, a New Yorker, payed first in the Israel Philharmonic, then in Germany before he fell in love with Rio. The rest, is here.
Dear Norman Lebrecht :
It is indeed wonderful that you have allowed so much space in your blog
for the problems with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. What is currently happening here in Rio de Janeiro –where I have resided since 1973 and was the first oboe of the orchestra until 1997 or 24 years–resembles unsavoury procedures in the musical world in the 1930s.
Meaning: firing/sacking musicians just because they have committed the
“crime”of getting old or older, calling for re-auditions of veterans
despite their long-time experience and survival in the orchestra and
encouraging scabs to take the place of discarded musicians.
What is the worst “crime”in my view,is Maestro Minczuk and the
Brazilian Orchestra’s use of the Youth Orchestra to replace the
“ÖSB”(Brazilian Symphony) for the first three months of season with
some members of the orchestra–who are not rebelling vs.
Minzcuk–playing in he first stands of the youth orchestra.
In the UK and USA ,a court order would probably bar the younth
orchestra from taking over the initial part of the season from the
professionals. In Rio de Janeiro however(and not necessarily Brazil)
anything goes(unfortunately).
Today,Friday,as I write you Rio’s major newspaper O Globo hasa picture
of the musicians who refuse to take the audition awaiting in the front
of the Labour Ministry for a reconciliation hearing–which never
occurred because neither the Maestro or administration appeared.
We are living in the epoch of internet which has overthrown
dictatorships in the Arab world and hopefully via this same magical
communication ,Maestro Minzcuk and his cohorts will receive their
proper due if these 58 musicians are sacked.
Can the unions in the UK, USA, Canada,etc bar Minzcuk from conducting and
holding auditions? Can other measures be taken? Our fears here in Brazil
are that the draconian measures which have begun in the Brazilian
Symphony will spread to all the 56 orchestras in this growing
nation,threatening thelivelihood of local musicians.
Best wishes,
Harold Emert
oboist
Brazilian National Orchestra
