Musicians of the Belgian National Orchestra have served notice of a strike against their intendant Hans Waege who, they say, has not listened to their concerns.
Waege, a modern-art collector, faced a similar confrontation at his previous job with the Rotterdam Philharmonic.
More here.
In this week’s Spectator, Damian Thomson takes up some of the latest assaults on human intelligence by the so-called New Musicologists, the ones who are prepared to study any social topic except Music.
Damian – unprompted by me – picks up on our recent Slipped Disc debates:
Lebrecht presumably had this sort of gibberish in mind when, in a recent interview with Van magazine, he denounced musicology as ‘a phony discipline… like parapsychology. It’s a cultish thing which makes up its parameters as it goes along.’
Cultish is right: like certain fringe religious movements, the new musicology attracts not just talentless opportunists but also the brightest young minds. William Cheng won a Stanford competition playing Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto. He can write beautifully but chooses not to, stuffing his sentences with the rhetoric of victimhood and playing the silly typographical tricks that go with it: one of his topics is ‘d/Deaf cultures’. Worse, he wants to shut down debate.
If Cheng, with his Harvard doctorate, can succumb to bullshit theories and enforce leftist dogma, what hope is there for British university students who encounter classical music only under the umbrella of ‘cultural studies’?
The pianist Ian Pace, a dazzling interpreter of modernist composers such as (radical gay) Michael Finnissy, despairs of the ‘sustained assault on Western classical music from some academic quarters’. He’s calling for the teaching of core musical skills in British state schools — in other words, for music to be taught as music, rather than as social history or as an exercise in building self-esteem….
Read on here.
From an interview with the new Lohengrin:
The pre-history is quite complicated. I myself do not know all the details. I was in Bayreuth for four days in 2015 to rehearse incognito with Christian Thielemann. He persuaded me to take on the role. My debut in Dresden 2016 was intended as a kind of dress rehearsal for Bayreuth. Then everything changed – and I was not on the Bayreuth cast list. It was a bit mysterious. And I was very disappointed, because there was something niggling in the background.
What changed your mind now?
Beczala: It was a difficult birth. I said no for two days….
Read on here.
Our string quartet diarist Anthea Kreston has been investigating both sides of the year’s ugliest chamber music incident. Here’s her report:
String quartets are complicated structures. Each has a unique DNA as well as a specific and well-tended collection of interconnected things which sustain it financially, musically, and emotionally. Last week, the much-beloved Cavani Quartet suffered a devastating blow – the Cleveland Institute of Music, which had employed them for 30 years, terminated their contract, severing a relationship that had grown and flourished for these long years, and which had provided the solid foundation on which the Cavani could build their lives, providing a home where they could flourish and become integral parts of their communities.
The Cleveland Institute of Music is a leading music school in America, with a prestigious faculty and state-of-the-art facilities. It also had something which no other school in the States had – the legacy of chamber music teaching which reached beyond the nuts-and-bolts. A philosophy which teaches music as a path to becoming a better person – more empathetic, more honest, and with an understanding that each of us can find a path in the musical world – every person has a voice which is needed and special. The Cavani Quartet perfectly embodies these principles, and judging by the outpouring of support by colleagues and former students, their outrage and disbelief – their anger and mobilisation – these words speak to the deep impact that this extraordinary Quartet has has on the musical world. Furthermore, their current and former students have garnered a multitude of successes – from the international competition circuit to educators and music advocates.
And yet, the nobility of the response of the Quartet itself speaks volumes. You hear the pain in their voices, how this has affected their families and threatened their existence, but they remain strong, loving, and kind.
The Cavani sent me this statement: ‘The love we share with the students, and faculty whose lives have been intertwined with ours through the power of music for the past thirty years is a treasure and has been a life preserver in this really tough time. We were stunned by this – we had called the meeting last Monday to let President Hogle and Dean Bundra know that we had accepted the resignation of our cellist from the quartet and immediately after hearing this news from us, we were informed of the plan to sever our affiliation with CIM, including Preparatory, Young Artists Program and Case West en Reserve University students. As you can imagine we were in complete shock. The official CIM email came out immediately thereafter.’
A Cleveland colleague, violinist Gabe Kitayama-Bolkosky, adds: ‘The problem is symptomatic. Somehow, universities and conservatories have decided that rather than being temples of learning, where they develop young people into deep artists who have an understanding of the human condition, they need to create commodities that “win” competitions. The problem is that winning is not what music education is about. It’s about depth of character and using long practiced skills to move people.
‘This is what the Cavani quartet stood for to all of us. Creating music could be a process that lasts a lifetime and if all of us stayed with it, we could become a true artist, a Donald Weilerstein, a Peter Salaff, a Martha Katz, a Paul Katz. Most of us did not get into this business to hobnob with the “best.” We wanted to learn to contribute in meaningful ways to our fellow musicians and audiences because Music served us that way. It soothed our hearts and healed our souls. CIM has now joined the fold and is looking for teachers who teach to external results rather than the long search that an artist’s life is about. Its the dark side. It leads to suffering for many musicians, no matter how talented or successful. It sends a message to thousands of young people that there is likely not enough room in the field for them. This is most tragic and will have sad repercussions for the school and our community.’
Reaching CIM for clarification was not easy, but they provided me with this: ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, this is a complex situation with a lot of nuance. It’s also a personnel matter, which means there is very little we can say publicly by way of explanation. I can only provide the following statement from President & CEO Paul W. Hogle and Dean & Chief Academic Officer Judy Bundra, PhD:
“Last week, we learned that the Cavani Quartet had released their cellist; he joined the Quartet last summer from the University of Central Florida preceded by Indiana University. With the Quartet now at another personnel transition point (after two members left in 2016), CIM decided it was now time for a different direction. After much discussion and deliberation, and with the full support of Trustee leadership, CIM decided to end its relationship with the Cavani Quartet.
“The chamber music program at CIM remains under the leadership of the esteemed Peter Salaff, a founding member of the Cleveland Quartet and a fixture in our community. Members of our incredibly talented string faculty — many of whom have deep chamber music experience and are eager to work with students in that setting — will be coaching ensembles. We are also exploring multi-year partnerships with other professional string chamber music groups to provide a contemporary performance perspective. Words alone cannot fully describe the impact the Cavani Quartet has had on CIM over the past 30 years. While there will be time to celebrate, thank, and congratulate them, we want to add our admiration for three decades of imprint on a generation of CIM alumni.”‘
Please note the difference in time-lines presented by the Cavani and CIM. The discrepancy is a cause for concern.
I have been inundated with messages this week as I began to investigate this story. My inboxes are overflowing with testaments. Social media is exploding with anger over this CIM decision – letters are being written, plans being made. Who is to say if there is a path back for this unique and passionate Quartet – but there is no doubt that there is an ever-growing and strengthening “circling of the wagons” around these amazing souls.
Much in this story remains to be told: why the cellist quit, why CIM reacted in such peremptory fashion, whether Hogle – who has a history of confrontation with musicians – was the driving force. We expect these details to emerge in the coming days. This is a first attempt to lay out the two sides of the story.
Brian Thornton has been a member of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1994.
A Dallas student of concentration-camp survivor Lev Aaronson, Brian is sensitised to the physical and emotional wellbeing of musicians. ‘He lost everything: belief in God, belief in people, all that was left to him was music.’
Brian says: ‘So many of us musicians play with pain– even if it’s the pain of not being able to express ourselves… Te majorit of cellists in my orchestra have had some kind of surgery associated with the cello.’
He talks to Zsolt Bognar in the latest edition of Living the Classical Life.
You see it here first.
Brook Ellen Ferguson, principal flute of the Colorado Symphony, has picked up the baton from Elizabeth Rowe of the Boston Symphony, demonstrating that women wind principals are paid a lot less than men.
Brook has posted a recent decision by the National Labour Relations Board, ruling on her complaint that she was ‘underpaid compared to male musicians in similar positions,’ and this by a factor of 28 percent.
She alleged that the Symphony had been paying her less than her male colleagues on the principal woodwind block since she started with the Symphony in 2010; that the Symphony’s most-recent final offer in 2016 did not bring her up to the level of her male peers and was conditioned on waiving her legal equal-pay claims; and that she believed the Symphony was discriminating against her because of her sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act.
The Colorado Symphony refused to provide details her fellow-principals’ wages. It has now been ordered by the NLRB to do so. What follows should be of universal interest. ‘This is not an isolated experience,’ Brook tells us. ‘It is rampant.’
UPDATE: Brook tells us that since the NLRB ruling, the Colorado Symphony has made efforts to remedy the disparity. However, she is still paid quite a bit less than several musicians in the woodwinds and brass sections.
The other point worth underlining is that the precedent-setting NLRB ruling has given every musician in the US the means to demand fair play from those who fix their wages.
Here’s the full NLRB ruling.
Boris Kulikov, who has died at 86, was professor of choral conducting at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, an indispensable repository of tradition who preserved the Orthodox liturgy in Soviet times.
He numbered Mravinsky, Gilels, Richter and Rozhdestvensky among his close friends and he taught many of today’s symphonic conductors, as well as the chorus specialists.
There’s a fascinating interview with him here (in English). Kulikov says:
In 1918, Trotsky, with a stroke of his pen, abolished the Synodal School and the Synodal Choir. It was a severe blow, a terrible, premeditated crime. Even from a purely secular point of view, because at that time the art of choral singing had achieved perfection, gleaned through centuries of experience; it was the greatest thing that existed in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in this realm. When the Synodal Choir sang in the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral it was the sound of all Russia praying. Once someone experienced this, they remembered it for a lifetime, and the sound was transmitted from generation to generation. All Moscow sang, the whole of Russia sang.
With one ex-rector convicted and another senior figure about to go on trial, you wonder why it has taken them so long.
The inquiry will be chaired by the former President of the Bavarian Constitutional Court, Hildegund Holzheid.
Meanwhile, a distinguished current lecturer has published an article, maintaining that the cover-up continues.
Read here.
We’ve been hearing more about the equal pay dispute in which the Boston Symphony is accused of paying principal flute Elizabeth Rowe a much lower salary than principal oboe, John Ferillo. She claims it’s down to sex discrimination.
BSO will claim it’s a matter of seniority. Ferillo has been in the job three years longer. Would that justify so large a pay gap?
He’s more experienced, and at higher institutions, they say. Rowe was assistant principal in Baltimore, before winning #1 flute in Washington DC, and auditioning for Boston a year later.
John Ferillo was co-principal at the Met and a professor at Juilliard before he joined Boston in 2001. He’s a student of John de Lancie at Curtis, blue-blood credentials in American music.
Still, 70k is an awful lot of credentials. How Boston allowed this internal disparity to simmer untreated for a dozen years suggests a certain degree of institutional complacency.
Barbara Lynne Jamison has been named general director of Kentucky Opera. She has been heads of programs and partnerships at Seattle Opera.
And Ken McConnell has been promoted to Interim Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tulsa Opera, in line to succeed outgoing general director and CEO Greg Weber.
The Purcell School has named conductor Paul Hoskins as head of music, a post abolished by the school’s last principal but one – or possibly the last but two, we’ve lost count.
Hoskins, 37, is music director with Ballet Rambert.
His appointment, together with a tenor as head of school, is being hailed as a new era for the swing-door school. Let’s hope so.
The Susan Chilcott Scholarship for British opera singers, founded in 2005 in memory of a brilliant soprano who died at 40 of cancer, has delivered its final £10,000 prize before the fund is wound up.
The last recipient, announced today, is the soprano Gemma Summerfield.
