The Lucerne Festival has announced a summer of at least nine women conductors. Rub your eyes, it is the dawning of an age of equality.
Or is it?
The headline act is the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by the French baroque leader Emmanuelle Haim. That’s gesture politics. The Vienna Phil are working overtime to annul their anti-women image. There are still fewer than 10 women players in the orchestra.
The rest?
The conductors will include Marin Alsop (with the Sao Paulo Symphony Ochestra), Susanna Mälkki, Elim Chan and Barbara Hannigan.
So far, so obvious. The remainder are women working their way up the system: Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, Anu Tali, Maria Schneider, and Konstantia Gourzi.
It looks tremendously exciting and it could be a game-changer.
Except that it’s happening in Lucerne, in front of the world’s wealthiest audience paying the highest ticket prices and assuring one another that nothing will ever change.
Great idea, maybe in the wrong place.
UPDATE: One of the conductors has objected privately to the marketing concept.
The supreme court in Turkey yesterday annulled the conviction of Fazil Say for ‘insulting’ God and Islam. The court voted 4-1 that Fazil’s tweets should be regarded as freedom of thought and expression and should not be punished with 10 months in jail. Fazil’s original sentence provoked an international outcry.
After the decision, Fazil popped up in Paris to receive the international secularism prize from the Mayor of Paris.
Fazil said: ‘Secularism is a concept identified with the Republic [of Turkey] founded by the courageous leader [Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk, in my home country, Turkey. It stood as an upper justice, which has given freedom to a range of philosophical approaches ensuring equal rights to its people dispersed under different beliefs and ethnic origins, both to believers and non-believers, aiming at taking part in the international scene competition in science, arts, sports and many others. However, as you all know, this state of Turkey has been dragged to a tragic change.’
It’s the World Series showdown.
KC music director Michael Stern has flung down a challenge to Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil.
Place your bets now.
Oh, a picture from the KC Royals subs bench.
It costs $65.
It’s called progress.
It’s horrible.
A roll of 343 UK academics have published an advertisement in the Guardian today, pledging to boycott Israeli institutions until Palestinian rights are restored.
The ad is a direct response to the letter by J K Rowling and others last week, urging dialogue rather than boycott as the best means of progress in the Middle East.
Today’s BDS list contains many of the usual suspects from a variety of disciplines. Surprisingly, there seems to be only one music scholar of international standing.
Step forward Laurence Dreyfus, of Magdalen College, Oxford.
At a session last night with a student orchestra at Peabody Conservatory, I went looking for the music director Ken Lam and couldn’t spot him in the crowded room. ‘Ken’s the one in the hoodie,’ said my companion. And sure enough he was.
A former lawyer with a blue-chip firm in the city of London, Ken is making big strides in his second career. He has a new orchestra – the Charleston Symphony – and a brand-new concert hall. But he keeps the wardrobe cool.
Here’s how they see him in Charleston:
It’s casual Friday at the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CSO) office, and new music director (and conductor) Ken Lam wears a hoodie and shorts, checkered socks emerging from his sneakers. No intimidating, international award-winner here—just a man Über excited about his job.
Seattle Opera has posted an extraordinarily candid statement by Alison Moritz, assistant director on its current production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers:
‘Many people probably won’t talk about this honestly, but I think it’s important to be frank about the personal and financial sacrifices that it takes to be an emerging artist, particularly in the United States. There are many wonderful rewards to this life and work, but they are not necessarily financial. It’s a very hard position to be in—when I first started, I often found myself doing work I loved with people I greatly admired, but not getting paid enough to make a living. What if I couldn’t afford to take that kind of risk on myself? What stories and artists are we missing out on because there are people who simply can’t afford to create art for a living?’
Photo credit: Kristin Hoebermann
‘I wouldn’t say I was a workaholic, but what I had—and still have—is a slightly obsessive nature for solving problems. Like, when I was 12, I was really into the Rubik’s Cube, and would try to figure out faster and faster ways to do it. So when I would get down to working, I wouldn’t stop until I figured something out. I think playing the violin is a lot like a puzzle, and I think my obsessive nature is what helped with my getting things done.’
Our former principal cellist, Ron Shawger, died Sunday evening. Ron came to Milwaukee in 1988 from the Dallas Symphony. He was from Seattle and was a student of Leonard Rose at Juilliard. He left the MSO in the mid 1990s due to multiple sclerosis. His wife Laurie Shawger became a member of the MSO second violin section a couple of years later and still plays in the orchestra.
At Lincoln Center, 0900-1000 this morning:
No resemblance (usual disclaimer) to anyone working inside.
Join New York Mets mascot Mr. Met, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Join New York Mets mascot Mr. Met, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus as well as Stagehands, Electricians, and Props personnel, Security personnel, and other employees as we cheer on the Mets for the start of their first World Series since 2000!
We’ll be wearing New York Mets or Met Opera apparel and/or blue and orange and invite you to do the same!
LET’S GO METS!!era Orchestra and Chorus as well as Stagehands, Electricians, and Props personnel, Security personnel, and other employees as we cheer on the Mets for the start of their first World Series since 2000!
We’ll be wearing New York Mets or Met Opera apparel and/or blue and orange and invite you to do the same!
