French star throws back his ECHO

French star throws back his ECHO

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norman lebrecht

April 24, 2018

The violinist Renaud Capucon is the first non-German resident to return his ECHO prize after this year’s award to a pair of Auschwitz-joke rappers.

The protests continue. The award is discredited.

Renaud writes:

J’ai décidé de rendre mes Prix ÉCHO Preis pour protester contre l’attribution de ce Prix a un groupe de rap dont les paroles des textes sont racistes,antisemites et indignes de la dignité humaine. Toute forme d’art,et bien évidemment la Musique doit être au service de la réconciliation entre les peuples,du dialogue entre les Cultures et du respect de chacun. Renaud Capuçon

UPDATE: The Leipzig Gewandhaus has returned its three ECHO awards.

(Nothing from the Berlin Philharmonic?)

Comments

  • Barry Guerrero says:

    Bravo!

  • Alexander says:

    good boy Renaud

  • Mike Schachter says:

    Well said!

  • anon says:

    I’d’ve sold mine on eBay.

    Who pays for return postage by the way?

  • anon says:

    Now if only Pulitzer winners had enough integrity to return theirs. Since when is rap music?

  • Max Grimm says:

    “(Nothing from the Berlin Philharmonic?)”

    No, nothing from the Berlin Phil yet…..nothing from the BRSO, Vienna Phil, Munich Phil, Bamberger Symphoniker, SWR Sinfonieorchester, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, LA Phil, NY Phil, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony etc. pp. either.

    • Thomasina says:

      Yes for BRSO, I think. The same time as Thielemann and Dresden (topic on April 21).

      • Max Grimm says:

        The BRSO revised its media material (ie. orchestra bio, Mariss Jansons bio on BR, the orchestra’s website, etc.), deleting any reference to their previous ECHO awards from all publicity materials. They also made it known that they would refuse to accept any further ECHO awards. They did however decide against returning the previously received ECHO awards, in order to avoid the appearance of a publicity stunt.
        In the words of principal tuba and member of the orchestra-board, Stefan Tischler:

        “Wir wollen uns nicht mit einer großartigen Rückgabe des Preises profilieren, aber wir haben den Preis aus unserer Orchester-Vita rausgeschrieben.”
        (We do not want to raise our own profile by means of a grandiose return of the prize, but we have purged the prize from our orchestra’s CV)

        Jansons hit the nail on the head when he said that the true problems lie deeper and that it would be quite an easy route if one could solve the problems by simply returning a prize.
        He further said that it depended much more on intelligence, culture and mentality whether one understood the issues at hand and that certain things mustn’t be done.

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