The distinguished composer Mary Jane Leach, an expert on the music of her late colleague Julius Eastman, was thrown off campus in July when she tried to refer to Eastman’s works by the controversial given names.

Now Leach gives her side of the sorry story:

…. What I hadn’t known was that there had been earlier discussions before the festival about whether it would be ethical for me, a white woman, to speak about a gay black man, and that the moderator of the post-lecture discussion—the leader of an activist group of queer people of color—agreed to take part in what I later learned would be characterized as a “facilitation that unpacks privilege in the conversation around Eastman’s work and Mary Jane’s life in relation thereof.”

What was missing in that premise is the reason why I find it so important to speak and write about Eastman: In a time when identity politics command so much attention—most of it well-deserved and long past its due—it’s also important to stress that he was more than a gay black man. He was also a musician and composer of immense talent. While I am not a gay black man, I am a musician and composer, and Eastman and I were colleagues, having first met in 1981 …

Read on here.

Mesage from Deutsche Oper Berlin:

After very successful rehearsals at the Deutsche Opera Berlin, Piotr Beczala is unfortunately forced to cancel all the upcoming performances of Un Ballo in Maschera on 15, 19 and 23 September. A vessel on one of his vocal cords has burst and the doctors recommend at least 10 days of complete voice rest.

Piotr is very sorry to miss these performances, and is looking forward to perform again as soon as he has fully recovered.

Dmytro Popov and Joseph Kang will take over two of the performances.

After locking the players out for three months, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra says they are now on strike after having refused to accept a reduced contract.

Here’s the aggressive new language:

MEDIA ADVISORY: Baltimore Symphony Musicians on Strike:

Season Opening Concerts Postponed

Baltimore (September 13, 2019) The musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) have not returned to work this week. Therefore, please note the following changes to our season opening plans…

A nameless former Sony Classical staffer in Berlin is the latest to accuse the singer of being a sex-pest. She tells Der Spiegel he kissed her on the mouth and hugged her in February 2001 while trying to enter her hotel room during a Three Tenors promotion.

The woman told him she was not interested.

She did not report the incident to her employer.

Audience statistics are out for the 2019 BBC Proms, which end tonight, and they are well short of the range of 90+ percent attendances achieved earlier in the present decade.

Over 300,000 people bought tickets to 89  concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and Cadogan Hall, with an average attendance for the main evening RAH Prom coming in at 89%.

Not bad. But far from best which was, I think, 2013.

The ARD contest which occasionally yields major talent has been won by the Japanese cellist Haruma Sato.

He’s 21.

Message received:

Greetings Musicians;

My name is Mary Winterfeld; I work with Maestro Lawrence Golan at the Yakima Symphony and am the current coordinator for the American Festival Orchestra China Tour under his direction.

On behalf of Maestro Golan, I would like to invite you to join us for the China Tour in December 2019. I am looking for a few more cellists to complete our roster. Due to time constraints, I am emailing multiple musicians. If you are interested, please email me in the next few days.

We will have two rehearsals in Seattle on December 22nd (3:30-6:00 pm and 7:30-10:00 pm). Each musician is responsible for cost and purchase of their RT ticket to China to arrive at Beijing PEK on December 24 no later than 8:30 pm. Many musicians are flying American Airlines which is currently running about $1400. Once in China, all expenses are covered: lodging, meals, and transportation. There is no other compensation and sightseeing expenses are on your own.

I have attached our itinerary and repertoire for you to review. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Feel free to email or call me: 509-594-5059.

Thank you for your consideration!

Mary Winterfeld
American Festival Orchestra

From a fabulous confession by architecture writer Kate Wagner:

I was discouraged from pursuing a number of different careers—botany, architecture, creative writing. But I was never, somehow, discouraged from pursuing a life in classical music. Growing up in a small Southern town, I was a shark in a little pond, better than my peers because I had a head start. Everyone thought I was talented, including myself, as I nabbed first chair after first chair. With every victory, the belief that the world was just and fair, and that the talented and hardworking would inherit it, became more and more cemented in my child-soul. When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to be a composer more than a violinist. I wrote my first pieces, little violin ditties, during my sophomore year. Pirated notation software expanded the ensembles to string and even chamber orchestra. I begged my parents to let me attend a pre-college summer program for composers at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

I should have thought twice about the career choice I had impulsively made at the age of seventeen when my parents explained they could only afford to send me to an in-state school instead of an out-of-state, high-end conservatory. My unshaken worldview relented, telling me that if I worked hard, I would succeed no matter which school I attended. I enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the fall of 2012. Frankly, I’m glad I went there and graduated debt free instead of going to an expensive conservatory, where the crushing of my dreams would have been far more expensive….

One day, around the beginning of my junior year of college, it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to make it….

Read on here.