Royal Philharmonic moves to Wembley
mainIt is reported that the homeless orchestra wants to embed itself in ‘a diverse community.’
The move will happen in May.
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It used to be a good orchestra when Sir Thomas Beecham founded it. It may be the weakest of London’s orchestras now.
Basis for such a sweeping statement?
In the context of diversity there should also be place for orchestra’s which place diversity at the top of their priority list instead of artistic quality. The problem is, that the orchestral repertoire does not have much diverse music, but that gap may be remedied easily by diverse composers, preferably recruted from diverse communities.
I imagine English is not your first language, but I would disagree that the orchestral repertoire does not have much diverse music. A Wagner overture is a long way from a Satie piece. You could never confuse Mozart and Stravinsky…etc.
I suppose I am just getting sick of seeing another perfectly good English word co-opted to some politically correct application. Diversity means a lot more than bean-counting the number of BAME and sexually miscellaneous categorisations.
“I suppose I am just getting sick of seeing another perfectly good English word co-opted to some politically correct application.”
OMG, that’s so gay.
I used to feel very gay much of the time — despite being resolutely heterosexual. Can’t say that any more! Ah, well, that’s what synonyms are for.
The word ‘diversity’ was used in the same way as it is used in the announcement. That was the irony of the comment. (‘Irony’ used in the sense of the Oxford Dictionary.)
When you have to point out that you were being ironic it might be time to invest in English lessons.
It is always more civilized and more human to help the ironically-challenged. Petulant expostulations like this one are only offering themselves up to benefic repudiation.
What the hell does their location (diverse community) have to do with their quality? That’s like saying, ooooh, they put “Royal” in their name, they must be in-bred welfare sucking leeches (now, THAT’s use of irony).
But the notion of ‘Royal’ is indeed a form of irony, in our democratic times.
Don’t say that! I’m looking forward to hearing them in Tucson next month.
Pretty sure that Cadogan Hall is their home….
So what does this actually mean? Is there a hall for them to play in there? Or is this just a move of administrative/rehearsal facilities, and a base for community outreach?
I think NL said it well a few years ago: An orchestra without a purpose.
A pity London doesn’t figure out how to consolidate its many good orchestras into two great ones that would follow the business model used in the rest of the world.
https://www.rpo.co.uk/about/news-press/395-move-to-wembley. The last paragraph refers to moving the Head Office. The full press release may well give further details.
The London orchestras don’t need to merge. Rather, one of them needs to move to the provinces (where there are very few orchestras).
The RPO would be the best candidate to move. Perhaps Nottingham would be the best destination (they even built the Royal concert hall, and don’t have a resident orchestra).
WITHOUT DIVERSITY WE CANNOT SURVIVE
By Norman Lebrecht
On December 21, 2019
https://slippedisc.com/2019/12/without-diversity-we-cannot-survive/
So they will be missionaries for orchestral music. I wish them godspeed.
But as we know, missionaries often run the risk of ending-up in a cooking pot.
Classical music is the only genuinely diverse music on this planet.Nothing belittles a person or organisation more than desperately trying to make itself popular.Having said that I wish the Philharmonic well,they deserve it.
After years since the first scandal of fake orchestras travelling to China (at that time I was in Romania, as usual) i wonder why my face still appears in this kind of posters.
You do realize that this is a photo of the Royal Philharmonic ROME instead of London, right?