We’ve booked top soloists. If they can’t fly in, we’ll use locals
mainThe ever-diplomatic Avi Shoshani of the Israel Philharmonic has said in an interview that his next season is ready to be announced.
‘We have programmes with the best artists from all over the world. Of course, if flights are not possible we will find a way to put on (the concerts) with Israeli artists who live here,’ he said.
Blunt maybe, but many other managers are thinking along these lines.
Very wise. Plenty of good artists living there. Orchestras must carry on
Good for them. All of the section principals of an orchestra of this calibre will be capable of doing justice to the standard (and probably many non standard really interesting works!) concerto repertoire.
There is a very wide range of meaning in “doing justice”. It can be understood anywhere from merely not harming a piece all the way to giving a performance as inspired and memorable as great music is. It is extremely rare for orchestral players to reach the higher end of that spectrum. Those who do such as the cellist who died a couple of weeks ago don’t usually remain orchestra members for long.
@M2N2K — I understand “doing justice” to a piece to mean “giving a performance worthy of presenting before the public.” (This includes the idea that the performance is worth IPO audiences’ money to hear, not just “we’ll clap because it’s local, who cares if it’s good.” This is not a community orchestra, after all.)
Lots of touring soloists give performances that are solid and enjoyable, even if only intermittently inspiring. Any performer will tell you that not every performance is one for the history books.
Thanks or explaining your personal understanding of the term which is near the reasonable middle of the spectrum. And I never implied that every performance of every soloist is always great – only that those by orchestral players are very rarely so.
^ Yes. And my point was that excellent performances by orchestral players can be just as good as ordinary performances by “real” soloists.
A slight disagreement: theoretically they “can be”, but in reality they very rarely are.
By “doing justice” I of course meant performances that are worthy of comparison with any world class artist. This is why so many orchestral principals have parallel careers as soloists and chamber music players. One has only to look at the line up in festivals such as the BBC proms to see this demonstrated!
The “line up” proves little; musical results are what matters. Perhaps “worthy of comparison”, but very rarely equal in quality.
Makes perfect sense. Why should the performing arts be reliant on the airline industry?
It would be EXCELLENT to see principals playing concerti. Erich Rohn, Hermann Krebbers and many others did so with great success.
At least Israel has a politician in post who doesn ‘t delight in rubbishing his own country!!
Apologies!! I mis-read diplomatic as “diplomat”…
Not accurate, either.
According to Ofer Sela, Director General of the orchestra (quoted in the link): “The plans for next season are ready in the drawer but we cannot publish until there is more certainty. When talking about Israeli or overseas artists, keep in mind that many of the Israeli artists live overseas so that we will in any case depend on international transport guidelines to be set between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport.”