Sacked string quartet is rehired, board members sacked
NewsRemember the DaPonte string quartet of Portland, Maine, dismissed last month by its board of Friends for being too old, white, whatever?
Well, they’ve just been re-engaged and the board has been cleared out.
Allan Kozinn reports: Two lawyers, Eva Frank and Claire Robinson, read about the unsavory behavior of the board — which was formed to support the quartet, but ultimately tried to jettison it, — and represented the musicians pro bono. Congrats to the Da Ponte SQ.
This is indeed great news!
However noone out in the big world will pay to get the news from the Portland Press Herald.
So, Norman, you could have told us a bit more, for ex: did the ‘Bounce’ the aggressive and offensive Erica Ball?
she stepped down from the board.
I am not able to read the article but if the musicians will be (re)employed and able to perform music of all composers – including Schubert and Beethoven! – for audiences, then that is indeed a wonderful outcome, heralding that perhaps sanity will ultimately prevail in our field. A man can dream….
This is great news! So weird that a group named their friends would treat them this way. If they are passionate about new music and composers from different backgrounds then the board members could have resigned and joined an organization that focuses on that. It was cruel to throw these people out on the street!
Excellent news. Common sense breaks out in the USA, of all places. May this be the thin end of the wedge.
It’s time to put this divisive, anti-intellectual neo “woke racism” in its place. Stand up people, as they did.
Right on. The boards of too many arts organisations contain the worst sort of meddling, arrogant people, many of whom are quite clueless about the art in question.
That’s correct – – If you make unwise choices about who is on your committee, then before you know it, the tail will be wagging the dog!
The story can be read on yahoo news
Erica Ball has resigned
Welcome news. This was, and remains, one of the stranger tales of our mixed-up modern era. A board formed to sustain and further a string quartet determines, in its collective wisdom, that the problem with a string quartet is that there are four people in it and all they do is sit there playing string quartet music.
So white makes right triumphs again? How depressing.
What? No. Sanity triumphs over madness. How inspiring.
They got their positions back because they are white, and therefore no minorities have these jobs.
That says it all. Surely Trump is smiling.
The only person who is smiling is every reader who comes across your thunderously fatuous comment.
Troll of the Year.
Surely Trump knows nothing of it. Only music lovers are smiling.
They “got their positions” because they are good and because their fans choose to donate money to support them. In case you missed it, they created this organization themselves. Does the name “friends of … ” mean anything to you? It is not “friends of all musicians”, it is friends if this specific quartet. The money that pays not just their but also the board’s salaries come from both the tickets to their concerts and people who donated to support them.
Now, if you really want to support minority musicians, you can put your money and talent where your mouth is and create a similar group. The board could do the same. Otherwise, you and thus board are just thieves stealing money donated to others.
No need to post more than once my friend. We got your point.
Woke raises its ugly head once more…..
oh, poor you. they kept their jobs because they’ve been playing together for 40 years. There are better targets for systemic racism than classical music organizations, like addressing the poor and destitute. Spare me your upper-class self-righteousness.
As with all correctly run ensembles and orchestra placements, the most important part thing is suitability for the post (irregardless of age or colour) and where needed, a proven track record of hard work, talent and the ability to fulfil the demands of the job. This is a rule we can all be grateful for at times(if we live long enough!)
So the same privileged people playing the same elitist music is a way forward for our troubled world? Hardly.
oh my , how idiotic. Has it ever occurred to you that people can love classical music and hail from a lower-class background? Some of us find classical music more uplifting and inspiring than Drake. And that doesn’t mean we dislike Drake—it means that Drake’s very fine music aims for entertainment. I don’t simply want to be entertained, and I don’t need to virtue-signal by reducing classical music to a totalizing caricature of wealth and privilege. What’s more, classical music recordings and concerts sell far less than Drake’s recordings and concerts. If you think that Drake has less privilege than most white classical musicians, you’re hopelessly naïve. By the way, the quartet members make $40K annually, probably before taxes. And yet they are the elites?
So what we need is a quartet of self-identifying black dwarves, right?
Those responsible for the quartet’s being sacked, have themselves been sacked.
Common sense prevails!
Happy ending, and an inspiration to those of us who’ve also been maltreated by boards and/or administrations in the arts.
BRAVO MYLES! Some Good News!
I’m old enough to wonder why such abhorrent practice can still go on. If the board thought that the existing quartet were bad musicians…. okay! Get rid of them! But to can them because of a lack of diversity? That stinks. What will happen when a quartet of all Black, or all-young musicians, is formed, will the diversity question be raised? Will old white musicians be forced on the quartet because a board (“friends of”) chooses diversity over musicianship? It’s been a hard enough slog for Black musicians to move into the classical world, without this sort of thing going on to muddy the waters. Interestingly enough, two of the finest musicians of the late 20th century were Nina Simone and Charles Mingus. Simone was trained as a classical pianist, but the climate of the times precluded her from the career she had trained for. So, she created her own path. Mingus trained as a cellist, became
a budding virtuoso until his teachers (one white, one Black) told him that the doors were closed to him because of his color. So, he went on to become the greatest jazz bassist, a great composer, and one of the seminal figures in what was dubbed “third stream music” (an early fusion of classical and jazz forms). Talent will out in the end. But may we be spared the interference of those who are not themselves artists.
“…but may we be spared the interference of those who are not themselves artists.”
Exactly!
Er, blacks entering classical music has never been a problem this side of the Atlantic. Stop trying to export your problems. Nina Simone went to France, where she, like Josephine Baker, had a superb career. The latter has just been admitted to the Panthéon.