Yannick cries out: 30 were shot in Philadelphia this week – why?
NewsThe Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin prefaced his performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony with a lecture to the audience about violence in the city.
‘Just since we’ve been playing this fabulous set of concerts to end the season with you all, just this week, just in our city, 30 people have been shot by gun violence, five people have been killed by guns just in our city. We’re way past the time for thoughts, prayers, and all of that,’ he said.
‘We are one society and we need to take care of that society. We need collectively to do so…
‘As musicians, what we can do which is the most powerful is to be messengers — messengers of the great geniuses of the past and the present who are showing us the way, to aspire to peace. Let this performance we are about to give you as a farewell to our 2021-22 season be true words of reminders of what we all aspire to — joy, peace, harmony between everyone, every living organism on this earth….’
Read on here.
Because it’s America.
America. Guns before everything. Only wasting his time.
Because people do evil things… Next question.
I agree. It’s time for action. San Francisco just got rid of its Soros DA. Philly should too.
The fact that Philly handily re-elected their radical Soros-funded D.A. not that long ago in spite of record murder and car-jacking rates during his tenure says something about how far out into left field Philly has drifted. Even San Francisco is starting to see the light. Not Philly.
As someone who voted in that election, and not for Krasner, I’d say that the problem isn’t how far left the city has drifted, but how much apathy there is among the voters, who also returned, without any opposition, a mayor who did nothing in his first term and has spent most of the pandemic hiding. If the Republican Party had a pulse here, it might win some local elections.
I wish I could agree with you. But I would argue Philly is further left at this point than Kruschev-era Leningrad. The unwoke aren’t welcome.
Don’t be surprised if you wind up with Helen Gym as your next mayor. I moved to the suburbs about a decade ago and haven’t looked back.
America does clearly have a gun problem. But attempting to tie a musical program to a political goal is disappointing. Isn’t music supposed to unite, helping us enjoy meaning and beauty and briefly forget about the chaos we reenter once we step outside the concert hall? God forbid we start choosing which Beethoven concert to attend based on the politics of the performer.
“Hmm, shall I attend the concert to end gun violence or the one ‘for the lives of the unborn’ at the other end of town?”
Spare us, please!
Why?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/04/upshot/mass-shooting-gun-laws.html?name=styln-gun-control®ion=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&variant=show&is_new=false
Two different issues.
First one, the surge in crime in major cities due to progressive mayors and district attorneys. Philadelphia is a prime example.
Second one is the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo, the last one in a state with stricter gun control laws than most of the rest of the US. The solution for this is not gun confiscation / prohibition or a variant thereof like the left wants, nor to arm the teachers and transform schools in Fort Knox like the right wants.
Rather, have a rigurous process of verifycation for anyone who wants to purchase guns under the age of 25, with obvious exceptions for military and law enforcement. Have them go through a thorough psychological evaluation. Check their social media, the school and work records. Have two adults over the age of 40 testify that the individual is ready to carry guns and is responsible. This way you will keep schools open, and safe and law abiding citizens will keep their guns. But politicians will not do this, because being a big mouth, and perhaps doing “something” brings in more dividends.
Like probably all people from countries with virtual bans on people acquiring, let alone using, armaments, i.e. the world apart from the USA – yes we exist!, I can’t begin to comprehend why the USA claims gun ownership is a fundamental right! Yes, like murdering people as a ‘justified’ penalty is … The USA is the embodiment of everything most civilised people – certainly in most of Europe – find barbaric and utterly abhorrent. YN-S is understandably appalled how this barbarism is simply accepted and even if his attempt to address it lacked finesse, it was worth saying. Perhaps one day the USA will move out of the dark ages and enjoy some of the benefits now taken for granted in Europe, like heavily subsidised and supported classical arts, free and universal day care, decent maternal and parental leave … the list is endless.
The City of Brotherly Love. Such a beautiful place with so much to offer and so much history. How did it fall so badly? It’s tragic.
The irony is that t is exactly the same policies that he is supporting that led to this surge in violence.
If this were a place for political debates, I’d ask you to back up your rhetorical statement with ‘what policies?’ and ‘how so?’. But let’s not go there. Let it suffice that such violence is a bad thing, regardless of what policies might have led to it (very difficult to prove, I think).
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: 10 modest steps to cut gun violence
https://www.wral.com/10-modest-steps-to-cut-gun-violence/17576114/
The Beethoven was prefaced by a new work by Gabriela Lena Frank, “Pachamama Meets an Ode”, which imagines a meeting between Beethoven and an artist of the Cusco school of painting in Peru of that time, successors to a subjugated people now feeling the full effect of climate change. A colorful work, though not particularly memorable in my opinion.
But it was followed by the Beethoven symphony without intermission, which brought back a memory from the 1960’s. In a Boston Symphony concert that was broadcast on public television, Erich Leinsdorf began with Schoenberg’s “A Survivor From Warsaw”, which concludes with a male chorus proclaiming the Kaddish, and then led directly into the Beethoven 9th.
YNS’ words before the Beethoven were in no way “a lecture”. They were thoughtful, measured, and appropriate — given there was a mass shooting just down the street from the hall just a few hours after the previous night’s performance.
“Five people have been killed by guns.” Were these disembodied guns? Or were they attached to someone’s hand? People like YNS only want to deal with half the problem. Most urban gun violence in America is gang-related. Try dealing with that issue.
And most of the guns in gang-related violence are illegally acquired.
We may be one society, but within this society there are seriously divergent views and values. Just today a would-be assassin flew from California to Maryland with the intent to kill a Supreme Court justice. Yes, we have a gun problem, but we also have a spiritual/morality problem that politics cannot address in an efficacious fashion.
Can the arts be a mode of “aesthetic education?” (Schiller’s term). Perhaps, but even the arts have limitations with regard to changing attitudes and preventing inhumane behavior.
Good for Yannick. He’s correct.
I never watch the news without wondering “what does the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra think about this?”
This kind of announcement is very gratifying for who pronounces it but will change absolutely nothing. What did all these ” artistes engagés” speeches change about Ukraine war. What is concrete in all this?
So, what was the enlightened orator saying? The artist has a policy?
Let me guess a liberal brainstorm:
-Defund the police
-Collect guns from all citizens, just leave them to the insane making open threats on social media, and, of course, criminals
-assume mass-murders do not take place in the musical capitals of Europe – like Berlin, Paris…
“I support the current thing!”
They were shot because Republicans LOVE people to be shot!
These low life criminals shooting their guns do not care at all about orchestras, classical music, or anything any conductor is saying.