New Zealand erases its Asian musicians
NewsWe have received the folowing article from Ramesh Nair, a classical music critic in New Zealand:
Beware, overseas Asian musicians musing about an audition with the NZSO! Value your sanity and stay away, unless you are prepared to have your moral compass spun like an Olympic ice skater.
Of New Zealand’s population, 16% have some Asian ethnic heritage, and 17% have indigenous Maori. Auckland is the nation’s largest city, its economic powerhouse, and locale for the most classical music concerts. Auckland is also 28% Asian, which is greater than the city’s combined Maori and Pacific Island peoples.
Indigenous wokeism has downplayed the nation’s Asian communities, who provide nearly half of the most proficient, elite young classical instrumentalists. The uncomfortable truth about wokeism in Australia and New Zealand is that it wears a thinly-disguised anti-Asian face. In New Zealand, the blame lies primarily with party politics and woke journalism.
Hopes were high when now ex-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern originally appointed herself Minister for the Arts. It was only under the watch of NZ’s previous Labour Party woman PM, opera-loving Helen Clark, that the arts gained any respect at the highest political level. Sadly, the culturally mercenary Ardern pandered to the ethnic cleavages of general elections. Constituencies reserved for Maori, and those who are heavily Pacific Island, vote disproportionately for the NZ Labour Party. The seats where much of the ethnic Chinese and Korean voters reside, all in Auckland, heavily favour centre-right political parties.
Once in power, Jacinda Ardern sidelined Asian cultures. She turned a blind eye to what Asian communities valued, not least classical music. Even the country’s most woke newspaper could not ignore this. As a Chinese medical doctor lamented to a journalist in 2020, ” Even in Jacinda Arden’s speeches about the arts, she’ll often mention support for Maori and Pasifika, but nothing at all about Asians. We’re often still invisible.
Ardern’s Labour government turned the levers of central government into a shotgun for a forced marriage between classical music and Maori/Pacific ideologies, without any remit to further encourage classical music amongst NZ Asians. This explains the farcical situation of the NZSO’s ‘cross-cultural cooperation’ with Pacific brass bands and Pacific choir, ‘a new waiata developed with Maori’, ‘more collaboration with Maori and Pacifica composers and musicians’, ‘more Maori language appearing in concert programmes’. What Labour Party hack Te Pou writes as a ‘revitalised NZSO’ is quite the opposite. My sources about the NZSO describe its musicians as ‘demoralised’, to put it charitably. This anomie has tracked over the same period Ardern has been Prime Minister.
Every local classical music teacher has noted that the revitalisation of NZ classical music started with the 1990s upsurge of ethnic Chinese and Korean migration to New Zealand. Over the past quarter century, 80% of the top 20 finallists in NZ national piano competitions have been East Asian NZ citizens. This was also when local orchestras improved dramatically. Around half of the classical music students in the major local universities are Asian. None of this has been thanks to cultural policies of central government. Thousands of ethnic Chinese and Korean children have parents who pay for private tuition in western instruments, with minimal help from central government.
In Auckland, Asians comprise greater than their population share of new subscribers to classical concerts, yet Asian classical high achievers are often downplayed in mainstream media. This reached a farcical situation with the international success of Auckland conductor Tianyi Lu (pictured) in 2020. Lu, a protege of the Auckland Philharmonia’s Australian CEO, Barbara Glaser, won two European conducting competitions that year. No New Zealander and NZ resident before her had even won one such competition, yet the nation’s ’newspaper of record’, the NZ Herald, declined at the time to publicise her unprecedented success. TV outlets, both broadcast and online, also ignored Tianyi. Numerous locals remarked to me how the Slipped Disc website had longer, and more timely coverage of Tianyi, than national media. More than one musician remarked to me the chagrin of witnessing Maori with mediocre or nonexistent international classical success accorded fawning coverage in local media, while Asian prizewinners were neglected.
Barbara Glaser haa become the champion of NZ Asian classical talent. Glaser and the APO have extended Tianyi Lu conducting engagements. While the NZSO’s online and printed publicity materials have prominently placed Maori and Pacific faces wherever possible, wildly in excess of their actual classical aptitude, in recent years the APO’s own house magazine has pictured Asian classical musicians in keeping with their actual representation in local music-making. The APO has already featured the pipa ( in Lou Harrison’s concerto ), something the NZSO has yet to achieve, despite its desperation to programme Maori instruments with the NZSO no matter the nugatory compositional value.
The Greek tragedy of NZ classical music, is that the nation is heavily multi-ethnic, yet the perversions of woke ideology downplay its main burgeoning new source of instrumental talent. As an Asian classical devotee remarked to me, ‘living in New Zealand, I get a bit of what it must have been like to be a cultured Jew in Mahler’s time’.
The comparison to the Jewish people here is appalling. These soulless over-privileged asians need to read the room: the indigenous Moari have suffered enough indignity without this racist polemic.
Embarrassingly stupid comment. What of the Asians who are being turned away from elite US institutions in favour of affirmative action as a result of BLM?
When I get sick I want the doctor who got in on merit and not the AA variety.
I think the clue here is INDIGENOUS. If only they were not looked down on and tolerated, or not, by Asian residents and if they were given the opportunity to train and play classical music, if they wished, they may well achieve a lot. Mrs Ardern did a great job of trying to achieve equality for Maori and Pacific peoples. I agree with Mortimer re. the ignorant comparison with Jewish people.
Do you also agree that NZ Science classes should be taught that Māori “Ways of Knowing” have equal standing with “western” science?
Is this really the way to ensure that Māori children “achieve a lot” and perhaps produce another Ernest Rutherford?
Gulls are the only people who perpetrate this garbage. There seems to be no shortage of them, because ‘the science’ of Maori (cough) seems to be, er, ‘settled’. Or not!! Plus the nice little sinecures in drumming up such a curriculum.
We want rigour in our classical music, not FAVOURS.
Dear Elizabeth,
haven’t you heard of Kiri Te Kanawa? Featured at least 4 times on ‘Gramophone’ magazine’s cover. Incredible that you believe indigenous peoples haven’t been extended classical music opportunities! Most of NZ’s best young classical singers are Pacific. Asians like me don’t ‘look down upon’ any ethnicity. We look down upon individual people, of any ethnicity, who do not recognise and praise our achievements in culture to the degree that they deserve. That was the point of the article. And really, if I wrote an ‘ignorant comparison with the Jewish people’ as you so breezily assert, umm, wouldn’t the proudly Jewish publisher of this website take umbrage? By the way Elizabeth, you also agree with Mortimer about ‘soulless over-privileged asians’ [ sic, and sick] ? Hunky dory! Good to know when my poor migrant parents scrimped and saved to pay for my private music lessons as a child in NZ, where walking to music class white kids used to make ‘slit-eyed’ gestures to me, and in one case, spat in my face at close range. But then, I guess you and Mortimer know more about ‘racism’ than me.
Of course I’ve heard of Kiri te Kanawa, there you go being patronising. You seem to compare yourself to cultured Jews in Mahler’s time which is as Mortimer says unforuntate to say the least. By the way the Jewish faith is a religion not a race as David Baddiel would claim so you are comparing race to religion which is weird. Just compare the DNA of Jewish people in northern Europe to that of the Middle East and then Africa and you will see that they are not a race as are the Maori people. People making narrow eyes at you as a child was awful and I sympathise but you seem to be trying to get your own back.
By the way, Judaism in the context of Germany is an overlap of ethnicity and religion (it’s true some non-Jewish people converted to Judaism). To say that being Jewish is 100% religion is misinformation.
Depending on your point of origin onnthis planet, Jews can be a race or “only” a religion.
Your name sounds like it is from the Indian Subcontinent. The “slit-eyed” gesture makes no sense. Or perhaps you are from somewhere else and using an Indian pseudonym in which case you have other explaining to do.
I look Chinese though my dad was 100% South Indian!
Ha! I nearly shat myself laughing that at least 3 bien pensants of Slipped Disc have given me the thumbs down ( so far) for explaining my hybrid ethnicity : glorious! Having an ethnic Chinese mum and an Indian father evidently doesn’t cut the mustard. What do these nabobs of negativity want? Oh, of course, all this ‘ethnic and cultural purity’ business; ‘stay in your own lane’ and all that!
You know, naysaying buddies, the future belongs more to people like me : ethnically and culturally mixed, and in my case able to discuss with some facility the literary and other cultural masterpieces ( as well as the economic and political evolution ) of Western culture, Chinese culture, and to a lesser extent, of South Asian culture.
Wokeism eating itself. Delightful
A primary school child could have predicted that this would happen!! It’s very primary school in mindset; bullies, favourites, exclusion, cant, intolerance…
Whatever point of value may exist here, the first use of the term “woke” lost me.
Hear hear!
Good morning MacroV!
A loose usage on my part — but as you mention the concept of ‘value’, this recent article should pique your interest. https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/03/how_tertiary_funding_no_works.html
Do not adjust your eyes, it is true. The NZ government has directed NZ university grant funding to value research done by Maori at 250% more than that done by others, and value research on Maori stuff at 300% more than research done on non-Maori stuff eg, western classical music, Artificial Intelligence, cancer research, renewable energy.
What does this mean in music? It means if you are Jewish or Asian and you conduct research on, eg, White NZ composer Douglas Lilburn, Florence Price, Strads, or the pianos used by Art Tatum, you get X points for research grants. If you happen to be ‘Maori’ ( say, 1% Maori ) and do exactly the same research word-for-word, you get 2.5X points! If you are Jewish or Asian and abandon this research and propose to research anything about Maori in music ( or Maori in anything else ), you get 3X points! Better forget that cancer research in NZ, buddy…
I would LOVE to hear from anyone who has given the thumbs-down to my article to let me know, is this good or ‘racist’?
In the meantime, my White woke chums, tell your Jewish and Asian academic friends to stay away from NZ universities if they value their careers!
Bravo. Thank you for saying what has landed people in gulags over the last years!! (Of course, there’s no relationship to the woke left with authoritarian regimes!!!! Or anything.)
From my history lessons I well remember how Bolshevism started because “it was only fair”.
Mr. Nair, there’s another reason to stay away from the New Zealand (music) universities. Did you know that the University of Auckland is currently auctioning off old instruments? It got rid of several upright pianos including Yamahas, Danemanns and others last month and there is an auction on right now including a double bass (sans strings), several guitars, ukeleles, violins, violas, some old French Horns, clarinets and other instruments.The sale itself is bad enough, but the 30% commission from the broker is even worse.
Again, enough with the “woke.” Maybe it means something different Down Under, but up here, it basically makes it hard to take seriously anything worthwhile you might have to say.
And I will confess I don’t know enough of the NZ context other than a general awareness of its indigenous peoples having been treated rather poorly historically, much as in many other places. Also that many more recent arrivals may not fully appreciate the extent of that and so find efforts to remediate that historically poor treatment unfair to them.
Well, have a look at a list of academics at Auckland University with ‘Asian’ names and you’ll find plenty. Blaming Jacinda Ardern for the pandemic and the recent cyclone might be taking your personal hatred for her too far. She did reinstate Concert FM, remember? You would find that your real enemies are on the hard right rather than the hard left, and I certainly hope you didn’t vote for the notorious philistine Wayne Brown.
What the f–k, Hart. Where did I perpetrate ‘blaming Ardern for the pandemic and recent cyclone’? BTW She didn’t ‘reinstate Concert FM’ — its funding was continued because people like ME protested by writing to multiple MPs etc.
The academics at UoA, of whom I know plenty at professorial level– some have read this article and contacted me, agreeing with it. You seem to project plenty about my ‘personal hatred’ coupled with your inability to read English prose.
You remind me of my teacher when I was aged 10 in NZ. First day of the school year, she asked the class, ‘What did you do in your summer break?’ When she came round to me, I said, ‘Miss, I read Tolstoy’s War & Peace up to the end’. [ I had, Penguin translation, took several weeks.] She replied, ‘Ramesh, schoolchildren in this country shouldn’t tell fibs’.
That could’ve been your mum, Mr Hart?
I am so lost with this terminology. What do we mean by Asian? I pray you – I cannot understand this term, I am used to the word Oriental and since I was a small pup, the Orient was for me something magical. And believe me, I am not alone in thinking so … real musical authorities are caught up in the same conundrum.
Is New Zealand erasing Asians and also Orientals? But are they erasing themselves – since they look and feel quite Oriental to me, as far to the East as I can fathom.
What a sorry mess – looking for someone on SD to enlighten me :-))
Since most people cannot find New Zealand on a map or do not know of our existence, we Kiwis often consider ourselves erased for practical purposes.
The comparison to European jews in the 30s is dumb,disgusting and disgraceful.
Well, “Mahler’s time” ended in 1911, so the comparison is not to the situation in Europe of the 1930s.
I’m presuming the analogy was because of exclusion. That remains valid.
1)It’s not his own comparison.
2)Mahler died in 1911.
“More than one musician remarked to me the chagrin of witnessing Maori with mediocre or nonexistent international classical success accorded fawning coverage in local media, while Asian prizewinners were neglected.”
Are you kidding me? This, coupled with the amount of times ‘woke’ was used in this article just leave such a bad taste in my mouth. This reads as if they believe “Asians” are much culturally sophisticated than the indigenous Maori.
Of course they are.
“Indigenous wokeism has downplayed the nation’s Asian communities, who provide nearly half of the most proficient, elite young classical instrumentalists. The uncomfortable truth about wokeism in Australia and New Zealand is that it wears a thinly-disguised anti-Asian face. In New Zealand, the blame lies primarily with party politics and woke journalism.”
Absolutely bravo to this. Same thing happening in Australia; the rise of ethno-nationalism threatens not just the white races but all the immigrant groups. Better be careful what you wish for!!! Ardern is a shallow fool.
Ramesh, I’m not sure if this was your intention, but your piece comes across as mean-spirited. Admittedly I know little of NZ politics, so I’m somewhat projecting my own impressions from indigenous issues here in the USA. Part of the problem is you don’t really address the substance of the problem. Simply throwing around words like “woke” doesn’t help your case. Is it “woke” to uplift indigenous ethnic groups that have had their lands stolen and dealt with generational oppression.
I see many reasons why New Zealand classical music should strive to acknowledge and reckon with its location in the world and the culture which originates there. Surely Maori music traditions deserve to be uplifted. Ask yourself why the world needs another cookie-cutter orchestra that just plays the European canon?
Dear Eric,
if you read what I wrote, you should have understood I am protesting the downplaying of talented Asians.
What is mean-spirited is NOT my article, but the attitudes of NZ Whites Drooling Postcolonial Guilt who want to uplift Maori and PI cultures AND SIDELINE Asian cultures and people at the same time! WTF? Why not uplift Asians, and Maori, and PI? Is that so hard?
This is one link that didn’t get into my original article :
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/121343588/time-for-chinese-new-zealanders-to-be-heard
All those who gave the thumbs-down to my article, think again about what I wrote in this section : When a Chinese doctor/writer in that link above remarks, ‘In Jacinda Ardern’s speeches about the arts, she’ll often mention support for Maori and Pacific arts, but nothing at all about Asians. We’re still invisible’ — you guys agree with that attitude for a Minister for the Arts?
Can you explain how Asians in New Zealand are being “sidelined?” I’m actually trying to understand your point. But also when you write things like “Whites Drooling Postcolonial Guilt,” you come across as mean-spirited.
The claim that land was stolen anywhere by migrating people with superior technology is a point of view, an opinion, not a fact. If Maori didn’t like the English achieving dominance, they should have fought them. Which they did, in the Maori Wars, which they lost.
Indigenous music anywhere consists of little but drums. The European canon is good because skilled musicians want to learn to play it.
Wokeism is pure racism, it’s very simple to understand….it fights discriminations by all kinds of other discriminations
Dear me, Norman. This is stronger than a double-shot, vegan, organic, Fair Trade, soy latte!
Being somewhat international, may I provide a few (more) observations for your global readers? My observations are not directed to Mr. Nair (as I am sure he will confirm that each fact I state below is totally accurate as he will be aware of all of this information already):
1) I am perplexed at the whakahauhau (‘exhortation’ in English) to the NZSO and not other Kiwi orchestras in general. There are several Asians in the NZSO, most of them in the firsts and they’ve just appointed an Australian-Asian associate principal bassoonist. By my rough count, there are about ten Asian musicians in the APO across sections, only 3 in the Christchurch Symphony and none in Dunedin. Perhaps we need to shake up the South Island a bit? (bad metaphor, I suspect, given the potential for earthquakes);
2) I’m not sure there is a hononga (connection) or momotu (disconnect) between “party politics and woke journalism”: unfortunately, the journos aren’t woke, they just don’t give any regard to culture and classical music. There’s only one mainstream classical critic left, being William Dart at the Granny Herald. Aucklanders will be familiar with Dr. Dart’s reviews and no doubt also familiar with his bemoaning that the paper gives him a miniscule word limit to work with. All the rest of the critics have resorted to blogs and their own websites. As for politics, it comes down to funding and it doesn’t matter which party is in power – Aucklanders who support the arts should be more concerned about the right-leaning mayor of Auckland Mr. WKF Brown who has already threatened to pull funding for the Auckland Art Gallery and is on the record as saying “Don’t f****** come and talk to me, write a submission and make it clear that you value it,” he reportedly said — referring to funding for the arts. Mr. WKF Brown seems to be extremely woke.
3) Not that oil and water should mix on a classical music news site, it’s not correct to say that Maori and Pasifika disproportionately vote for the Labour Party. If they did, the current mayor Mr. WKF Brown would not be in office and the left-leaning candidate would have been elected by an overwhelming majority. For non- Aucklanders, Mr. WKF Brown, an engineer and property developer by training, is a right-leaning mayor who likes to play tennis, calls the media “drongos” and who had to be dragged away from a press conference by the deputy mayor lest he provide another negative soundbite for the media after massive flooding across the city. Mr. WKF Brown seems to be extremely woke.
4) I’m a simple soul without the benefit of a First in Greats and not having done the Tripos, I don’t have the epistemological knowledge balanced with cultural reflexivity or Taruskinian fortitude to opine on whether Maori culture and instruments (known as taonga puoro, I think) offers any compositional value. But I would note that the excellent New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, whose works have been performed in New Zealand (including by the NZSO and APO) and globally has written several works inspired by Maori culture and traditions including Te Tai-O-Rehua for string quartet, Nga Kete e Toru for piano trio and taonga puoro, and Harakere for taonga puoro and choir as well and the celebrated John Psathas wrote his Irirangi for flute, taonga puoro and recorded bird song. All are very interesting works.
In the same breath, can I mention the New Zealand-Asian composer (Dr.) Salina Fisher whose works have been performed to great acclaim by the NZSO and APO and you can hear those performances on YouTube including one by the APO and said Tianyi Lu. She’s brilliant!
5) The pipa is a fine instrument but I prefer the er hu, myself – might I suggest programming Qigang Chen’s “Un temps disparu” with an er hu? I think that would work well for the NZSO. The Minnesota Orchestra did that, I think.
6) I do strongly agree with one thing – the NZSO’s programme is bland and uninteresting compared to the APO. Over the last decade and a half, the APO has deliberately looked to programme works outside the warhorses and its roster of soloists has been consistently more interesting that the NZSO’s. The APO’s opera in concert this year is a bold choice – Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt. And Khatia B is coming to Auckland in November, provided that all goes well over the next few months with her little one!
7) With regard to the Mahlerian bit at the end, I must say that in my time in New Zealand, I’ve never had a conversation with an Asian Kiwi or Asian immigrant who has seen things the same way. Unlike New York, I’ve never had the chance to have a conversation with Jewish people at Chinese restaurants here and all my conversations at Chinese restaurants tend to be about the food.
Norman, could you also provide a link to Mr. Nair’s reviews please. Very keen to read them. I’ve not heard of him outside this site, to be honest.
I reviewed as ‘Ramesh’ in a defunct but still archived site, sa-cd.net — where for some reason, older unrevised versions exist of the reviews, but the ‘good copies’ did not load onto the successor site hraudio.net where I don’t review.
If you attend APO, NZSO concerts in Akd you should know who I am. I’m in stalls B15 for the APO. I’m flying to Paris for a fortnight from tonight ( classical music and dance booked there for almost every night ! ) so you can catch up with me in April.
NZ readers may be intrigued to know that multiple local classical musicians have contacted me about this article ( including at least one star whose photo appears on SD but not the lady pictured in this article.) Most aren’t Asian. They all agree with me, but don’t want to make themselves known for fear of cancellation, fear of their jobs in local universities and orchestras.
” The uncomfortable truth about wokeism in Australia and New Zealand is that it wears a thinly-disguised anti-Asian face.” This is not much different from the United States, except the target is academic achievement.
Yes and now Asian students are bringing a case against US universities for discrimination.
They ask why do African Americans or those with West Indian heritage benefit from positive discrimination, yet Asian ethnic minorities do not.
I hope these Asian students win their case.
Please provide some evidence that Ramesh Nair is an actual music critic, and not just some whack job who likes writing angry letters.
This. Searched his name and got nothing except a couple of forum posts and a few hits on SD.
sa-cd.net [ where I was one of the accredited reviewers ] is now defunct, but it should still be archived. I posted there under ‘ramesh’. It was a super audio CD site only. I don’t review on its successor site hraudio.net any longer. There was a mess-up in the migration of my old reviews ( and unrevised earlier versions at that.) to the new site, but they largely didn’t load into the new place, and what’s more.
So the evidence is: you claim it happened. Compelling.
You are a nobody s__tposting on SD to build an audience. I’m surprised NL allows it. Now, show us on the doll where the bad MSMNZ hurt you.
It isn’t just in NZ. More than one UK orchestra, regrettably, has received diversity advice that when calculating their level of inclusion for Arts Council and other grant funding purposes, “Asians* don’t really count”, because there are “so many of them”. It’s disgraceful.
(* when pressed, more specifically, “East Asians”)
“because there are “so many of them”. It’s disgraceful.”
It is disgraceful, but it’s not because there are so many of them. There was a time when there were far fewer. They’re not a favoured group because they’re perceived as white. A problem, in other words.
Oh, I know. I’m quoting the diversity advice.
The feeling is that because (East) Asians are represented in some UK orchestras to the same or greater percentage as the general population, the orchestra can’t be allowed to count that as an inclusion success – mainly because the prevailing narrative from progressive funders such as ACE is that orchestras aren’t doing a good job and must demonstrate a proactive willingness to change. If you’ve already solved one part of it based on merit alone, what real need to have extensive policies and actions to change anything? That mindset can’t be permitted!
(Mind, at least one major UK orchestra thinks its on the front foot by going on about the general M/F ratio, even though that’s been largely a non-issue for a couple of decades.)
What a barrage of largely horrid, hateful, profoundly ill-informed opinions. And presumably from so-called “cultured” people.
…and some are factually wrong as well.
Kia ora koutou (I assume there are more than three of you). There’s been a change of Prime Minister / Pirimia in New Zealand / Aotearoa, I should advise. The (Rt. Hon.) Mr. Chris Hipkins, commonly known as Chippy, has replaced the (Rt. Hon.) Ms. Ardern and consequently there is new Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage. She is the (Honourable) Carmel Sepuloni, she’s of Samoan & Tongan descent and happens to be the Deputy Prime Minister. I believe she has attended an APO concert or three in the past and she is aware of several New Zealand-born opera singers.
As for Ms. Ardern, she has resigned her seat and leaving Parliament next month. She is not joining the Richchilds, the the Soroastrians, the Zuckerbezos Group or the Brattenburgs or any other overtly partisan and aligned movement. I’m reliably informed by the curia that the hate….I’m sorry, those “disinclined” to support Ms. Ardern are having “issues” finding another suitable prominent politician with whom they may choose to….how shall I put it? “engage in discourse with, in their own special way”.
Kia pai tō koutou rā!
http://sa-cd.net/forum
Errhh…he didn’t compare himself…he cited another Asian classical devotee! Read back carefully.
Maybe it’s not that she’s “Asian”, but that she’s a woman. Unfortunately, sexism in the professional musical environment is still strong, despite many initiatives.
I know one musician in Russia, and she was refused to become a conductor of a chamber orchestra (the position is officially free) in a provincial philharmonic, where she worked as a soloist for several years. And this is despite a large list of awards (as a conductor), a successfully performed audition lasting an hour and a half, and the fact that for several years she gathered a full concert hall at her solo concerts there. It’s just that another conductor, whose wife and son live in Kiev, “stood a pose”, because the presence of such a musician as the chief conductor of the orchestra would immediately give prestige to the entire team and deprive this man of additional illegal earnings through the second orchestra.
And this girl was also accused of “receiving too many awards abroad”, although she lives and works in Russia.
Isn’t this sexism and getting rid of talented people?
Sure, the orchestra that has a woman principal conductor and is pretty much run by women hasn’t engaged Tianyi Lu because she is a woman. That’s a likely scenario.
I love the fact that one agenda-wielding nutter has managed to tarnish an entire country and its musical institutions with utterly unfounded accusations of sexism and racism.
There is unfortunately some truth in this, and I say this as someone from Auckland, but it is both the hard right and hard left who seem most intimidated by ‘Asian’ musical proficiency. It isn’t a ‘woke’ issue (whatever ‘woke’ means nowadays). The hard right NZ Heraĺd is notoriously philistine and ignorant of classical music anyway, and usually ignores all the arts. There is a divide in the country between the cultured and uncultured, and that’s certain. Much of the left and much of the right has gone mindlessly populist, and the parallel in the article with anti-Semitism is rather clueless.
Kia ora
I feel obliged to respond to this baseless attack on the integrity of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra by Ramesh Nair.
The NZSO is proud to represent as many ethnicities (New Zealand-born and otherwise) as possible, without compromising quality. This includes many players of Asian heritage.
Currently, the only continent not represented at the NZSO is Antarctica.
In 2023 alone, the NZSO will showcase three wonderful guest artists of Asian heritage.
Also, our hiring practices follow employment laws in NZ which prohibit race-based discrimination and, what’s more, to protect an applicants’ identity and ensure a focus solely on musicianship, in most cases at least two rounds of the audition process are audio-only.
When it comes to orchestras in New Zealand, Maori and Pasifika have the smallest representation of any ethnic group. Through fellowship and education programmes, together with the work of other orchestras and arts organisations, we are seeing more and more talent emerge from those groups.
As a Finnish national, Aotearoa New Zealand is my adoptive home, as it is for many fellow players. Musicians like me, whatever their ethnic origin, have always found the NZSO a welcoming place. Correcting any perception otherwise is why I felt compelled to respond to a post that deserved to be ignored.
Vesa-Matti Leppänen
NZSO Concertmaster
Dear Vesa-Matti,
I’ve talked to ex-NZSO players such as Lyndon Taylor about what I’ve raised here. It is subscribers like me who year-in, year-out, pay money to keep you employed, and yet I don’t hear ‘Namaste’ or ‘Ni Hao’ from NZSO management. You are imaging things — I never wrote that the NZSO is biassed against players. But the NZSO has never done outreach to MELAA peoples, South Asians etc. Asians are 16% of the NZ population, so why not 16% outreach to US, Vesa-Matti? My first NZSO concert was aged 11– I asked my parents for this as a birthday present, the same year a white kid spat in my face as I was walking to an after-school music lesson.
Your great Fijian NZSO ( then MSO ) predecessor C’master Wilma Smith didn’t get to where she is by these current programmes. NZ’s fine young Pacific opera singers got to where they are thanks to Akd Opera Studio, Opera Factory etc.
The main problem with NZ classical music reach is the same as elsewhere. Lack of income hampers poorer people of ALL ethnicities – White, Asian, Maori, PI, MELAA. ( But still, many poor Korean and Chinese NZ kids do classical studies thanks to parental encouragement.)
The problem nowadays is that almost all disparities for Maori, PI etc are blamed on non-specific ‘racism’ ( including the vague ‘structural racism’ ), rather than on class/socioeconomic factors. When it comes to classical, the root problem in NZ has always been the lack of classical music education in NZ schools. Vesa-M, an Akd friend of mine taught classical piano in Finnish schools for 25 years, and he laughs at the NZSO’s official notion that ‘structural racism and lack of ethnic-based outreach’ is to blame. Poor Finnish kids get far better access to music in their formative years through Finnish school music teachers, and it is not because the Helsinki Orchestra wants to do jam sessions with them once in a blue moon!
So, to the players , Board and management of the NZSO, why don’t you concentrate on ACCESS TO MUSIC TO ALL POORER COMMUNITIES regardless of ethnicity, rather than this pathetic virtue-signalling? What happened to the training orchestra of the NZSO, which would’ve been the best place to have your outreach to Pacific choirs and brass bands. And, management of the NZSO, where’s your cross-cultural NZSO song with Filipinos or the Arab communities? They are all taxpayers too.
You folk at the NZSO should be thanking me for pointing out that socioeconomic deprivation is the root cause of disparities of access to the arts, rather than to dress this up as ‘structural racism that must be addressed only by targeted reach to Maori and PI regardless of the income levels of individual Maori and PI people’.
http://sa-cd.net/forum
Dear Ramesh Nair,
Just to make it clear to you. My decision for replying to your post was based on the first paragraph of your opinion piece, which stated:
“Beware, overseas Asian musicians musing about an audition with the NZSO! Value your sanity and stay away, unless you are prepared to have your moral compass spun like an Olympic ice skater.”
And just a fact to put into the mix. As a result of a series of auditions and a search that took years, after Lyndon Johston-Taylor decided to return to LA Phil, he was replaced by our wonderful Yuka Eguchi (from Japan), who is about to feature as a director and a concertmaster in our South Island baroque tour this coming week.
Dear Vesa,
point taken. I should have been clearer that the ‘stay away’ part relates to the the examples I have given in the last response to you. And, despite the examples just given by E of the 6 East Asian young artists, yes, the APO does more for Asian musicians, such as the Pipa concert outreach I attended last year. ( But where, E, are the Indian or Pakistani young musicians, the Filipino young musicians- which are the 3rd largest ‘asian’ group in NZ – so where’s you outreach to these groups? )
You are great, and so is Yuka Eguchi.
Here’s an example unrelated to the NZSO, so maybe Elizabeth Kerr of the APO board ( if she does not feel it to be a waste of time ), or Biggsy ( who has had my email address for ages ), or the NZSO board chair may care to reply under their real name. But largely, these examples are for the international audience, of which several have messaged me over the past few days, all 100% supportive of me, or so it seems.
The nub of the question is, if poverty/ deprivation is the main driver of differential responses and inculcation of the arts , particularly ones that takes decades of training, what is the point of overtly race-based selection, rather than a generous, universal approach to poor kids in general ?
And PS Elizabeth Kerr, wouldn’t the defunct NZSO training group, whatever it was called, have served as a better outreach mechanism?
Example 1. The main hired caregiver for my mum before she died of cancer was a young Kenyan woman, with residency in NZ. I asked about her background education, which to my surprise was a MA in international relations from a Kenyan U, and some qualification in accountancy or business management , but both weren’t recognised by nz authorities. So she became a caregiver in NZ. She told me her school age kid is quite musical, but there’s no music outreach at his school for which he could apply. She told me a group of her son’s Maori and PI classmates were selected for some enrichment programmes. He wasn’t , so I gave her for her child a couple of dozen classical CDs, the Ken Burns Jazz DVD set, and an Armstrong set of the Hot 5s and 7s. They seemed appreciative.
The point which I presume any international readers will gather is that my mum’s carer’s kid is Black, and in the US or UK context this would make him ‘deprived’ or at least qualifying for certain enrichment programmes. Presumably so for Canada and France? So, race-based criteria favour Black children for diversity/equity programmes in 3 of the 5 eyes nations, possibly for Australia, and not so in NZ.
2. E’s Chinese/Korean list of NZSO young artist showcase doesn’t feature any Muslims from Middle East /South Asia /Pacific. Let’s take Fijian Indians, such as the children of one of my workplace colleagues. They didn’t get any special music outreach from the NZSO, or anyone else about anything , because though Fijians call Fiji their home [ as their cultures over 150 years have changed from India ], the NZSO government doesn’t recognise Fijian Indians as a Pacific people, god knows why not. So this selecting out from the NZ governments diversity/outreach subsidy programmes Pacific peoples from Fiji.
3. I mentioned the examples of the Philippines previously, since it lies in the Pacific Ocean, and the number of Filipinos in NZ is probably on par with Tongans. The islands were colonised by the Spanish for hundreds of years longer than Eng/France/NZ in the south Pacific, then by Americans and Japanese. So yes, NZ tax-paying Filipinos are another group which counts as ‘Pacific’ for location and colonisation, but as Filipinos are the wrong sort of ‘oppressed by structural racism in NZ’ — no point the NZSO outreaching to their brass bands or Christian Filipino church choirs.
And this, international audience, is what raced-based ‘diversity and equity’ programmes lead to : the overreach of ideology over helping the poor and deprived from a universal point of view. Auckland is 28% Asian, 2 to 3 % Middle east/Latin Am/Mesoamerican / African; which is greater than the 27% combined of Maori/PI. So the taxpayers of poor White, Asian, MELAA kids do not get the benefit of diversity/outreach cultural efforts. And I guess, many in NZ classical music are OK with this for ideological reasons, and treat appeals for a more universal approach to music education in schools to address this, blind to ethnicity, ‘best practice for NZ’.
The link! You’re killing me now. LOL. Posting your opinions to an online forum makes you a “classical music critic.” Why don’t you just be honest and just disclose what you actually do for a living.
I’m still alive, and you are no Nietzsche. Umm, if you read my profile, all is revealed. ‘Posting opinions to a forum’, um, is exactly what a music critic does! Just as reviewers of ‘Gramophone’ magazine are asked to contribute to the magazine, so was I by this owner.
http://sa-cd.net/reviews.php?user=1437
BTW, if I tell you what I do for a living, could you tell me where you get your school carpentry mode of wooden, misshapen prose style?
Here’s my point, which you seem to be intent on missing/ignoring. You may be very talented at lobbing accusations and insults, but this doesn’t make you a critic by profession, which is what Norman’s original post falsely states. I stand by my position and it should be clear to anyone following along that you have failed to establish yourself as a bona fide classical music critic.
And the lack of self-awareness of your own writing skills is less amusing than sad, quite frankly. #dunningkrugerstrikesagain
Norman, this thread has officially become a complete waste of time.
The NZSO just announced its 2023 Young Artists Showcase which will take place in 12 April. The featured artists are:
—Alex Xuyao Bai (Piano)
—Alina Chen (Flute)
—Christine Jeon (Cello)
—Louis Liu (Flute)
—Shan Liu (Piano)
—Ryan Yeh (Cello)
More info here: https://www.nzso.co.nz/the-nzso/learn-and-engage/young-artist-showcase
Congratulations to all them all.
If I’ve understood Ramesh correctly, the example cited above of young Asian artists being showcased actually supports one of his main arguments (rather than go against it): that Asians comprise a very large portion of music students, competition winners and ticket-paying concertgoers, while nothing even close to an equivalent amount (as a percentage) of funding, creative commissions or media attention goes to Asians.