Barbara Hannigan is hit by musicians’ strike
Orchestras
norman lebrecht
April 09, 2023
The conductor reports from Paris:
‘After an intense and magical week of rehearsals, and after this morning’s dress rehearsal with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Chœur de Radio France, a very small number of integral musicians from the orchestra announced their intention to strike this evening, leaving us without the possibility to replace them or to give our concert.
‘All the music was very very precious to me, but most important was the opportunity to give the world premiere of Golfam Khayam’s beautiful new work: “Je ne suis pas une fable a conter”, for soprano and orchestra, a piece which carries its own message. While we have no chance to deliver this music tonight, the opportunity to meet and work with Golfam Khayam is a great gift, and I look forward so much to giving the piece its world premiere with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, in June. It is absolutely heartbreaking for me, and I know, for so many of my colleagues, that we suddenly cannot perform tonight.’
photo: Christophe Abramowitz
UPDATE: Barbara Hannigan tells Slippedisc.com:
As you can imagine, it was heartbreaking, and a shock to most of the musicians (other than the small few who decided to strike because of the ongoing pension reforms in France) to find that our concert would have to be cancelled, and to realize that these few musicians probably knew from the beginning of our rehearsals that week, with more than 150 singers and instrumentalists, that they would cause the cancellation of the concert after the dress rehearsal.
The composer I mentioned in my post, is the female Iranian composer Golfam Khayam, who Radio France and I had co-commissioned for the piece, and Ms Khayam had travelled from Tehran to be with us for the rehearsals (and premiere of her new work).
At a time like this, I can only reflect on how important it is to consider our use of what power we have, collectively and individually, what messages we want (and choose) to send.
Golfam Khayam posted this on my FB public page today:
I really wished the very few striking musicians would have understood the urgency of this very event, which was ALL ABOUT social injustice… Therefore in fact it was a platform that could have been amplifying their voices in such an effective way. This was a brutal act of very very few people against their own community which stabbed their own colleagues from behind rather than bringing any other message: Doing all the rehearsals and the general rehearsal and then Strike just 2 hours before a concert, it is nothing but mocking their own family community without any moral support for their own orchestra. Indeed it is a shame that a concert with such a symbolic program that each piece rarely is being performed, with intense magical and powerful presence of Barbara Hannigan, also a guest composer coming all the way from Iran ( I had to travel with a 3 months old baby) , specially in this chapter of our history is unfortunately not understandable and finally a disrespect to their own community and humanity. This event was not an entertainment , it was a concert for lost human souls, and finally it was indeed to amplify silent human voices who seek “social justice” in the darkest times.
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