Carnegie goes Latino for a season
OrchestrasClive Gillinson has just rolled out ‘Nuestros Sonidos’ (our sounds), a 24-25 season aimed at New York’s Latino and Hispanic sectors.
Gustavo Dudamel will be the poster boy, both with the LA Phil and the New York Philharmonic.
Gabriela Ortiz will be composer in residence.
Gillinsonsays: ‘A focus on the enormous impact of Latin culture in the United States is threaded throughout this season, inviting audiences to experience a range of exciting performances from classical music and new works to contemporary popular music as part of our latest Carnegie Hall festival. As we enter the new season, we also look forward to musical journeys with our five Perspectives and Debs artists who have each curated fascinating concert series for the Hall’s audiences, reflecting their musical interests and viewpoints. From the best in early music to presentations featuring the most interesting musical innovators of today, it is a season that we hope will stimulate and inspire concertgoers as they explore these programs.’
There will be visits by the Berlin and Czech philharmonics and the LSO, with Philadelphia and Cleveland, for once, taking a back seat.
I hope alondra does Danzon 2 and Tico Tico no Fuba
Where is the headline ‘Carnegie goes Weimar’, with the explanation “a season aimed at New York’s Germanic sector”?
Perhaps New Yorkers of European (other than Spanish/Portuguese ancestry) are not supposed to appreciate or enjoy the music of Latin America and the Iberian peninsula.
It’s an excellent season. Can’t wait.
I’m genuinely curious, do the metrics show that Dudamel has brought in a statistically significant increase in Latino full paying/subscribing audience (as opposed to steeply discounted or freebies to inner city elementary school students), or has it been an increase in DEI minded White people, or has there been no increase at all?
It’s much too soon to tell, since Dudamel doesn’t arrive until 25/26. I have the same question about attendance by African-Americans at all of the woke programming around the USA.
I’m not sure how you arrived at that final sentence. Berlin, Czech Phil, Royal Concertgebouw, LSO, and Cleveland, Chicago, Philly, and Boston are all there, and they are not taking a back seat when you look at the season summary. There are some disappointing things programming-wise. We have a Bruckner year, yet only two symphonies were programmed (5 Mahler symphonies are programmed). The main works from the Concertgebouw and Vienna are also pretty pedestrian: Rachmaninoff Second (and the second Concerto elsewhere with Lim and the LSO), Schubert 4 and 9 and Dvorak 9 with Muti and Vienna (didn’t he bring both of those Shuberts a couple visits ago with the VPO?), Muti/CSO Tchaik 4, etc.
I could be forgetting something, but I think it’s been a long time since he came to NYC with the VPO. I saw them together at Carengie in the late 90s (Schumann’s 2nd and Shostakovich’s 5th) and can’t recall them being here since – perhaps one time that I’m not remembering.
Muti was here in 2006 with the VPO, and he did both Schubert 4 and Schubert 9.
could that image be any more pixelated?
Good job on the picture.
I mean no disrespect to the clearly great musicians featured but come on! It’s the same same same thing -orchestras, conductors, soloists- every. single. year. This is not artistic planning. Clive is a travel agent.
What would you do differently?
Disappointed that Carnegie Hall goes D.I.E…
As a New Yorker I won’t be spending much of my hard-earned money at Carnegie Hall this season. I was so excited for their 23-24 season, but 24-25 is a total disappointment. WE DON’T NEED MORE D.I.E. IN THIS CITY. We already have to put up with YNS and Gelb (and their bad music and social agenda) at the Met Opera, and we soon have to stomach the over hyped Dude at the NYPhil (which has gone downhill in recent years, A LOT downhill, but no one called them out in the major newspapers). Why does Carnegie Hall have to join in this nonsense? And for those of you who wonder, no I am not white, male, racist, LGBTQ-hating, Trump-supporting, conspiracy-minded… you know what I mean. I just love classical music, and I want to hear good music in the city I live and call home.
Good Hispanic and Latin-American classical music exists. Perhaps you would enjoy it, if you bothered to go.
As for DEI, you should take a quick look at the population statistics for New York city.
If the NYPhil has gone downhill, isn’t Jaap van Zweden to blame? Perhaps replacing a Dutch conductor with a Venezuelan will help.
Sue, I just commented on another post but will also copy it here. Please consider:
What no one on this site seems to understand is how much programming for ANY performing arts organization in the U.S. is determined by what funders are willing to fund. Since 2020, federal, regional, state, corporate and private funders (which are all essentially how the arts even survive in this country) want to only fund programming that is new or re-invented, is accessible, corrects history, engages the underserved, etc etc etc. These are (mostly) their words, and this is also a short list.
What is an organization who wants to keep the doors open supposed to do? I could cut and paste grant requirements here that would open the gates of vitriol. But instead, you all just rip to shreds the nonprofit arts orgs themselves for THEIR “woke” programming. They are just following the rules of the system, which is apply for grants to survive because nobody here wants to pay taxes for anything, not even good schools and roads, much less the local opera company. And yes, federal/city/state $$ do come from different areas of taxation, but it is a tiny fraction of their total budgets.
One example: NYC. Here are their review criteria (what your project/program is judged by) for an Arts & Culture grant:
45% Public Service Impact (think DEIA)
40% Organization Accountability
15% Quality
No wonder the Met is a mess. Who cares about quality? If you want to get a grant in NYC, here is your 17-page list of guidelines (and my large Midwestern city isn’t much different):
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dcla/downloads/pdf/cdf_guidelines_annual.pdf
The pendulum is wildly swinging all over the place right now and hopefully it will settle back down to where your local symphony orchestra can get a grant to fund a Mozart festival without having to reinvent Mozart.
I’m not against DEIA, I’m against extremes. Some good things have come out of all this, with more engaging programming for kids and outreach efforts for people who may not have otherwise been able to attend classical music performances, and some worthy artists getting more visibility.
But there definitely needs to be a “market correction.”
I’m as anti-DEI and wokeness as anyone, but I looked at the entire schedule and it has a lot of good concerts with top orchestras, conductors and traditional repertoire.
Typical Carnegie Hall marketing. They say it’s a huge Latin season but it’s really a smattering of a few pieces here and there on orchestra/chamber concerts and some Latin jazz/singing acts. Otherwise it’s business as usual: Yannick with Philly doing Mahler, Vienna and Berlin doing Bruckner, Boston doing Shostakovich, LA Phil playing crap. Concertgebouw
with Klaus. The usual pianists playing the usual rep. The Knights playing Zankel Hall. I’m serious it’s a carbon copy of everything they’ve done for the last five years.
Also, the “Boulez celebration”?
Aimard will play a few pieces on a recital, but NOT Sonata No. 2. And the program by International Contemporary Ensemble (lamely titled “Boulez Rebooted”) contains ONE Boulez work and it’s just solo violin with electronics (Anthemes 2)! And of course something by Tyshawn Sorey. Not that ICE could pull off one of Boulez’ major works. They don’t come close to the technical skill of the fine European new music groups. So, besides the above stated pathetic selection, there are NO chamber or orchestral works of Boulez. It’s like how the NY Phil pretended to have a Ligeti festival last season with like, 3 non-major pieces, none of which were on a second half. Just so dumbed down.
These institutions operate on the assumption that their audiences are complete morons.
Great season announcement. I was most happy about Dudamel and Maria Duenas coming back
There are so many more Latin American (as a Latin American myself I refuse to use the term LatinX) more interesting than Gabriela Ortiz for this residency, especially considering the ones residing in New York already
Berlin, Vienna, Concertegbouw, LSO, Philly, Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston is a disappointing season??? Agreed, what would you do differently? Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with having a theme to a season (otherwise it could be truly argued that every year is Groundhog Day) If you don’t want to hear the worlds best orchestras then you can always go to Lincoln Center instead.
I wonder if Mr. Dudamel would have the courage to program compatriot Gabriela Montero’s award-winning polemic on Venezuela’s tragic collapse, “Ex Patria”; or her widely offered “Latin” Concerto, which searches beneath the surface seduction of rhythm and carnival to reveal darker, entrenched forces. Or is “Our Sounds” really a regurgitated, Gringo-curated narrative of perpetual fiesta south of the border? As a Latino, I can assert that Gabriela Montero’s truthful composition reflects “Our Sounds” far more faithfully than Mr. Dudamel’s brand of bells and whistles. New Yorkers, especially those hypnotized by the Castro-Cuban left, deserve a deeper dive into the continent’s myriad depths.