A violist stages Palestine protest in Mendelssohn’s Elijah
OrchestrasFrom an article by Emily O’Sullivan in The Left Berlin journal:
I was hired some months ago by the Münchener Bach Orchester to lead the viola section during a performance of Mendelssohn’s monumental Elias. … The only thing I could do at this point was to reattach my Socialist Worker’s Party “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” button to my handbag.
The location for the rehearsals could not have been more surreal. The gaping, humid mouth of the cathedral that we rehearsed in, the painfully Catholic St. Jakob am Anger, is located in the vicinity of both the Jewish Museum and the Ohel Jakob Synagogue, the latter donned with two proud and imposing Israeli flags on either side of the entrance. I innocently sat next to the Sinai-Ganztagiges-Grundschule playground during a break to escape the pelting rays of the sun and set my keffiyeh on the back of a bench, only taking in the full breadth of the vicinity after I spotted Restaurant Einstein a few feet away. My resolve to wear my keffiyeh to the workplace in the name of “never again for anyone” had never felt more urgent, particularly during one of the most brutal and indescribably dehumanizing weeks for Palestinians. …
As Mendelssohn’s Biblical references to Israel carried on during our rehearsals, the physical weight of the viola hung heavily on my arm. My decision to wrap my keffiyeh around my neck during the dress rehearsal felt like a massive mistake as buckets of sweat poured onto my instrument inside of the steamy cathedral, but its resistance offered me strength…
Our buses for the concert in Ottobeuren left aptly from HMTM München (pictured), Hitler’s old headquarters that have been converted into the central building of the Munich Music Conservatory. It’s the building from which I received a master’s degree in historical performance practice as well as a sponsor of the Münchener Bach Orchester.
Read on here.
So ‘never again for anyone’, but “From the river to the sea” means the destruction of Israel – something that the literally-genocidal Gazan government of Hamas tried to effect, along with their Iran-directed partners in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, on and after their monstrous slaughter, mass rapes, mutilations and kidnappings of Jews (and others) of October 7th…. I don’t think she quite gets it (is the charitable view).
It is a very long post ( not necessarily a positive thing if you want readers to read till the end and ‘ stay with you ‘ throughout) with a lot of other things in it apart from the Elijah concert. Perhaps it was cathartic for this musician to put it in writing . It reads to me as a kind of justification for leaving the professional music world, as if a public justification was needed for a personal decision . No – one has to be a professional performing musician after all . Music opens other avenues in life.
Some people are born idiots, some achieve idiocy and some have idiocy thrust upon them (willingly). Where do these posturing, left wing idiots come from and dont you just love the “The only thing I could do at this point was to reattach my Socialist Worker’s Party “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” button to my handbag”. Never once did she contemplate the bilge she is spouting is advocating the genocide of all the Jews in Israel. But hey, give her a break, she is a classical musician who we all know generally know “sweet FA” about what is really going on in the world.
Musician? A brainwashed viola player
Ms. O’Sullivan, who apparently supports a terrorist organization not through knowledge, but via propaganda. It is important for every nation to require high school and university level students to take a national history course of their nation and a world history course with an unbiased Middle East component which discusses the history and politics of the region from ancient times to the present. Sad to see this another unforced error in musician judgement when they involve themselves in politics. If she had such an issue performing Mendelssohn’s glorious work, she should have sat out.
This woman is demented with a very twisted mind. Showing solidarity with the genocidal Hamas in the vicinity of a synagogue whose congregants were gassed 80 years ago is disgusting. Maybe she should take her baton to Kabul and play for the Taliban. Better yet go live in N Korea.
A stone cold genuine Jew hating terrorist loving misguided propaganda loving dolt. Unfortunately she isnt the only one. What a dope.
Hyphens are to writing what rests are to music.
Politics aside, what a self-obsessed and pathetic piece of writing this is!
Her ego exploded somewhere along the way.
And Palestinian protestors turned up at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre before a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, which is set in Imperial Russia before the State of Israel was established.
I understand that the performance was not affected.
I don’t think the profession is going to miss another viola player. Do what makes you happy, but please don’t try to blame the Arab/ Jewish conflict on your personal decesion.
I really hope her cat finds a good home!
The overriding sentiment in this screed is the author’s seemingly having been “coerced” into activities and scenarios where Ms. O’Sullivan (who used to be addressed by a different name) does not realize she has a choice not to participate. So many things in the world aligned against her: Mendelssohn wrote a wrong piece 200 years ago, she was forced to go to such and such schools, the weather is too hot, there are too many Jewish establishments in the neighborhood she presumably traveled to voluntarily, on and on. It is my sincere hope that in therapy, Emily might introspect just how much agency she has in this world where she currently feels imposed upon and helpless. She needs to learn to recognize that she has choices where they are possible (not playing the gig, not wearing a keffiyeh in a stuffy cathedral), and to resiliently accept things she can’t affect (weather, her parents’ past choices, her ill classmates’ tragic deaths, Mendelssohn’s composition, etc.). It is unfortunately very clear in this letter that she is in great need of psychological help. In a virtuoso act of projection, she seems to expect the world to pay her “reparations” and to avail her of attention by changing FOR her, when the things she is missing are internal and pre-date the problems she describes.
I think it is unwise for us to engage in a polemic about the morality of the Gaza war with Ms. O’Sullivan, this is a deeper internal issue for her, and I hope that her loved ones are taking care to notice.
I would like to think that every major symphony would make some sort compassionate plea, regardless of direction..
I am not pro Palestine
I am not pro Israel
I am pro truth and Israel is committing genocide…
Hamas caused this entire mess. Their indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians in a surprise attack along with the kidnapping of hundreds of people led to a strong response by Israel. An inevitable response that any sane person would know would happen. Imagine if Taiwan mounted a mass attack on China. What do you think would happen next?
And Hamas continue to hold hostages even though they must know that releasing them would undoubtedly place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
This war is not genocidal. They are at war for a reason and there wouldn’t be a war but for the Palestinians total refusal to accept reality and compromise for peace.
How many ways can one say “Ugh!”?
An ego and self-preoccupation that slaps you in the face every other sentence and manifestly precludes any sensible world view.
Nice speech, but besides the kvetching, did she accept her renumeration after the concert?
There would have been some closure to her concert experience had she donated the sum to help the cause that she talks about.
This is a very sad article written by a person with multiple deep-seated problems (“I am suffering from dysthymia these days …” … “lifelong misdiagnosed ADHD” … “childhood trauma” … “hyperacusis and permanent over-sensitivity to sound” … a suicidal mother and “fundamentalist Christian homeschooling”). It is rather cruel to drag her into the SD spotlight.
But how could she possibly have been ignorant of the nature of Mendelssohn’s Elijah until “I started preparing this juicy work the night before the first rehearsal … It turns out I had been hired to play a seemingly endless and majestic ode to Israel, one which the German government surely funded and paid for” ?
Can’t say this enough times: ladies and gentlemen, do NOT engage with Emily on account of the “revolutionary protest” aspect of this article, regardless of your political position. This is a mental health issue, not a political issue. If you feel provoked, hold it in; engaging with her on this level is not helpful to her.
I agree. This is the ramblings of a truly disturbed person. More to be pitied than despised, and in urgent need of professional help.
A mentally disturbed leftist. What else is new?
The amount of ignorance (historical, social and musical) displayed in this article is appalling, not to mention the total lack of taste in how certain themes are presented…
What is more sad is that many seem unable to realize that they would never be able to express themsrlves so freely in the society they seem to be longing for…
My heart goes for Emily tormented youth in abusive music school environment. I hope she’ll find peace in her mind. Look like very few read her confession article but most didn’t and condemn her.
Revolting, stomach-churning garbage; there are many other words to describe the writings of Emily O’Sullivan but I decline to use them.
The Musikhochschule (the state music conservatory) in Munich is housed in what was constructed and used as Hitler’s personnel office building, hence its name, Der Führerbau (The Führer’s Building.) The author says that performances of Wagner are banned there. I had never heard this before. Is it true?
“the painfully Catholic St. Jakob am Anger” … geez, she sounds like a lovely, inclusive person.
This is what having to read that clef does to people.
I can’t believe that I wasted precious minutes of my life reading this misguided individual’s rant. She just doesn’t get it.
I have no choice but to throw FRTS buttons into the rubbish bin. She has no choice but to wear them.
This reads as parody, except that the original is far too long to be funny. She’d clearly be happier playing in a band that accompanies belly dancing at a restaurant, except that they don’t really have violas in those.
Nobody has pointed out or wanted to figure out that she is part of the Socialist Worker’s Party. The Nazi party was the National Socialist German Worker’s Party.
And we’re surprised by her antisemitism.
Another course of action might have been to turn down the gig. But where would the delicious outrage be found in that?