In 2032, the Philharmonie, the home of the Berlin Philharmonic, will close for major renovations—the year of the orchestra’s 150th anniversary. The project raises thorny questions: Where will the Berlin Philharmonic play in the interim? Given broad cuts to the city’s culture budget, how much will the renovations cost? How long will they take? A […]
Author Archives: Hartmut Welscher
... earned degrees in development studies, Asian studies, and cultural anthropology from universities in Berlin, Seoul, Edinburgh, and London. He is a founder of VAN, where he serves as publisher and editor-in-chief.
Posted inInterview
Savor the Calm
We all have the pieces we listen to less than we sit through. Where we think, “Wake me up when it’s over.” Every so often, though, a performer will play those works in a way that makes us bolt upright. Few violinists do this to me as regularly as Augustin Hadelich. He lavishes such attention […]
Posted inReport
Welcome 2 Shorworld
In 2024, we reported on the meteoric rise of a composer named Alexey Shor. His music, which resembled the kind of music theory homework that gets Bs and Cs (and that multiple musicians compared to material produced by AI) was suddenly everywhere: in Valetta, Yerevan, and Dubai, but also in London, New York and Amsterdam. […]
Posted inBreaking
“All you had to do was go on Google”
Before conductor Frédéric Chaslin asked her if she would be interested in meeting Jeffrey Epstein, the former French philosophy student, who was 21 at the time, had only exchanged a handful of messages on Facebook with him. One day in 2013, Chaslin asked the student, who requested anonymity, if she would like to interpret for […]
Posted inBreaking
Emails Raise Questions About Conductor’s Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
“I found a great girl for your next stay in Paris,” the conductor Frédéric Chaslin wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in September 2013. Chaslin told the financier, who first pleaded guilty of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008, that the girl was a 21-year-old philosophy student who spoke three […]
Posted inOpinion
A Stale Start
Since last week, the conclusion has come to seem inescapable: By sticking with its new chief conductor François-Xavier Roth despite allegations of sexual harassment surfacing against him last year, the SWR Symphonieorchester—the renowned Stuttgart-based radio orchestra with a particularly strong contemporary-music reputation—has lost its way. Cancelling his contract following the allegations might well have led […]
Posted inOpinion
Selective Empathy
When it comes to the Middle East, people regress into totalitarian positions and tribal logics with sobering speed. Where do you stand? Are you “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine”? Do you say “genocide,” or don’t you? In some parts of the Free Palestine movement, activism against the Netanyahu government goes hand-in-hand with the glorification of Hamas as […]
Posted inReport
The Struggle Bus
The walls of Berlin’s Schiller Theater have seen their fair share of artistic leaders. The theater opened in 1907 and was rebuilt in 1951, after World War II, under Boleslaw Barlog. He stayed well into the 1970s, fashioning the Schiller Theater into one of West Berlin’s leading venues. In 1975, Hans Lietzau took over from […]
Posted inInterview
Breathing Room
The 24-year-old conductor Aurel Dawidiuk is Associate Conductor with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Recently, I spoke with him about the right repertoire at the right time, facing your insecurities in front of an orchestra, and why he didn’t become a soccer goalkeeper. VAN: I read that you’ve wanted to be a conductor since […]
Posted inInterview
For an Idea
The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced the music world to reckon urgently with its naïveté towards the country’s imperial ambitions. Looking back, it remains shocking just how willing the field was to ignore, for instance, Valery Gergiev’s aggressive pro-Kremlin propaganda. The violinist Lisa Batiashvili, in contrast, was prophetically clearsighted, and willing to take action, too. […]