On September 11, the Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov gave an emotional speech following a concert with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London, decrying the carnage inflicted on Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli government under Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces. “I know that many of us feel […]
Tag: Music & Politics
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 inOpinion
A Covert Holiday
The recent release of political prisoners in Belarus became possible thanks to the consistent and targeted efforts of the United States. These efforts began a year ago under the Biden administration and yielded their first results in February 2025 with the release of both U.S. and Belarusian citizens. That month also marked the first time […]
Posted inInterview
One More Voice
Few prominent classical musicians—and few prominent Germans—have spoken out about Israel’s brutal war in Palestine quite as consistently, as passionately, and with as much attention to detail as the violinist (and son of Daniel) Michael Barenboim. When I met him last month in a quiet corner of a beer garden near the Barenboim-Said Akademie in […]
Posted inInterview
Inner Necessity
In March, pianist András Schiff announced that he would withdraw from all his concerts in the United States for the 2025–2026 season, citing “recent and unprecedented political changes.” He has a good eye for the danger of such developments: His native Hungary, where he hasn’t set foot for over a decade, is an oft-cited roadmap […]
Posted inReport
These Are The Top Republican Donors Also Donating To Classical Music
In May 2020, when George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, many American classical music institutions joined what appeared to be a society-wide reckoning on racism. The Minnesota Orchestra commissioned a work in Floyd’s memory, by composer Carlos Simon and librettist Marc Bamuthi, called “brea(d)th.” The Chicago Symphony Orchestra shared sobering […]
Posted inHistory
An Encounter with Distance
Pau Casals wrote letters as he played the cello: with conviction and exacting care. An epistolophile to the core, he wove a web of correspondences through what Eric Hobsbawm called the “short 20th century,” an era of war and upheaval that shattered the 19th century’s bourgeois order. His letters, exchanged with a fluid cast of […]
Posted inEssay
Between the Sky and the Earth
A house not in the sky and not on earth(Čardak ni na nebu ni na zemlji) A country not in the east and not in the west It is important when writing, they say, to state three facts at the very beginning. It establishes trust and allows connection. I will start with three lies. My […]
Posted inOpinion
Trump: The Opera
The performing arts field tends to move slowly; Donald Trump does not. Last Friday, he announced that he would be taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; by Monday, he had dismissed a number of board members and installed a new interim executive director, Richard Grenell; and on Wednesday, he […]
Posted inBreaking
A Freedom to Dream
Few classical music organizations in the United States are as vulnerable to the new “patriotic” diktats of President Donald Trump’s arts policy as White Snake Projects. Founded in 2018 by Cerise Lim Jacobs, a retired lawyer turned librettist, the Boston-based indie opera company’s mission is explicitly activist, with a longstanding emphasis on racial and cultural […]