One Sunday afternoon last month, I attended the benefit concert Make Freedom Ring at St John’s Waterloo, an Anglican church near London’s South Bank. Under a striking painting of the crucifixion—one of many intensely colored murals painted for the Church of England by Jewish refugee Hans Feibusch, who fled Germany in the 1930s—the pianist Jayson […]
Tag: Music & Politics
Posted inReport
Human Values
Like the rest of the world, the classical music community also spent most of this week reacting to the news of another Trump presidency. All this week, we’ve been fielding responses from musicians in America, asking for their immediate reaction. Here is a selection of them. Seth Parker Woods, cellist “The work truly begins now. […]
Posted inPlaylist
A U.S. Election Night Playlist
It’s that time again: When a handful of voters in a handful of counties in a handful of states in the United States decide the fate of planet Earth. The (once again) absurdly high stakes of the U.S. presidential election inspired me to make a playlist that doesn’t try to compete with substance use, CNN […]
Posted inBreaking
The UK government closes its review into Arts Council England
The fate of the Archer review into Arts Council England (ACE) has been unclear for some time. After a government review of ACE was announced in March—led by Mary Archer, a former chair of the Science Museum Group—the public review was paused before the general election in July. After an email from a Labour government […]
Posted inReport
Welcome to Shorworld
“Fortune is like a bird in a wood. If we know how to whistle to her she will come to us.” —from pianist Ashley Wass’s biography on X, unattributed I: The Amateur About two years ago, a renowned European musician received a call from his agency with an offer for an unusual gig. A Dubai […]
Posted inInterview
Waiting Outside
Nearly three years ago, Maria Kalesnikava, the Belarusian flutist, curator, politician, and icon of the resistance against the Lukaschenko regime, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for alleged “conspiracy with the intent of illegal power seizure” and “founding and leadership of an extremist organization,” in a case widely considered to be politically motivated. In […]
Posted inInterview
The Truth Was Out There
The pianist Pavel Kushnir died on July 27 at the age of 39 in a prison in Birobidzhan, Russian Federation, apparently of complications from a days-long dry hunger strike. In late May, Kushnir was arrested by FSB officers on charges of incitement to terrorism. On his YouTube channel, Kushnir, under the username Inoagent Mulder—he was […]
Posted inBreaking
Cardew and the Spycops
On July 11, a public inquiry in the UK heard that the funeral of Cornelius Cardew, and a memorial event held in his memory, were both attended by an undercover police officer deployed by a specialist police unit to infiltrate revolutionary communist groups. Though it was conveyed to him through a manager at the Special […]
Posted inOpinion
On and Off the Menu
No, I didn’t attend any of the 11 concerts—four orchestral and seven chamber music—given by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra during its residency in Shanghai at the end of June. Dubbed the orchestra’s “first residency” in China by the press and the China Shanghai International Arts Festival (CSIAF) which hosted the orchestra, around 135 musicians and […]
Posted inReport
Teodor Currentzis Gets $900 Million Concert Hall in St. Petersburg
Recently, Russian media reported on plans by the state-owned VTB Bank to build a new concert hall and performing arts complex for conductor Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna ensembles at the Novo-Admiralteysky shipyard in St. Petersburg. On June 7, VTB President and Chairman Andrey Kostin and Governor Alexander Beglov signed a statement of intent formalizing […]