As medici.tv’s Chief Content Officer I spend a lot of time thinking about classical music—and a lot of time on the internet. Here’s my selection of the top five news items you need to see this week if you want to stay in the know.
View author's page
Reading time estimated : 4 min
Why don’t musicians see rest and recovery as part of the job? (The Strad)
In the first of a two-part series, The Strad reflects on the importance of rest for musicians—and why so few of them actually do it: “Perhaps the first step towards changing the way musicians think about recovery is changing the way we think about performance itself. Before we can learn to recover well, we have to recognise that there is something worth recovering from.”
Bach, the feminist? (LinkedIn)
I enjoyed reading this short analysis of Bach’s Coffee Cantata by Professor Marth Rathey on LinkedIn. Comparing the original text for the piece provided by the librettist Picander, and Bach’s final version of the piece, which includes additional movements that upend the narrative, Rathey argues that “through subtle shifts of musical emphasis, Bach manages to tip the dramatic balance in the woman’s favor. Where Picander’s text sets up the man to win, Bach’s music quietly ensures that the woman has the last word.”
The Concertmaster who moonlights as an airline pilot (CNN)
Many in the classical music world marvel at conductor Daniel Harding’s “other job” as a commercial airline pilot but it turns out he’s not the only person working at the center of the classical music / aviation industry Venn diagram. This week CNN profiled Netanel Draiblate, concertmaster of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and pilot for United Airlines. One thing Draiblate appreciates about having two big jobs? The perspective: “You just operated a piece of machinery and took it up 30,000 feet. Things look very small down below… You can go on stage, and nothing bad is going to happen. You’ll be alive at the end of the concert. So it gives you that perspective, and it takes away a lot of the more nervous jitters that you get, so you can focus.”
Huffman at the helm in Aix (NYT)
Last summer, Ted Huffman was at the Aix-en Provence Festival as stage director of an innovative reimagining of Britten’s Billy Budd. This summer, he’s back as the big boss—Huffman took over as general director of the prestigious opera festival after the death of Pierre Audi last year—and the NYT came along for the ride.
Get a sense of Huffman’s artistic capabilities in this 2023 production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea
The American philosopher who thinks opera is the answer (The Telegraph)
American philosopher Martha Nussbaum spoke The Telegraph this week about her new book The Republic of Love, which positions opera as the answer to the decline of many Western societies: “Opera, in her mind, is not just expensive entertainment for ageing elites; it’s a revolutionary liberation from the boring norms of society.” Nussbaum argues for making opera tickets affordable, leaning in to private funding models (rather than letting the state have it’s say), and that Cherubino is the antithesis of Donald Trump.
