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.
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Reviving the oldest American oboe manufacturer (NYT)
I imagine most classical music fans spend little time thinking about instruments as physical objects, and even less about the challenges of making them—but the process is as fascinating as it is complex. The New York Times profiled Jim Phelan, who purchased Laubin, a heritage oboe brand teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and his attempt to revive the “gem of American manufacturing” traces the evolution of both classical music and American craftsmanship in recent decades.
Yo-Yo Ma plays for the whales (The Late Show)
“National treasure” Yo-Yo Ma stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week to promote his new podcast, Our Common Nature (launched just last fall), in which he brings music outside to reconnect with the great outdoors. In particular, he talks about playing a carbon-fiber cello on a boat in Hawaii, as his sound was broadcast through the waves in an attempt to reach whales, and gives a demonstration of his best attempt to speak their musical language.
Ma has long been interested in the link between music and nature—a connection often highlighted in the repertoire he performs with his Silkroad Ensemble.
Riccardo Muti plays in prison (The Violin Channel)
This week, conductor Riccardo Muti led a performance that was remarkable not only for its unusual setting, in the Opera prison outside of Milan, but also for its instruments: the members of the Cherubini Youth Orchestra played on instruments crafted by inmates out of salvaged wood from shipwrecked boats that brought migrants to Italian shores. “Hearing these people, who are here serving their sentences, but who seem so serene and so clearly and openly eager to find a sense of harmony in their lives through music … has been an enrichment of my experience as a musician and as a man.”
Zubin Mehta boycotts all projects in Israel (The Canary)
Conductor Zubin Mehta (who is being feted by many ensembles this season as he sets to turn 90) announced this week that he is canceling all artistic commitments in Israel, in an explicit protest against Israel’s “oppressive and violent” treatment of Palestinians. The decision is particularly notable as Mehta was Music Director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for over four decades.
Should we be making stage plays about repugnant composers? (The Guardian)
As a new production about the dramatic life of Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo hits London stages this month, its creator and director wonders, “Is it appropriate to half-valorise a murderer whose music and stature would be obliterated online today?” For Bill Barclay, the answer is a controversial yes, because “the art is almost always separate from the artist, odious or not.” Gesualdo is not only famous for his stunning madrigals, whose chromaticism foreshadowed elements of the Romantic composition several centuries ahead of time, but also for violently murdering his wife, amongst other grisly acts. Barclay’s op-ed in The Guardian is worth a read, whether you agree with him or not.
