“During my senior year of undergrad, my voice teacher complimented me on my final Mainstage role by saying: ‘You did great! And you don’t even look African-American on stage!'”
“[The language coach] said, ‘Silly me … no ‘decent’ French ever comes from such big lips anyways … Maybe patois, but not Français.'” – WQXR (New York City)
Category: music
How Earlier Black Classical Musicians Faced (And Faced Down) American Racism
Shirley Verrett: “Maestro Stokowski called. He was embarrassed, but said that it would not be possible for me to sing with the Houston Symphony because the symphony board did not want to use a Negro singer.” (Stokie made it up to her later in Philadelphia.) And then there was the time Jessye Norman was invited to play a maid in a sitcom … – WQXR (New York City)
Classical Music’s Social Media Racism Wars
Controversies broke out on a few fronts this week. – NPR
Music Of America’s First Known Women Composers Is Headed To Disc
Their names were Sister Föben, Sister Katura, and Sister Hanna, and they were members of the Ephrata Cloister, a radical commune of Pennsylvania Dutch Evangelicals in the mid-1700s. Baritone and musicologist Chris Herbert (of New York Polyphony) has digitized and transcribed the manuscript in which these composers’ hymns (“just devotional, simple music,” he says) were found, rounded up four singers, and recorded the works in the Ephrata Cloister Meetinghouse. – NPR
Where Are The Thousands Of Musical Instruments Looted By The Nazis?
There has been a lot of research into the Nazis’ plunder of Jewish-owned artwork in Europe during World War II, though far less attention has been paid to the looting of instruments. But a number of scholars have been focused on bringing this facet of Nazi crimes to light. – NPR
How America’s First Drive-In Classical Concert Since Lockdown Turned Out
San Diego’s Mainly Mozart got together an eight-member chamber group headed by L.A. Phil concertmaster Martin Chalifour to play octets by Mozart and Mendelssohn in the parking lot of a SoCal horse-racing track. – Newsweek
The Full Berry: Mozart’s Letters
Reading Mozart’s correspondence is like being tugged by an enthusiastic, garrulous friend right into the green room of 18th-century European culture. The cast list extends from Empress Maria Theresa to the family dog Bimperl: Mozart is just as fascinated by both. One minute, he’s dressed as Harlequin and dancing all night at the 1783 Vienna carnival. Next, he’s talking shop with Dad (Leopold was a respected composer in his own right), or bitching about a mediocre singer or arrogant patron. – The Spectator
Opera Philadelphia Cancels O20 Festival, Postpones Main Season, Announces Newly Made Online Offerings
The company’s annual fall festival, much praised ever since its 2017 debut, is off this year; most plans for next season, including Jennifer Higdon’s latest opera and Sondra Radvanovsky’s role debut as Lady Macbeth, are postponed. Instead, there will be “a series of online performances — most created anew — to be shown on a new Opera Philadelphia Channel available [on several] platforms.” Highlights include Lawrence Brownlee in a staged version of Tyshawn Sorey‘s Cycles of My Being, a new version of David T. Little’s Soldier Songs, and the great Willard White in Henze’s El Cimmarón. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Learning Music Does Not Make Kids Smarter, New Study Finds
“After analysing data from 54 studies conducted on 6,984 participants between 1986 and 2019, [researchers] found music training was ineffective at enhancing cognitive or academic skills, regardless of the skill type, participants’ age and duration of music training.” What was the problem with previous research that found otherwise? Poor study design, say the authors. – The National (Abu Dhabi)
Rhiannon Giddens Named Artistic Director Of Silkroad, Yo-Yo Ma’s Cross-Cultural Project
“Silkroad has to exist outside of Yo-Yo, but Yo-Yo is an inalterable part of Silkroad,” said the singer/banjo player/fiddler/opera composer. “Both of those things have to exist at the same time, and it has to take some thought about how to do that in a way that feels good to everyone involved.” Ma, for his part, said of Giddens, “She lives Silkroad’s values.” – The New York Times