Music from beyond the viral circle


Tomorrow the annual festival celebrating trance music and the role of women in the Sufi hadra tradition opens in Essaouira, Morocco. My recent photo essay explored how the workshops linked to this festival are banging the drum for oppressed women musicians. Much needed progress has been made towards giving women their rightful place in art music's celebrity culture. So it would be good if more attention was now paid to those women who make music in very difficult circumstances far beyond the reach of charmed viral circles.

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The practice of engaged classical music

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Those are my principles....

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Norman Lebrecht: Slipped Disc and   Lebrecht Weekly, 12/05/2023   "Why I cannot, in good conscience, review this record I cannot, in all conscience, give this recording a star rating, or even a detailed review. The soloist is Elisabeth Leonskaja, a legendary pianist whose introspections are perhaps the strongest living reminder of her late friend Sviatoslav Richter....Christian Thielemann, in the recent film ‘Music under the Swastika’, claimed that Wilhelm Furtwängler’s complicity in the Third Reich was justified by his legacy of extraordinary recordings.  Leonskaya’s presence in Putin’s Russia is not dissimilar. What are we to make of them?... The performances, per se, have nothing to do with the present situation. And yet, everything.I cannot review them". . ..and if you don't like my principles... well, I have others . Norman Lebrecht: Slipped Disc , 19/11/2025 "The Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven has cancelled a December 4 concert by the Russian-Georgian Jewish pia...
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Storm clouds gather over Aldeburgh

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A massive hope for the future

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The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

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Pushing the classical music envelope

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Music and malice in Britten's shadow

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Classical music must put its house in order

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Towards infinite potential

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Music without moderation

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